[LAUIL603] Post Directory

Studio Brief 1 - Electives

• Electives 1: Heritage Stamps - with Notes and Reflection

• Electives 2: Heritage Space - with Notes and Reflection

• Electives 3: GIF for DJ - with Notes and Reflection

• Final Reflective Report

Studio Brief 2 - Final Major Project

• FMP Project Proposal

• Project Proposal Slides for Tutorial

• Tutorial with Patrick and Reflection

• First Canvas Paintings and Reflection

• Timeline of Events

• Letters in Braille Monoprint Series and Reflection

• Monoprints and Reflection

• Artist Research

• Blind Artists

• Zine Research and Considerations

• Collecting and Documenting Retinal Detachment

• Interim Project Submission and Reflective Report

• Pre-Easter Reflective Report

• Tutorial with Matt and Reflection

• Canvas Paintings and Reflection

• Collating Feedback from Instagram

• Tutorial with Ben and Reflection

• Final Publication

• Final Reflective Report

[LAUIL603] Studio Brief 2: Final Reflective Report

I am incredibly satisfied with the final content of my digital publication and how I have married together analog abstract expressionist paintings with poetry and personal photographs from an incredibly difficult time period in my life to reframe and educate. I have given consideration to the pacing of the publication and the content through the page spreads so that each turn of the page has a variation in information and content, with single and double page spreads of photos, paintings, and text. This shows regard for visual interest and for engaging with the audience.

This project has allowed me to reflect more deeply on a highly traumatic and isolating experience, of four major surgeries, to acknowledge what happened rather than ignoring it, and to find the courage to unpick a deeper meaning in it in order to educate others about what it means to be blind and experience the world through a blind lens. What did I go through in my blindness journey? What can I see? What am I still capable of? The documentation process, through a personal lens of poetry and a social media lens of selfies and statuses, provides further personal significance.

The digital publication and website were carefully selected to ensure both were the right format and platform to showcase my work. The aspect of a trigger warning, at the forefront of the publication, was of great importance due to the nature of the content and my ethos as a professional artist. While my work is extremely vulnerable and honest, and there is great significant value and therefor authenticity in what I create, I want to ensure the audience is comfortable with that and has consented past a threshold in order to view my recovery images.

I researched into wider disabled artists, and scoped into blind artists, but found there is a lack of representation as there is in wider society. Contemporary abstract expressionism informed my project by analysing the canvas paintings of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning - and specifically choosing to observe the work of female painters who are largely ignored in the art world - such as Joan Mitchell, Perle Fine, and Judith Goodwin. Looking at what other women have done before with their canvases, who have higher levels of vision, inspired me to think beyond this and consider what I can do with my level of vision. How can I paint and convey blindness through texture and three dimensional mark-making?

Project management has helped to realise my targets by creating daily to-do lists and a weekly goal of creating at least 2 canvas paintings. This has helped me to stay on track, mental health and personal circumstances permitting, and produce a steady flow of compositions to choose from for the publication.

I would perhaps add more of the social media angle if I were to do the project again as I lived through my recovery on Instagram. I was very alone and isolated in Leeds, so shared everything with an online community of friends and documented my journey. I screen-shotted the Instagram page but does this add an element of inconsistency within the booklet? I also had personal updates in Instagram captions which could perhaps been implemented as their own pages in the publication. I would also have liked to consider a more multimedia approach with video and audio combined. Recorded audio poetry and thoughts would work well to amplify the personal angle and these features are available on platforms such as Joomag.

Exploring creative concerns and problem solving in a professional way, with the trigger warning for example, have improved my skills during this project. Identifying a digital publication as the most appropriate response to my canvas paintings and selecting the most suitable site also improved me skills, as well as giving consideration for spreads and content for a publication.

I faced personal problems during this module with my Guide Dog being absent while she recovered from surgery. My mental health suffered as a result and I was only interesting in creating the paintings for a long time to help employ an 'art as therapy' approach to healing myself. Once my Guide Dog returned, I and was able to make a start on the publication, the creative concerns, the reflective process, and my other modules on the course. 

 Issuu no longer being an option threw a spanner in the works but I discovered Joomag after some research. Adobe Acrobat had a tendency to slightly rotate some of my images when I created a PDF to then upload online. It was frustrating to have to go back through some of the pages and 'place' the image on top to fix it. Technology can be a wonderful thing but also creates its own issues for no particular reason that need fixing which greatly wastes time.

[Here is an example. Adobe Acrobat automatically "enhanced" and formatted  each page as I scrolled through each one to double check they were in order - which would sometimes rotate an image or painting for some reason. I would try to rotate it back but it was a confusing process which would sometimes stretch the original proportions. It creates a small gap/white border where it moved from the page and looks unprofessional. The example here is very minor. The paintings that were rotated 20° or so, I had to replace.]

My way of creating content - combining poetry and abstract canvas paintings, with self publishing online in an immediate and accessible way - greatly excites me and I'd like to explore this more after graduation. There is a lack of blind artists creating valuable and compelling work and this is a gap that I am eager to explore. I have identified in my Professional Practice module that Id like to undertake an MA in Fine Art. I would like to explore further the aspects of painting as a blind artist and how that informs my mark-making and textural responses to surface quality and tactility.

