CRITIQUE

Being critical used to be one of my strengths.
Arguably, it turned into a weakness.
Now it seems to be a constant exploration. A search for the meaning of 'quality'. A hang-up under examination instead of an active tool in self-rejection.

My work has turned from a desperate outward search for something to identify with, something to label as my own, to an inward looking process of analysis and self-reflection. I'm not a huge fan of work that is intensely personal to the point where it is completely self-indulgent, but I guess that's part of what art is, at the end of the day.

This was my set up for assessment, where I officially invite external criticism to my work around criticism. A set-up for rejection.

SUCCESS.

A couple of weeks ago I was in a show with the 8 other 3rd year drawing students in the student gallery of the VCA.

We decided to call the show SUCCESS.

The title worked nicely in context with my piece, which was based primarily on self-doubt and failure. (Yes, the title is a joke)

This was my piece in the show...

BOOKED

I turned some of my work into a book a little while back. Mainly because I had all these pages of different things (writing, drawings, photos, paintings) and I figured that none of them were particularly interesting on their own, but together they made a whole lot more sense. There was a collective relationship between all the elements that expressed far more than the individual parts. I liked that.

Also, nothing has to stick up for itself too much. Safety in numbers. That kind of thing.

Scans:

DEAR DAD

Dear Dad, Thank you for reminding me tonight. You're absolutely right, it has been quite a while since I last posted something on my blog. It's not that I had forgotten, I just have way too much on my plate at the moment and I've neglected it. I love the fact that you still look at my blog even though we live in the same house, and I love the feedback you give me on what I've written or posted. To be honest, I think the conversations we have are far more interesting and expansive than what little insight I give here, but I thoroughly enjoy your interest all the same. Let me show you what I put up in the group tutorial that I was so down about on the weekend: 26 REJECTED SELF-PORTRAITS Here's some of the scrunched up ones. And here's some of the originals, post destruction/improvement. Thanks for the memo, Dad. Hope you enjoyed the update! Love Sarah xox

THE BREAKFAST CLUB.

Perhaps on a lighter note...

Every Friday morning at 6:50am my brother and I jump on a train to go to the chiropractor with Father Bear before heading to the Galleon cafe in StKilda for breakfast. While I'm waiting for my scrambled tofu and enoki mushrooms, I have just enough time to scribble a blind contour drawing of the other two members of our breakfast party, often with a conversation fragment or two thrown in for good measure.

To anyone who hasn't ever seen brother Tom and father Glynn, this is EXACTLY what they look like. Don't be fooled by the floating lines, open shapes and overall grotesque appearance - I'm giving Da Vinci a run for his money.
I swear.

HERE GOES NOTHING...

Day one of third year today.

I'm only a little bit completely petrified by the prospect of my final year at the VCA.

I'm determined not to have a repeat of the way I handled second year. That just wasn't healthy. And certainly not on this scale. There's just so much more pressure this year not to fuck it up. Everything is amplified. And multiplied. And thrown up more ambitiously than it was before. There's greater expectations and further to fall. More room to fail and to a much greater degree.

Currently, I'm still in much the same position as last year. I'm still stuck. And it's still entirely my fault. My attitude is stunting. I don't have the confidence or the self belief to commit to creating anything outside of my sketchbooks. I've got next to nothing to show for the past four months and third years are really supposed to know what they're doing.
Third years, they've got their shit together, you know?



I'm still not sure what I'm about. I think I kind of do know a little of what I'm about, but I just haven't been able to articulate it yet. I can't point to it yet. But it's there, and I'll find it.

I made this new sketchbook from tracing paper. It's just about the only work I've done recently. More writing than drawing I guess, but I'm loving the relationship created between the most recent page and the preceding few. I'll make more of these books. It suits my way of working much better than a normal sketchbook, I think.





More to come. Much, much more.

ASS ESSMENT

I'm not a huge fan of assessment. The idea that you can quantify the quality of an individuals work scares me. Turning a subjective opinion on a body of work into an accurate, numerical value seems like an impossible task. The criteria is (to an extent) abstract. Being judged on something you can't see or point to or completely understand is concerning, because there's no way of really knowing if you've achieved whatever it is that you set out to do.

My assessment at the end of last year was particularly scary. The process could be likened to blindly flinging shit at a wall with the hope that at least some of it would stick. I thought there was a fair chance that I might even fail. I don't fail. It scares me. I'm not sure why. I can't imagine I'd enjoy it and I don't want to try it on for size just yet.

Anyway, I didn't fail. And we all lived happily ever after.

Here's some shit that stuck.

SKETCH SHOW.

Excerpts from my sketchbook.

Ted, one of our art history lecturers, has made a habit of not having any source material to show us and instead playing scenes from movies like Jurassic Park and explaining how its really all about sex.





Most of my sketchbook drawings are just of people on the train.



Or collages out of the mX.

















Or drawings of Antonia... who never sits still. I like the challenge.