The diving bell and the butterfly.

I have to admit that this is the first kino film I have been too see and I thought it was really good. A little daunted by subtitles, I found myself getting into the film. The film was a sort of 'memorial' to Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor in chief of fashion magazine french Elle who suffered a massive stroke. The stroke left him prisoner inside his own body, only able to cmmunicate with the blinking of his left eye. Inside the diving bell, as he reffered to his memory and imagination, the butterfly remained untouched by tragedy. Using a special alphabet, Bauby went on to defy the odds and fulfil his dream of writing a book. 

The film was so moving and a real tear jerker. The beginning part of the film was very abstract and the colours and light gave a feeling of how it might feel to be partially sighted. As the film went on I found myself becoming attached to jean-do as he was reffered to, even though he was abit of a casanova! The film cut in places to beautiful moving imagery and music. I particularly liked the 'scene' where there were butterflies flying through plants, the sun was shining so much that it blocked out areas, but then in other areas the detail was gorgeous. The film was beautifully filmed and the choice of music was clever. Sometimes it didnt necesarily fit which worked reall well. I was surprised to find that the film had a sense of hunour, not a regular 'art film' viewer I was a bit sceptical as to whether it would be to serious and dare I say it boring, but this film had a good mixture of humour and serious topics. It has restored my faith in arthouse film.

The film was a real success and I would recomend it to anyone. It shows that no matter how much we think our lives could be better, it could be worse.

'Silence'

I have been really struggling with the silence project. I wanted to do some illustration work based on the photographs I took of trees, and I also wanted to incorperate text. I had the idea of making it seem as if the text was the light coming through the trees. I started by drawing on different pieces of tracing paper, and layered them up to create a 'succesfull' pattern. I was really worried about how it looked in the beginning but it had taken so long I was determined to complete it! I took inspiration from some of Si Scotts work. 

Ive created two versions of the piece one which is just a simple line drawing and one which you can see (above) is coloured in. Im not to sure how I could take this further within the project so I am just going to put it to one side as a creative experimentation. 

After a seminar with Mack I have been given some inspiration on how I can think more concetually and give my project some meaning. Ive been suffering really badly with 'Artists block' and I have been encouraged to work around ths subject. I want to work with the idea that when you are silent, it is the noisiest time within your head, and I find that when I cant produce succesfull pieces of design my head is full of negative thoughts. 

I am now starting to make altered books and collages, bringing in concrete poems to further this project. Im sure il be blogging my progress soon! 

Tim Bret-Day and David Bray.

Agent Provocateur ad campaign, Tim Bret-Day.

I was reading the Metro newspaper and I came across this article about the new ad campaig for agent provocateur. It was an account of the ad by freelance illustrator David Bray. The campaign was shot by Tim Bret-Day and features Daisy Lowe, Peaches Geldof, Alice Dellal and Helena Christenson. David Bray spoke about the 'Witches' campaign as inspriing, through its depth and scale. Bray said that the ads combination of lighting, casting and staging was 'like a hybrid of Helmut Newton, Caravaggio and Hogarth.' 'This ad certainly pushes the boundaries even further.' 

I think the ad looks amazing the lighting and the styling is so magical and in my opinion does what fashion photography should do which is transport us mere mortals to somewhere new and exciting. 

David Bray

David Bray

David Bray

Tim Bret-Day

Tim Bret-Day

Kate Greenaway.

I took a visit to the special collections library this week and loved looking at all the old chidrens books. I love looking back over childhood, and particularly looking at the victorian era of childhood. I came across this gorgeous book illustrated by Kate Greenaway, entitled The Kate Greenaway Treasury. The illustrations were beautiful and I couldnt help but take too many photographs of the endless pictures. Ill definatly be going back to the special collections library and hopefully this will help me in my future projects.

The story of things.

"In a museum ‘things’ sit beside one another in sometimes unlikely combinations. They tell something of their own story but also produce new narratives, just by being together.

Working with MMU Special Collections, including the North West Film Archive, Carson & Miller have curated an exhibition that explores ideas of narrative, memory and collections. MMU academic Dr. Patricia Allmer (Research Fellow, MIRIAD) explores the activities of Carson & Miller in an essay written to accompany the exhibition: On Being Touched.

A new artists’ book by Carson & Miller – Scrapbook (the story of things) – has been published by MMU Special Collections to coincide with the exhibition.

In tandem to The Story of Things a Righton Press publication will be launched. Stilled Lives is a new collaborative work bringing together artists, designers, poets and writers from across MMU. Edited by Carson & Miller this limited edition volume features a striking and thoughtful range of responses to the books held in MMU Special Collections, provoking further explorations of narrative, memory and collections."

The exhibition held in the special collections section of the library was something that I had been interested in seeing for a while, It was just my sort of thing. I enjoy looking at old and interesting things, especially ones that have a story to tell. The exhibition comprised of a number of random objects placed together. While visiting the exhibition I didn’t really understand what was going on and what the relevance of these objects were, so with a shallow way of thinking I just took inspiration form the objects on show and the photographs I took. A 'highlight' of the exhibition was the 'stilled lives' book. Sue had showed us the beginnings of this book last year while we in her 'Modern Myth Lab' workshop group. It was good to see the final outcome, and the work inside really inspired me to look further into the special collections library. My favourite pieces in the book, were that of Jacqueline butler, 'garden weeds', Hilary Judd, 'the books I read while waiting for my father', Susan Platt, 'strange library' and Lucy May Schofield, 'in search'. Hilary Judds illustration work was beautiful and definatly stood out for me the most. The book was beautifully bound and embossed on the front, Something id really like to learn how to do!

MMU MA Show 2009.

I seem to be drawn to old baby shoes!

Bushra Bodla, MA Textiles.

Ya-Nung Huang, MA Design and Art direction.

I visited the MMU MA show this week as I was passing through the Holden gallery. The exhibition was small and there were only about eight peoples work on display. I particularly liked the design and art direction student, Ya-Nung Huangs work, which consisted of collage and illustration on plane tickets and was displayed in an installation style exhibit. The images that he had drawn were beautifully executed ad overall the piece looked really professional. I liked his work because although it was displayed as an installation piece, it could be transferred to any medium. This is something I would like to mirror in my work, by creating work that a perspective client could see and imagine being shaped into whatever they needed. Another piece of work that I enjoyed was Textiles student Bushra Bodla's work, She had used different papers, materials and wall paper to create wildlife that seemed to be resting on printed wallpaper. The work was very 'intricate' and visually appealing. Although this was a piece of textile work it could easily inspire my work as an artist and designer. 

The work I saw at the exhibition really inspired me to make my work look as professional and well finished as possible and gave me new and innovative ways of display styles. It showed me that the boundaries of course description are blurred some what, as a lot of the time it was hard to tell when looking at the work which subject that student studied.

'Silence'

I have been spending alot of time thinking about the 'silence' brief, mainly brainstorming about how i can think more conceptually about the word silence and what it means. To inspire myself a little further I decided to play around with the images I had taken. 

This photograph was taken at Chester. The original looked a bit washed out and it didnt have much power behind it. I think the image looks more like sience now and shows that silence may have a story to tell which is a strapline I will be using in furthering my work in this project.

All of these photographs were taken in Whitworth park, I felt they needed something a little extra. I made the images black and white and tried to make the contrast more obvious. I am going to start experimenting with illustration based on these photogarphs in this project. Leading onto a book making. Ive always been interested in these subjects and I think it is a good way for me to encourage creativity in my work, and to take the project further.

Silence has a story to tell.