an update of sorts...

You may or may not have noticed that I have not posted for a while... this is because I have been writing weekly for my new blog, documenting the progress of my MA studies, alongside, studying my MA, doing a full time lecturing job, Facebook page, etc. etc. so I think I can forgive myself. but just to keep this one going I am duplicating the post I wrote yesterday on my other blog as that one is private. 

However, if you are studying an MA yourself and wish to follow it please message me (claire@claireabaker.co.uk) your e-mail address and a link to your own MA blog if you have one, we could exchange ideas, information etc?

So this is a recent episode from my MA blog...

But first a note: We were asked today if we thought the imminent lecture would be relevant to our own work. It was 'Memory and the Visual in Post Conflict Northern Ireland', I have to say that I have taken something valuable from every single session or lecture, whether or not I deemed it to be it relevant to me, even if it was just a list of possible words I may use in my written stuff.

And here's such a list:

• transformative reconfiguration
• valueist
• tangibility
• psycho memory
• skeuomorph
• baudelarairian 
• trans - temporal 
• indexical
• As a little task for myself I might try and insert all the above into my next presentation to my students :-)

Anyway, here's today...

       

State of Flux

I have started a new blog to document my MA journey… how long that will be is anyone’s guess… but it’s a tool for myself - my future evaluations of the experience, the units of study and hopefully some progress. Maybe I’ll be a new person when (if) I finish it!

Anyway, if you have a reason for interest I’ll need to add you to the ‘approved’ list so send me an email and let me know… if not don’t worry – it’s not that interesting! and I DO still intend to continue this one...so here's some new Urbex pics...

Mars? The Moon? 15 minutes drive from my house?

So most of yesterday was spent taking photographs; it was other-worldly and amazing... like standing on another planet... (and sinking into another planet)

no colour editing done at all

No apologies for the late post (again); all summer I have been working, decorating (not MY house), cleaning, buying more stuff, playing (a little), all ready for the onslaught of going back to my 'proper' job next week, starting my MA next month and looking forward to a holiday next year.

I don't paint so good....

and my next one is always going to be the one I will think is great...

Painting: in Progress...

At least I now have some kind of idea of the look and feel of this collection of drawings now... i.e. nothing like how I initially imagined. I think I have now progressed to the 'very beginning' stage. I have 2 finished A2 sheets, this one being closest to how the rest may pan out, in three steps...drawn from a collage of photographs taken of motifs found on stones at Le Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris and a Parisian metro station entrance, using layers of original old 'found' wallpaper (in Darlington not Paris).

I'm intending to use these (when finished!) to design some embroidered fashion fabrics from ... am quite fancying using this one as is though - digitally printed on the front of an A line skirt panel? um?

The other paintings I started are no further forward (yet), may have to go urbexing this afternoon for further research and dirtiness.

Not up to much...

I don't really want this to turn into an 'Urbexing' blog but that is mainly what I have been doing, you can see some of the most recent pictures on my Facebook page so I will only post a couple of my 'abstract externals'...

And this one... for the lines;

obviously I shall draw all these...at some point! 
Meanwhile I have started some artwork inspired by all the dilapidation I have been photographing, and although it is in it's very early stages I am not yet in the flow and I think it shows, it definitely doesn't have a direction. I have made the mistake of being a bit too careful and it's stilted but I intend to loosen it up and reflect the messiness by introducing inks and red wine, forgetting about the flat colour, trying to be neat and also the fact that it is for an exhibition and just play with it for a while.

moodboard: 

need to add yellow ochre as I can't seem to live without it

table mess

unfinished - obviously!

A little bit of Urbex...

(Click on image)

Sunday... urban exploring and climbing through window frames into a building with hardly any floors. In the wilds of Hartlepool, whipped by thorny branches and blizzardous rain, this sanctuary of pure broken beauty sheltered me and my Christmas camera...

 

New project... beading a 3 meter length...

This is my New Years Resolution; I started this on my flight to Havana last summer with a secret needle, no scissors (my mini travel tooth floss worked a treat) - then left it mostly alone for the rest of the year. So, anyway, I have to either finish this by February for an exhibition deadline or by the end of 2014 (which is absolutely the most likely)... I have kind of working titled it 'An obsession with distressed architectural surfaces' OR 'An excuse for beading'...

I  intend to post images of my progress regularly (to make me do it) on my Facebook page so please have a look occasionally and help me out when I get stuck!