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Unit Two Assessment


  Learning Outcome 1: 

Develop and realise a self-directed programme of learning which draws from wide-ranging subject knowledge. (AC Knowledge, AC Process) 


NB: Several of the below posts contain dated updates, so as to keep the area of exploration organised in one place rather than across too many separate blog posts. The most recent updates are at the bottom.

At the end of year 1, I summarise where I’m at and where I want to head: https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/end-of-first-year-summative-reflection

Identifying key questions and areas for research, with a more conscious look at my own experiences:

How does treading the same paths (some for comfort and solace and some that cause pain) become necessary or habitual?

How part of ourselves can be left somewhere, and returning to that place can fill us with strength, comfort or clarity.

How part of ourselves can also be left behind, or severed - and how returning to these places, physically or psychologically can remind us of the part of ourselves we have lost.

A sense that as people we can be split and re arranged by lived experience, that we can become fragmented and weakened- but also that we can re build and re discover (or discover things new).

Identifying, searching for unity. Seeing fragments and something broken, but knowing it is bound together.

Looking at circles, ancient sites and gatherings began last year, and the experiments below on chopping/re arranging and concertinas began then too. These experiments have developed though (scroll down for latest updates) and chime now with the research I’ve been doing on memory, visits, maps etc.

Chopping and Rearranging Painting https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/chopping-and-rearranging-paintings Thinking about how paper split into fragments can be connected. A path split or paused between two pieces of paper. Finding the paths within the marks, but also considering real paths as I draw.


Most recent experiments contemplate how fragmented memories of trauma can integrated into our everyday memory system. (Van de Kolk). I use folded and arranged sections of paper showing ‘good’ and ‘bad’ colour/form fragments to illustrate the idea of embedding and integration. I’m not at the stage yet where I know what forms I’ll draw, and how – but structurally, things are moving in a direction that feels right.

Tracks, paths and footprints – and Robert Macfarlane https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/tracks-and-paths-and-robert-macfarlane-s-the-old-ways I look at The Old Ways and think about the memories of the past being literally embedded in the ground as people tread the same paths throughout time. I also think about this on a metaphorical level, how we can tread a path into our emotional past too and the impact this has. Experimenting with the idea of repeated tracks and the mediative process of drawing them, as if re living a journey.

Why do we gather together?



I'm lucky to live in a beautiful city but despite this, it can be mundane re visiting the same places. But won't these mundane, repeated journeys one day feel a nostalgic loss? Aren’t they just as important as more impactful memories? Also links with research paper and LO2.

Beginning some research into the neurobiology of memory and how our experience of place, or repeated visits to a place (physical or psychological) can both be grounding and destabilising. This is preceded by an interview with an Art Therapist:

Interview with an Art Therapist: What happens to the body and brain when we make art? https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/talking-with-an-art-therapist

I learned that art therapy has a very immediate connection with something deep, stored, and nonverbal. Put simply, it helps externalise feeling and memory through making imagery. One is then able to look at the imagery and address it as something no longer part of themselves.

The therapist pointed me in the direction of a seminal book on neuroscience which I reflect on below:

The Intrusive past and Bessel Van de Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/the-body-keeps-the-score

Here I reference some reading that has proved really informative and sparked some ideas surrounding memory integration. This post is a summative collection of the different texts I’ve read over the past several months.

Brings me to the idea of repetition, visits, ritualistic actions - I want to find a way to render repeated images on paper, and with layering or materials and forms (and possibly paper) to illustrate the idea of memories embedding, crossing over and over lapping etc. Also links with research paper and LO2.

The start of some work using carbon paper to create repeated images. I use some photos of places I know and that hold different levels of emotional clout. Trying to find ways to repeat images, and show the contrasting images associated with painless and painful memories, mundane verses extreme – but that how all ultimately form part of our ‘body arc’.

Beginning with paper fragments. Then onto masking wax and fluid. Tracks and paths.

Reaching November 2023 and consolidating things so far in Year 2. Landing on geological maps and their visual form, and how the lines and tracks I’ve been drawings mirror these types of maps.

Education work – continuing to see cross over and find links between working solo and working in an educational capacity. Allows me to test out ideas and (hopefully) bring something of the freedom found in my drawing and painting to group settings.

Also lots of teacher workshops have been happening via my job with AccessArt.

 

Learning Outcome 2: 

Articulate a thorough understanding of your research and establish an informed critical position. (AC Communication) 




 

A Closer look at Ithell Colquhoun (spanning various dates across the last 8 ish months) https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/a-closer-look-at-ithell-colqhuorn

Having first seen Colquhoun’s work at the British Museum as part of the Feminine Power exhibition, here I look more closely at her as an artist and occultist. Particular interest in her ‘repatriation’ to Cornwall after WW2 and the impact this had. Also links out to: Neolithic Forms, Arial View Experiments (blots and circles) chat with an Art Therapist and lands on the idea of 'mapping'.

