On day one of the workshop with Glen Skein, we spent the morning making a basic box with a flush fitting lid. I choose an off white crumple textured paper as I wanted it to have a worn , almost faded appearance.Later during the day I decided to "age" it a little with tea and coffee stains.
Once we had the box structure made, we spent a bit of time playing with the elements we wanted to use in the piece, adding and taking pieces away to try to create a sense of narrative.
I added, I took away, I moved things around.
And then I did it some more..oh, for about an hour or so and then it was time to go home!
The next day I began to add the dividers to contain elements and platforms to raise them where I felt it necessary. I also spent an extraordinary amount of time arranging and rearranging all of the pieces. This of course involved some more of the adding and removing exercise from yesterday.
By lunchtime, I had reached this point:
Glen was an excellent teacher, encouraging us to take our time and not rush to try complete our piece. He stressed the importance of being intuitive with our choices and using the elements that 'spoke 'to us.I had some trouble with this,as I had brought so many bits and pieces along that I was literally deafened by the roar of them all yelling "choose me, choose me!"
I didn't manage to finish my piece by the end of the workshop - not because I ran out of time, but because I really needed to leave it alone for a few days and then come back to it. This is how it looks at the moment..as you can see, still two sections that need to be worked on.The watch face has disappeared altogether as I decided that it was almost another separate 'story'.
The letter tiles are from an old word making game - they spell out the word 'disappearance' which is the tentative working title for this piece.
'Old Broken Doll's Head' just didn't have quite the same deep and meaningful ring to it.
I am almost definitely going to use the photo image below - I'm just not sure how I want to incorporate it into the whole piece.
The other section....hmmmm, let's just call it a work in progress....
I can sense a few of these boxes in the works- it feels like I'm at the start of a series.I definitely need to make at least one using the old watch faces.
My only issue is what on earth will I do with them when their done. Personally, I am really drawn to the broken faded dolls parts but some other people have described them as gruesome and a little bit sinister. See, I'm not all sweetness and light - I have a dark angsty,side- gruesome and sinister even!
