This session was very valuable to me. It was insightful to see the practices of our tutors and it has made me view my own in a new way. It was insightful to see my that my tutors also have to deal with ‘not knowing’ and the struggle that comes from making a new investigation and a body of work. It was wonderful to hear how they think about it and how they deal with the challenges.
One of the first words I look down in my notes was the word ‘Vexatious’. Michele said she sometimes finds the process in her studio vexatious as she is immersed and involved in her work.
Some other notes from Michele’s talk on her practice:
- My Body is my register – as I find my way. Feeling and sensing.
- Less concerned with the literality of the work.
- Slowing down. (Yes!)
- Eco-activistic concerns but working on a local level. (Yes!)
- Looking at forms in nature. (Yes!)
- Walking and wading practice. (In my case I would cal it a running and meditating practice)
- Being part and parcel in nature and then working with it. ( I can relate to this in my practice)
- Why should our body end at our skin 🙂
- Place & Identity: less about resistance and more about letting go.
- Things happen in the practice that takes you by surprise.
- Trust your instinct but also realise when things are getting stuck.
- Relationships between things – it’s ok to respond emotionally to material or things.
- Confidence of bodily pain and beauty when you are doing a physically hard thing.
- It has to take you to a place you didn’t know.
- So many things are embedded in the doing of the work.
Haley’s talk on her practice – some notes on things that stood out to me:
- Primal urge to make stuff but also a struggle. And the responsibility of that.
- Taking my personal story and talking to a global concern. Making for others, although it is not the first thing I think about.
- Priviliged.
- Careful with what I do with nature.
- How the words can fit the works.
- A personal/collective concern.