 A visit to Tate Britain to see Colquhoun’s work in person: https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/tate-britain-ithell-colquhoun-and-turner

Here, I talk about and experiment with some of the automatic techniques used by IC and how she was allowing the form created to generate the process. This is something I really connect with. Whilst I'm not heavily influenced by occultist theory, I am intrigued by how art making can be shaped by a force of some kind (whether other or within ourselves) and that this force can coax artworks into shape. 

I have a go at the following: paper pressed onto wash (something I was already doing but hadn’t realised IC also did!), frottage, sprinkling clay on water) 

I began with crushed chalk on water – which I ran as a simple activity with my daughter and her friend. 

Updates: 

20th May – Some experiments I did myself, using brusho for the first time 

31st May – Adding to the brusho techniques. Prompted the question – why do humans gather together? 

23rd June Here, I'm thinking about subterranean energy and something that is held underneath that's full and active and pulsing - but perhaps we don't see it. A journey or path. There are references to stone circles, with lines leading to and from them, pulling us back to them and repeating the visit.  

6th July – Reading Shillitoe’s book on IC. Further experiments with brusho.

 

Magic and the Occult “To make hidden inner worlds visible”...  https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/magic-and-the-occult

This search for something 'beyond' or 'other' specifically in terms of magic isn't at the centre of what I'm looking at - but I can see clear links with the more psychological need for looking for diversion or connection with something that grounds and anchors one into a space that feels safe. An understanding reached that it doesn't appear to me that Ithell Colquhoun was evangelical about where her beliefs came from. She embraced the theology and theosophy from numerous religions and Easters/Western practices, Celtic and Pagan beliefs systems.

I find connections here also with the psychological and neurological benefit of grounding – be it physically with the earth and what it holds, or with the depths of our own consciousness. 

I look at how some contemporary and historical artists have been influenced by a deep-felt connection with the spirit world. 

Here, I look at the impact of places on the emotions, both for my own work but also in relation to the work of Ithell Colquhoun.

Here, as I continue to find some steps into the research paper, I wanted to gain a bit more background knowledge on the surrealist movement, the formal group of which Colquhoun left, preferring to pursue her own path of artistic endeavour. 

Here, I see a circle gathering happening at Avebury stone circle. Whilst I'm not solely looking at stone circles - I'm reminded of the ideas surrounding visits, rituals and memories. The repeated visiting reminds me of a ‘montage’ like depiction of the same person visiting the same place on multiple occasions, spanning a length of time – and each time experiencing it in a slightly different way. I follow this up with a visit to a woodland burial ground and make some figurative drawings here to help with some compositions. This begins the idea of spotlighting specific places known to me and how this might be central to making work that speaks more of my own experience. Also, how to render repeated images, which is begun in ‘experiments in mono printing’ in the LO1. Remaining conscious of a balance between that and sentimentality/exposure/introspection.

Looking at artists with thematic links to Colquhoun. A reflection on Af Klint’s work including her commitment to the spiritual realm as a guiding force. I got a real sense of her sense of working ‘in community’ - not just with a world ‘other’ than ours – but with a collective of other female artists at that time. (possibly better for unit 1?)

Also, visiting af Klint’s work in person at Tate Modern https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/hilma-af-klint-at-tate-modern

 

Learning Outcome 3: 

Analyse and critically reflect on your practice and its context. (ACEnquiry) 

 

Here, I reflect on the feedback for the unit 1 assessment and clarify my intention to pull at existing strands, but attempt to place them more firmly within a wider as well as personal context. Whilst its strangely freeing to express more of myself and experience – I don’t have a huge desire to be explicitly autobiographical – and maintain a focus on the lines of enquiry as outlined in this post.

End of first year reflections (also in LO1 as wasn’t sure where it fits exactly) https://www.rachelt.co.uk/post/end-of-first-year-summative-reflection

Reflections from tutorials


Teacher and School workshop session. Reflecting on the challenges of delivering practical sessions online and how it’s made me realise how important to my practice as an educator that I’m in the same room as any group I’m working with. While I’m not actively researching art education in terms of pedogeological theory, I’m still finding my work in this area keeps me tuned into the central ideas around art making and why it’s important, particularly within the context of primary school aged children.

Where I’m at right now at the end of Autumn term: Here, I reflect on coming to the end of the term and where I’m at. I’ve just started looking at some known places and the significance they hold. Barton burial ground is where my dad was buried 16 years ago and somewhere I have always avoided, although am beginning to visit more. The other is the route to and from our house to a nearby psychiatric hospital where my mum was sectioned for 12 years when I was younger. My dad and siblings used to drive to visit her frequently and it’s full of pretty traumatic memories of seeing her and others experiencing long term psychosis. These places/stories won’t be explicitly depicted in my paintings, but will be weaved in in some way. Also want to avoid gloom and keep in mind key Q from end of Y1 summative post: A sense that as people we can be split and re arranged by lived experience, that we can become fragmented and weakened- but also that we can re build and re discover (or discover things new).

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