David Murphy

Walking back to college from dinner I came across this exhibition at the Prism gallery. I had food so I only stayed in long enough to take a couple of photographs of the alluring installations that were displayed in the centre of the room.

I was un-aware of what these sculpture pieces were but I took an interest into them straight away. I was captivated by their curves and their free flowing appearance from far away and up close so my curiosity grew. Getting home and doing my research through the Prism Instagram page I discovered that this was a project for the festival of making that occurred in blackburn the previous weekend.

 

I identified that the artists responsible for this project is called David Murphy. I found the website for the festival of making which provided information on his project.

With the Sub title, “Seven sculptures made in a collaboration with the next generation of welder-engineers, David Murphy’s work captures the essence of apprenticeship.”

“In an exploratory collaboration with artist David Murphy, seven sapling-like steel sculptures have been flame-cut, drilled, folded and welded into existence, reflecting the journey of seven apprentices at the engineering firm WEC.”

“The artist worked in the purpose-built training school environment to explore the discipline, repetition, potential and aspiration for mastery that has always been at the heart of apprenticeship. Using factory processes taught at the academy, sculptures were created with a determined emphasis on the use of manual processes, creating a series of sculptures evocative of the apprentices’ fledgling careers in the world of manufacturing.”

I enjoy how this is a collaboration with apprentices who are art based and I think it is a clever way of bringing the community together with art and the photographs that we have been provided with to show this communication are very impressive and eye catching.

After being awakened by this work from Murphy I decided to search for his other artistic creations which is how I found Davids website which provides photographs of his previous work.

I am insanely captivated by his sculptural work and have saved the pieces that I connected with the most for their own individual sculptural reasons which I think can relate to me and my project, with the relevance of looking at structure, form, curve and shadow. I even paid great interest towards his sketches and drawings because to me they co ordinate with his practical work.

Oslo, Norway

18-20th May

My next trip away was Oslo for the weekend I would like to incorporate this in my blog as I have the other trips to shop what has been inspirational to me in the different cities. Oslo’s City was actually very small and walkable, there seemed to be a high maintenance for shopping and the majority of the buildings I saw we’re very old including the castle, statues galleries. one of the buildings that I did enjoy that happened to be modern was the opera and ballet theatre, a beautifully designed building on the water front, designed to walk to the top and capture the views I thought It was a stunning sight looking at and looking from.

When at the top of the building the details are tremendous, the wall that you can barely see in the photo above has detail almost like brail which looked stunning up close.

Then capturing the beauty of the floor, which was my favourite part, the off-centred abstract floor took my interest and loves the layers of the un even flooring of the whole building.

The view from the top of the roof took me to spotting this odd installation in the middle of the water which looked to have been made of glass. This was very enjoyable to see in a city that doesn’t seem to have modernised.

This is the view from our apartment window which seems to capture the historical and modernised building together. from the carved out mermaid to the geometric lines of the roof.

‘Art as a Necessity’

I captured this in a modern art gallery for the relevance of the Japanese symbols.

In a stationary store in the centre that we spotted I came across this cool minimalistic display of old fashioned games like the ones I have been looking at which seem to have been modernised so I feel like there is a trend coming about for these games. I found it very interesting that I have never seen different sized playing cards in real life before this project but in this shop they sold A4, A5 and even cards smaller that the original packet which I would have bought but I was on a very tight budget and they were extremely over priced!

 

A3 & A4 Cards (Spraying)

After using all of my A4 playing cards previously from experimentation and wasting many of them from sticking them together I have decided to order another pack from amazon but this time I also looked for some even larger ones. Here Is the confirmation for the A4 pack and the A3 pack I bought on Amazon.

Now that I have received these cards my next step is to spray them white, I have decided that instead of backing them I am just going to spray the side that I don’t want to see, this is an easier way of going about only being able to see the patterned side without wasting the cards. Also, it is easier to spray the playing card side because they are mostly white to begin with, using the initiative of spraying the cards with the least numbers on like Ace, 2, 3, 4 and 5 makes it even more simple to spray because you aren’t having to cover a lot compared to the king, queen, 10 etc.

The sprays I bought were all (apart from one) bought from John Potter Motor Spares £4 each and I bought one from a pound shop to see if the quality proved in the price. (it did, the pound one needed multiple layers). In total, I bought 11 white car sprays. I decided to buy these car sprays because on their glossy and flexible finish.

