Lecture 5, Steve Lovett

In today’s lecter, we had our local tutor who also an archival artist, Steve Lovett. Most of his work is about communication, focused on people and catalog. He also concerned with time, transition and loss. Steve’s earlier work was done by paint or ink. But lately, he was interested in printed images and moving images. He captured from a vedeo and interested in revers images. Much of his work is printed. He said ‘Printed images are nomadic by nature’.

What is the meaning of archive? An archive is a collection of the past records which have been selected for long-term preservation. The archives are different from books. Generally there are almost unique and no identical copies exist and sale. The archives may include photos, films, diaries, papers ect. Also can be your favorite hairclip, your first baby shoes or the old clothes from the past, due to the enduring value for you.

I can see there is an archive in Steve’s work. Much of his work are about people and catalog. Every pieces of the work he made has a story behind. As the work ‘Holding the Man’ ,made in 1995, was about the ‘growing wight of HIV infection in years before protease inhibitors’ and also the pressure and depress.

I think there is always a sense of autobiography in an artist or designer’s work. The reason is although the artist or designer make work for someone, they will put their sensation into the work. For example, they maybe will put in their favourite colors ,signs or objects. If you are a photographer, you will take more photos of the objects you like because you like it. So although the work is not about themselves, they still will put their feelings into the work.

How do I feel about making work that might be seen as autobiographical? Well, if I want to make work as my autobiography, I wouldn’t make the work directly to the point. As what Steve said, ‘it’s about image carrying information not more to a commodity, high value thing’. So I will use a metaphor to make the viewers think.

Lecture4, Deborah Crowe

Deborah Crowe described herself as a ‘practitioner’ rather than as an ‘artist’. Then what are the difference between a practitioner and an artist? If I claim myself as an ‘artist’, normally people will think I am a painter. An artist of painting. For example, other people know Im very good at photography then I will be known as an ‘artist’ of photography. So ‘artist’ is working in a defined area of practice. Why Crowe claimed herself as a ‘practitioner’? Practitioner works in a wide range of practice as what Crowe does. She does moving images, prints, photographs, drawings and installations.

In my opinion, the issues for someone who works across a range of forms and approaches in their work is to make their work become more interesting and it is a very resultful way to explore and develop ideas. They collect bits from here and bits from there to help their idea grows and create a new form. For example, if im a jeweler, advertiser ,photographer and also a painter. I will use my knowledge of these practices to create my new forms of artwork. Collecting a bit idea from jewellry practices, a bit from photography practices, a bit from the advertising practices and a bit from the painting practices.

In this stage, I don’t see myself working in a defined area of practice because im not sure what I want to do yet. Im interested in drawing. I’v looked at many different kind of drawings and also learnt some drawing skills from school and outside of shool. But if I want to work with drawings, I will look at more informations about drawings to help me define my working area. For example, there are many different kind of drawings like illustration drawing, life drawing ect. In this year I have a chance to try a lot of things and technique which I havn’t tried before such as print making, object making, life drawing, editing of moving images ect. Since I found photography also interests me, I will look more about photography.