After what seems an age my Masters in fine Art (part time) has begun. It is strange to start all over even with some familiar faces, it does mean a certain resetting of the creative brain and thinking about what I really want to do for the next two years. The first thing we were tasked to do was to create our own manifesto. For this I had to do a certain amount of research and soul searching, take stock of where I am and how I want to approach my MA. The first thing I decided to do was create a small digital mind map as this allowed me to see where I was in my creative journey, look at other creative manifestos, including the DADA Manifesto, written and delivered by Hugo Ball in 1916. (https://trinitynews.ie/2014/03/the-lost-art-of-the-manifesto/). I also looked Grayson Perry's 'Red Alan's Manifesto', written almost a hundred years after the DADA one. (https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/red-alans-manifesto). I felt this was also something of a promise, written with a certain amount of tongue in cheek but also using a certain amount of his razor sharp wit. It was good to see the variety of creative manifestos there have been in the past and the Royal Academy published an article in 2014 ' 10 game-changing art manifestos' by Harriet Barker. It shows examples from Joshua Reynolds to The Guerilla Girls. Fascinating.
It feels different for this stage, I feel this one is really for me, I need to take control and do the things I want to do. I decided to write up a ten point manifesto that covered the areas I felt I personally wanted to address.
The dictionary definition of a manifesto is:
Manifesto
_noun_
1. a public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.
Clearly I was looking to create an art manifesto but the above definition gave me focus and from this I put mine together. It is also a promise to one's self and something to come back to when you feel you are drifting or losing focus.
1. Continue exploring methods of communication, in particular non-verbal communication, including some of the following methods; semaphore, sign language, smoke signals, Morse Code and Braille.
2. To not know what I am going to do.
3. To have fun in creating. Bring some 2Faulty to my MA.
4. To try and learn/research through making. Not spend too much time in front of a screen.
5. To explore areas of creativity I have shunned through my BA. In particular Print, whether it be screen, intaglio, etching, woodcut, drypoint, etc.
6. To paint more. Look at previous workshops - Projection and painting/overlaying images - Painting a detail of a larger painting - Accidental photographs - Landscapes - The body - Ageing/beauty/vanity.
7. To find out what I want to say and how much I want to reveal.
8. Explore further ways of how I can use sound in my art, either to compliment pieces or in isolation.
9. To push myself.
10. To be braver, to question, to be exposed.
Some of the points are areas I have been either avoiding or not engaging in. Some relate back to my time in Year 0, which I believe was a fundamental point in my uni journey as it not only jump-started my way to think but also set in stone a lot of the way I have approached my work over the last four years. It has also become a bit of a mantra as I speak to prospective students at careers events and also current students who perhaps have needed a gentle nudge along the way.
I decided to distill these down into much more punchier points, using my advertising background to make them into short poster statements, then I wondered how they might look on T-Shirts. I had thought about buying a pack of white T-Shirt and either printing or writing on them with fabric pen. Maybe I will at some point if I still feel these are my reference points. But for now, I decided to knock up a set of visualised versions.
Obviously I had styled these on the iconic CHOOSE LIFE T-Shirts of the 80's, I wanted to keep the messages short, succinct and to the point. By using this method it really was a note to self to observe these ten points as I progress. Especially the HAVE FUN one. This needs to be worn every day!
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