CFPR residency, January 2023
As the Christmas and New Year break winds up, I've found it to be an invaluable time to reflect on the first few weeks of my residency at the Centre for Print Research, UWE. A really useful moment to pause, collect my thoughts and focus on what I’m hoping to make over the next few months.
We’ll see how it goes from here, but in essence, I’m hoping to create a boxed folio of prints centred around the idea of the seed pod, regeneration and growth. It’s more than likely to simply be titled Pod.
I'm going to experiment with a series of brushed and wiped ink marks on a high gloss surface next, that I'll then photograph, digitise, and use as the basis for some new 3d studies looking at the geometry of the seed pod, in the loosest possible sense.
Hopefully, the lyrical nature of the brush and ink work will combine with the 3d geometry to form a series of intriguing new studies, that speak about nature and regeneration as we head into the Spring.
I’m planning to make the first tests as a set of polymer photogravure etchings, and later on explore 2.5d printmaking, in which the height or depth of ink on the paper adds to the way the image can be read, by applying a low relief to the final prints in a way that is similar to carborundum printing, as brilliantly mastered by Howard Hodgkin and Jack Sheriff at Corsham in the Eighties.
I’m posting some images here of work that I made with Alicia Paz from a three day experimental glass making workshop, brilliantly led by Angela Thwaites at the CFPR in December.
The images show a progression of experimental forms starting with simple wax models, and then 3d printed ones. These were used as the basis for casting some kiln fired glass objects, miniature sculptures perhaps, using burnt out wax and refractory casting materials, to create a set of hollow moulds for the molten glass to slump into, before being broken out and cleaned up.
It’s possible to then cold work the pieces to add a polished surface, and in so doing enhance the transparent feel of the glass objects. Unpolished, the glass has a rather lovely semi translucent quality, that mirrors the mould surfaces.
I’m still deciding whether I want to pursue these glass experiments further, as part of the project, or whether I’ll use them more as a springboard for thinking about the next stages of the residency. I suspect this will become clear over the next few weeks…