Double acrylic- 4

Mercedes- 2

Fiat-2

volkswagen- 1

vauxhall-1

pound shop car spray- 1

 

I am quite annoyed about how much money I wasted on buying sprays but unless I bought all the different types I wouldn’t have found out which ones worked the best. At first, I was only buying the double acrylic this spray worked well but took two coats to cover the cards which I thought was understandable considering the colour n them was quite vibrant. I knew I had to go back to buy more spray and when I did they had ran out of the double acrylic spray, this cause me to buy other types of spray which is how I found out after buying three different type of white car sprays that the Mercedes spray (that I only bought one of) was perfect, it covered the cards on one coat and was a perfect white, unfortunately the other two sprays were both an off white/ grey compared to the Mercedes spray as you can see in the photograph where I sprayed over the grey one with the Mercedes spray with a sad face.

I found it quite difficult moving forward from the spray stage of this project because of how many times I had to go back to the spray shop. After finding out that the Mercedes car spray was perfect I went back to get more but when I did they only had the one left so all together I could only get two Mercedes sprays and that wasn’t enough to cover the number of cards I needed to continue this project, in the moment I picked up a different white one and that was the fiat that I hadn’t tried. Getting back to class and into the spraying room I discovered that the fiat spray was almost as good as the Mercedes but not 100% but at this point I had to put up with that. with this spray, I managed to paint the amount that I needed to continue with producing my final outcome with a couple extra in case I messed up.

The spray was extremely glossy and full coverage on the majority of the cards but if you closely look at some of them there’s a sandpaper type finish, this is because when using the last of the spray and the gas is running out the can begins spraying a different textured paint out which becomes slightly clumpy but this is barely noticeable.

 

If I had more time I would buy more cards and find just the Mercedes spray to have perfectly finished white glossy cards but I am still happy I finally have some cards to begin working with and am content with the progression it took to get to this stage.

Next, I need to begin the technique of card bending making sure it doesn’t affect the spray on the card and decide my next steps into producing my final outcome.

Design Sheet Research

I know that, for my exhibition I want to add design sheets to what-ever my final exhibition is going to look like. I want to do this as an artistic explanation for my final pieces of work. In this I want to provide-

• artist research
• primary sources
• 2D drawings
• 3D elements

In reality, I wish to have two design sheets.

Design sheet 1 will explain my final outcome and the process it took to get there, which includes-

• my Japanese research (primary/secondary building)
• small card models
• sketches from the cards
• the building which developed into the wire pieces

Design sheet 2 will include the other vintage games that I have used or wanted to use during this project to show that my initial idea was vintage games. I want this to include-

• Battleships
• Dominos
• Cats’ cradle
• Cards

I don’t want my design sheets to look boring so I intend to add aspects of colour and influences from the artist that I was looking at previously.

A4 paper practice

After recapping my pitch, I realised I had been given the idea to use large playing cards, I have already been given the task of upscaling my work so I looked into purchasing larger playing cards, I automatically went to amazon and bought these A4 playing cards for £7 which I thought was quite a good price also having a prime account I am assured that the order will arrive the day after.

 

After telling my tutor about my purchase of the larger cards and waiting for them to arrive I was suggester to get some A4 paper and begin experimenting with the size to prepare myself for the actual cards. I used the cartilage paper from my sketch book because I thought normal paper wouldn’t be efficient enough and this paper can hold some forms of structure. I used the same technique that I have been using with the original cards and building up the strategy of slotting the pieces together and bending in certain ways. I have used several techniques on the small card but using this bigger material I have found that it looks more collected and put together when I used the one technique of folding one side of the paper to achieve this slope and I think It looks incredibly effective to repeat this.

I do actually agree with the feedback I received from the class during my group critique about how effective the patterns look, from looking at this plain white outcome I believe it is quite boring and maybe I should think about using the pattern, maybe I could partly white the card and have certain parts where the pattern is showing, this is a concept that I will definitely be looking into.

The last photograph provides a scale explanation of how much larger the cards will be in comparison to the original. My next step is to go home to the delivery of cards to then begin experimentation tomorrow.

Pagoda (Research and Experimentation)

From my recent interest in researching Japanese style roofs I came to finding the design of pagodas which I briefly researched and found some interesting information about. Firstly searching for a description for a brief idea of what they are on google which is attached below.

I enjoy how these Pagodas look, with the curvature and layering of the individual roofs I think the design is aesthetically pleasing and admirable. I have enjoyed researching traditional Japanese architecture like the Pagodas, especially looking at the strong cultural differences when comparing it any kind of Europe architecture I have seen over the years.

The next thing I found was a diagram of a pagoda and explanations of the design. What I found the most interesting was the concept that the five layers of the pagoda represents the five elements of the universe which are known to be the sky, wind, fire, water and earth. I find this truly amazing because it is something I never would have guessed or even thought about because I didn’t think there was a reason behind the number of layers.

Fortunately, I know a girl who was on the same foundation course as me two years ago who is now studying In Japan. I kindly asked if she had taken any photographs of Pagoda’s or curved roofs and she was helpful enough to go out and take some for me because this is the closest thing I could get for ‘primary’ research right now without going to Japan myself. Although I won’t be using these photographs to produce any work I found it to be a good aspect of my project because I got to see second had photos that were taken just for me but also, she gave me details about where the photos were taken and we had a good conversation about her studying in Japan because my University course includes a year in China which I am extremely eager about. Here are the photographs she sent to me and some of the messages.

 

 

 

From the general information and research, I gathered from Pagodas I began to interpret the buildings in my own style, which would fit in with my project by selectively choosing my playing cards to use as material because what I have recently been producing with the cards have been curves and this adds on to the research I gathered from first using the plying cards and the inspiration I received from the Tokyo Olympic building. To do this I used the same techniques of cutting the cards, slotting them together and slightly bending them into place with a glue gun to create a simple and minimal curve instead of the expressive curves I have been producing. This is how I saw the traditional architectural roofs in Japan to be. I created a handful of these samples then after a small amount of thought I decided to put them together, layering them like you see on Pagodas, I didn’t want to copy how the Pagoda was formed but using the concepts influenced me to create a layered structure that turned into a pagoda inspired form. Choosing the wire to bring them together was because I needed a straight and trusting material to keep them together. I didn’t have a set-in stone plan for this, I wanted to experiment with putting the different shapes together and doing that in different creative ways, changing where the wire went through the card, changing the way that the cards are positioned together for example like in the photos, landscape against portrait, landscape against landscape etc and also rotating where the cards land on the wire and how many are placed on one layer. There were many ways of experimenting with this technique and I think I gathered enough experimental practice to forward my ideas. What I enjoy about these miniature models is how delicate they look but also the design is very stable and secured with glue, I also enjoy the pattern on the cards which was noticed by many people during my critique and I am beginning to agree with my peers which is why I double backed the cards to ensure that at any angle of looking at these you can see that pattern and not the playing side of the cards. Something I need to work on is how I am backing the cards because looking at them from certain angles you can see the cards parting and I don’t think this looks good.

My next idea, now having the larger A4 playing cards I purchased on Amazon is to upscale. I will use what has worked and hasn’t worked to my advantage to now expand and upscale this idea to move forward into a possible final outcome product.

 

 

Brussels & Antwerp, Belgium

Here are some primary photographs capturing a very interesting weekend in Brussels which ended up including a day trip to Antwerp. The only reason for the trip to Antwerp was for a party we had been invited to but ended up being an important day for me and the progression of my project. On the train from Brussels to Antwerp we talked to a man who introduced up to the best places to go whilst in the city, he showed us two buildings that were close together and a must see, one happened to be a ‘Port House’ building designed by the amazing architect Zaha Hadid (the first photograph) who I have recently become very interested in so finding out she has a building in Antwerp where we were heading to was incredible. The other building was the MAS museum ( the fourth photo), this building was said to have a roof top with an amazing view and with our luck with the weather it really was special, unfortunately when we got to the museum it was shut so we couldn’t look around the building but it was open access to the roof top, I have included some other photos of the design of the building which I think is spectacular, from a distance and especially up close, looking at the curvature of the class it looks like a recycled kind of plastic bottle effect, I was very impressed by this. I have also included some other photographs that have caught my attention during this trip, e.g.

• an old-fashioned game store (photo 10)
• fabric that seems to purpose shading (photo 9)
• Hung coloured chairs (photo 3)
• An interesting designed bridge (photos 5 & 6)
• construction blocks interpreting jenga (photo 8)
• the Atominum (photo’s 13, 14 & 15)

Frank Gehry

When quickly searching influences for the ‘Cats Cradle’ on Pinterest I came across the Architect Frank Gehry. Here is a link to the page I found.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/oct/21/frank-gehry-fondation-louis-vuitton-shows-he-doesnt-know-when-to-stop

When visiting this site, I was quickly attracted to this work because it is a Louis Vuitton Building and I am a fan of fashion. I then looked through and read the well descripted page and what grabbed my attention was the paragraph,

“It’s for artists to play with,” says Gehry. “Daniel Burenwants to paint stripes all over the sails, and I’m hoping children will do drawings that we can enlarge and hang in the space between the sails and the building. It doesn’t look finished, purposefully, to encourage people to interact with it over time.”

