I had never originally intended to create drawings from the collated loops, it was always going to be a sculptural thing. However, I wanted to see what it would look like if I just simply drew them with a black fine-liner on white paper and as the amount of lines grew, so did the composition. I could see something in the collection of lines, a collection of my digital footprint for a month, my presence in the landscape and how often certain routes were taken depending on my routine. I decided to do a second, third and fourth month to see how different they would look, this meant listing all the walks for those months and putting them in order and then making sure I had the loop as reference at the correct size for each walk.
I started to see them as a ‘thing’ but unsure as to what sort of thing. Were they drawings, sketches, maps or traces? On discussion with my Tutor and peers I received a lot of positive feedback and the discussion developed regarding taking these on further. At this point I still couldn’t see how I could potentially elevate them beyond recordings of the loops. I wasn’t sure of the why and because?
When I had a set of four images I started to see how they were a pictorial record of my loops and how they fitted alongside the sculpture, reflecting the view of the loops when you look into the sculpture. Certain walks became more prominent, in November and February ‘Goose’ was clearly walked often becoming quite dominant. They were still just pen on paper and although to me they resembled routes and paths I wasn’t sure of the medium. I started to discuss the idea of maps and how maps were created, often with deliberate flaws or made up places, either as a whim of the cartographer/explorer or to impress their employers, superiors or rulers.
One of the contextualisation conversations about the drawn loops discussed Giacometti’s sketches and drawings and how they used multiple lines to define a body or head. In an interview with Carlton Lake in 1965 the auther commented ‘I had the feeling he was trying to imagine what my head looked like under the skin, visualizing a portrait and at the same time probing behind the eyes, into the sockets, for the cranial and maxillary structures, as he seems to have done in some of the portraits of his wife, Annette, his brother Diego, and other favorite models.’
Although my work was clearly not figurative I could see the comparison and perhaps had I overlaid more and more of my loops, rather than restricting it to just per month would a figure have started to appear or other objects for instance. When we look an abstract drawing or object we, as humans, try to find something familiar in it, our brains want to rationalise, define and compartmentalise everything. The reader will always add to the work with their interpretation, as stated by Marcel Duchamp when he said ‘A work of Art is completed by the Viewer’. The artist may have considered their work finished but it is far from complete.
Reconnecting with my Mother
Before I was born my Mother (born in 1942) used to work in a Draughtsman’s office, where she was employed as a ‘Tracer’. My father was an Engineer. I have had my Mother’s pens and equipment since her death 11 years ago, so unfortunately can’t talk to her about them and exactly what she did. I just know from memory that she would trace plans, maps and diagrams. Being left handed a lot of the tools I have never been able to use, as they are worn down the wrong way for me. When I was trying to rationalise the drawings and what they were, how I should replicate them and why I felt the need to rediscover her drawing implements and see if they would work. There are many kept in lovely wooden box and a tobacco tin. Probably unused for fifty years or more. Beautiful brass pointers, compasses, dividers and ruling pens. Wooden set squares and bone rulers with impossibly small details on.
I needed to try and see if I could use any of these in the creation of my Thinking Loops, as drawings. I found some ink and started to see if I could use any of them. After trying with the ruling pens, that were making too thick a mark I found a dip pen, that could hold an extraordinary amount of ink and create a really fine line. So I started to play. This method not only gave me a reason to create the drawings but also a method and medium. I had considered maps and vellum paper but these tools needed drafting material, so I sourced some and did a few tests.
Below is a full test piece with my Mother’s dip pen but just on thin tracing paper. I am intending to create x4 or x6 A3 sets of Thinking Loops on A2 translucent paper, depending on what space there is to show the work at GradFest.
I intend to display them by simply using screws into the wall with magnets holding the paper in place.
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