OK, so I've been in a little bit of a quandary recently, not entirely sure what to do. When you get given a deadline date, you suddenly think you have no work. Anyway, I have been developing the ideas further. Using other artists as references I began to make some work based around their work for example, Andy Warhols' famous screen prints of soup cans, Peter Davies 'Fun 100' and Jenny Holzers 'messages in the city sky'. These 3 little experiments have helped me to open some new avenues regarding my work. For example, I developed my own 'Even Funner Top 13' in which I placed in no particular order 13 of childrens favourite toys, these ranged from Lego, Hamabeads, to A cardboard box.
Now the cardboard box has a specific interest to me. As children, we love the magical and imaginative, we seem to make up our own fun - something generations of today don't seem to have the patience for. As a concept the box can be mentally whatever you want it to be, it is your childhood captured in a piece of cardboard. But as my work is primarily self analytical it came as a shock that this appeared to be the first truly universal, complete accessible piece I had ever created or thought up. However I was very uneasy with just how conceptual it was as an idea - not that I dislike conceptual, but it was something very new to be. However, I've not dropped the idea, as I believe it is strong one, I am just getting used to it.
I have also been using childrens building blocks, in a way to show that the portrait doesn't need to be a physically portrait, but a word - a piece of text, or sentence. A phrase that someone might often use to describe something that has in itself become a recognisable thing. For example, I have recently hamabeaded my Gran's dog 'Beau', now the name may mean beautiful, but he is a flat nosed Boston Terrier. As part of the piece I tried out this idea of text with the image. A phrase my Gran always says about Beau is 'He's so ugly he's beautiful', and that has always stuck in my mind. If I was to hear anybody else say that in the street with or without the dog, I would imagine it being for him.
The interactive pieces are also taking off quite well with the introduction of two new characters and one waiting to join the family of mayhem. I have developed story boards and moved them from just facebook to hotmail and other various websites. These characters all have their own email addresses and get junk mail, just like you or I. I have specifically chosen their junk mail to reflect on their type of character. As I have already mentioned, Gertrude is a cheating ratbag, Cecil is soft and lonely, and Sandy-Sue is in debt for being a shopaholic. All of these characters have individually designed junk mail to suit their needs and personalities. As another point of interest I am currently developing the characters themselves in a number of ways, badges, playdoh hairstyles to change their looks and creating them out of sweets and other constructing materials rather than just hamabeads.
I am still experimenting and will update soon.