I personally didn’t see how Gehry’s design looked much like a Cats Cradle other than the beams crossing each other on the inside of the building. I do think the building is very interesting so I will visit some of his other work online.

Here are two Youtube videos I found of Frank Gehry on Youtube. The first one is a short clip, but this clip influenced me to watch more because of what Gehry said in the first 30 seconds of the clip.

e.g.- “If you know what you’re going to do in advance, you won’t do it.”

“Your creativity starts with whether you’re curious or not.”

“Rules are there to be broken.”

I can 100% relate to these quotes because now, I don’t like to plan a finished piece, I love to be curious about outcomes and let projects take me in their own direction because I think the outcome is much more exciting and effective.

The second video I found was a full documentary that I watched. Usually watching videos longer than 1hour I get bored but this is a video that I watched all the way through and wanted more. There were many points in this video where felt truly inspired by Gehry’s work as an artist and Architect for example, the explanation of his home and its design, also learning about his love for fish because of how they are free flowing and beautiful to him and how he has taken that inspiration to create sculptural things like lamps, chairs etc.

I have paused the video on a few occasions to capture things that interested me. Coincidently the film captured a sculpture piece of his where he has used the jigsaw to build up a design and I think that it looks incredible and relatable to my project, also sketching windows onto the pieces really adds to the aesthetic of the sample becoming a real building. I think all of the miniature models that he has created and shown are fantastic and shows how looking at things from different angles gives you a different interpretation of the building, as he provided in the clip looking from a lower angle really lets you see what a person stood beside the building and looking up would see.

I admire that throughout the programme it shows clips of the making of his first building in Australia and the struggles that are faced for the architects and builders. At the end of the video something that really stood to to me was the reveal of the building which was described as a ‘Strip tease” because it can take up to three weeks to take the scaffolding down, I screenshot the phrase, “the beauty or ugliness will be revealed.” because you really don’t know what the finished thing will look like.

Here are some notes I took whilst watching this programme.

Something I want to take from watching this (other than an inspirational architect) is the artist that Gehry introduced, Robert Rauschenberg. I looked at his work straight away from the clip and became indulged in his use of collage and sculpture. I mostly enjoy his way of work.

 

 

Cats’ Cradle

After listening to my pitch and hearing the comments about cats’ cradle I thought It was a really cool idea that I forgot about which interested me into playing around with the game as I haven’t done so in years. I found a roll of elastic and tied it together to begin the game, playing with India and taking turns so that when I had the design in my hand she took photos and when she had it I took photos, the patters this game makes with the cross overs is so simple and effective and such an active mind game, which makes it so interesting compared to games in this day and age, this is cost free and you can go on forever trying to work out how to carry on the puzzle.

here are some of the photographs we took whilst playing this game.

I want to find some kind of artist/ sculptor/ Architect who I can associate with this before I move on, I may or may not use this concept to progress my work but I think it is a very interesting idea that I can keep in mind for future reference.

Berlin, Germany

During a small trip to Berlin during the Easter holiday I gave myself the target to find at least 5 buildings that I could entwine into my project and influence me in more of an architectural way as I was told during my university interview in Huddersfield that my photographed work was very good but I should try to bring more architectural influences into it to prepare me for university, this was very good advice for me because I am extremely into experimenting sculpturally and do not usually receive my influences by looking at buildings, I also need to practice my sketching and different types of drawing.

What I found whilst in Berlin is the frame design, as seen in the first photographs and the building with the frame wrapped around the building almost like a kind of prison for the building. I enjoy the idea of using wire to create this effect in my own personal way. I also included a building which seemed to be a hotel which to me looking from the perspective of games influenced me in a way that I thought it looked like a big board game with the Columns, numbers and the sign hotel looks like it was taken from a scrabble board which I found extremely interesting and relatable to my project.

Recapping looking at this building I was influenced to do some of my own interpretation sketching but I thought that the building was far too large to carry out a quick sketch, this caused me to take a closer look to a smaller section of the building, of which I chose the top left corner.