[LAUIL603] Studio Brief 2: Tutorial with Ben and Reflection

Questions to Ben I prepped before our meeting:

• Should I put any trigger warnings anywhere on the inside of the publication or on my blog posts about the nature of the content? Sensitive medical imagery of red, swollen eyes that some people may find uncomfortable to look at.

• Does the booklet need to be submitted separately in the submission process or is being situated on the blog fine? It will probably be too big for submitting separately as I found with my dissertation PDF (imagery and audio made it impossible to upload separately but was fine to submit on the blog PDF).

• I have a few other things I’ve painted and collected that I haven't included in my publication for size and time reasons - for example, a circular canvas painting that is orange and textural to represent the back of the eye / a retina - should I expand a bit more perhaps on the retina and include that painting? I have some Instagram status updates from the time of recovery that could go into the booklet? More poetry? IS the current content fine? Am I overworking so close to submission? All feedback welcome.

• Joomag is only free for a certain amount of time. Should I screenshot the current publication page by page and pop it into a Google Slides presentation incase it goes offline during the marking process?

Notes from Tutorial with Ben:

• In response to trigger warning, do place it somewhere on the publication as it is an outward facing thing. Also mention the TW in the reflection. If I were to be sending this out, I would want to ensure people were aware of the content. Also demonstrates professionalism. 

• In terms of the content, the booklet is done now. The content is there and nothing needs adding.

Take the time to do the reflections and the writing reflecting on the direction the work is going in. Ensure to document that conversation with Matt, any roughs. Don't make roughs? Talk about that in reflection. Not many experiment or make roughs in Level 6, nor does ben. You know your way of working now.  

• Artist research. Valuable looking at deconstructing and processes. Something that relates to project, relevance. Recommended artist to look at - Robert Motherwell. Work has relevance with mine. There isn't really a minimum or maximum number of artists to look at.

• Prep work - gathering my photographs from the time and going through my Instagram. What’s next? Screenshot my instagram as that was part of my process and is relevant. Link it too somewhere.

• It's excellent to have been uploading paintings to Instagram along the way as it shows that I am engaging with the real world and the "live" and now. Document that. Show that I have documented all of my sight loss journey through photos on Instagram (link it) and my Google drive photo album (perhaps make public and link it?) Don't need to upload PDF separately if it's on blog.

• It's good to have consideration for dimensions, page count, DPI, and these sort of creative concerns. Document this. Publications go up in 4 for print though that doesn't matter so much with digital. 

• I asked about the Masters Loan and whether you have to pay off your Bachelors first in order to obtain a Masters Loan. In my PP module (which is now submitted so I cannot make a not of this over there) I identified wanting to undertake a Masters to continue my studies and the place I've found myself at with painting. there's still a lot to learn and uncover as I've found myself at a different place than when I began the degree. There are facilities I'd like to use and much more I'd like to learn about and from myself as an artist. There was some terminology that was unclear and made it sound that the BA loan needed paying first on the gov.uk website, though it is impossible for many to pay their Bachelors off straight away. Ben agreed and said he has friends who have done a Masters who haven't paid theirs. Masters allow for better footing and access to managerial and higher-end jobs.

• Ben is available for the rest of the day and on Monday morning should I have any more questions or any problems arise with submission. Available after submission as well as Amy, if I require any assistance and information on the marking process. 

• It’s important to have a break and have a reflect on everything after working constantly for 5 months.

Reflection and Next Steps:

Catching up with Ben was very valuable and to have clarification on my questions that rose as I was working on my publication for submission. I was happy to have a suggestion of another artist's work to look at and reflect on and to talk about my Masters as the loan had troubled me for a few weeks and I didn't know who to ask about it. I am keen to continue my studies and to continue the exploration of my practice as a disabled and blind painter, I think there is a lot of value in the work I'm producing and the story that I have to tell, more stories and experiences yet to be told, but I won't be able to do that without a loan and some financial help coming from a working class background in Salford (covered in my electives briefs).

It's reassuring to know that my publication work is done and that any hangups about content can go in my final reflection. I suppose as artists and illustrators we often think there is more to be added and to be done but there is the issue of something being overworked and there being too much content that hasn't been curated / everything just being thrown in because it's available and to hand.

My next steps are to complete my final reflective report and to ensure I've reflected on as many points in the project as possible. This weekend I will be ensuring I've covered everything in my directory and that all of the links are working upon submission.

[LAUIL603] Studio Brief 2: Detachment - A Story of Blindness Final Publication

Publication on Joomag:

Publication Link on Joomag: https://joom.ag/2USI

I gave great consideration to the website I wanted to host my publication on. Issuu was a very useful publication website in my first year of university (academic year 16/17) but eventually became something that had to be paid for to access premium features - including having to pay to embed HTML code into a blog!

I found Joomag through Google which is accessible, easy to use and has a beautiful and professional interface. There is the ability to publish live and have your publication go onto the digital newsstand. Joomag allows for up to 3 publications to be uploaded for free and then you need a premium plan to upload more. I'm currently on a free trail. If this trial ends upon assessment, here is the publication housed into Google Slides.

Publication on Google Slides: