***New***Website...(problems)

If you are looking for my WEBSITE, I have hosting problems... because my website is too busy my free hosting people have closed me down! wth...
Please bear with while my technical geek swaps me over... THANK YOU for the hits...

Kickstarter and the Press

I've been so busy it's untrue, probably 500 hours+ spent on this trip and exhibition tour organisation. I've learned a lot, mainly not to lose £5,000, not to be in charge of a budget and not to imagine others to be as passionate about this subject as I am. When I talk about the forthcoming Chernobyl visit, people either say 'WOW!' or 'What?! WHY??!' You either get it or you don't...

Pripyat Apartment Block, a landing next to a lift shaft.

In other news, after 5 months of trying to source an East German/Russian-looking modernist 70's armchair reminiscent of those abandoned in many Pripyat apartments, for under £100 (or not) I found it impossible... actually impossible so I got this.

The lovely Alan of Kiwi Trading had this one tucked up in his lockup, and at a bargain price of course, in fact the money that is rattling down the side might actually cover it's cost. I'll have to work on it in order for it to become part of my installation, but I am aware it could all go horribly wrong and I'll still have to find another chair.

Of the period (just English)

And so our collective now has a name, it was a rush job but I am pretty happy with my suggestion. I did give the group a multiple choice and they went for this: '26:86 Collective'; derived from the date of the Chernobyl disaster -  26th April 1986. Specific yes but it's the single reason we came together after all and...it does what it says on the tin. So the press have started to take an interest, I've done 2 interviews and a photo-shoot with professional people, and it's not easy being shy(!). This is the first story to be published, a lovely young guy came round...

http://www.liveandloveteesside.co.uk/teesside-artists-explore-chernobyl-30-years/ 
If you read that you'll notice we've just started a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign... please consider pledging even a small amount as it all mounts up and you may not even need to part with any cash if we don't reach our target which is not looking likely to be honest :/ do it here: DONATE ON KICKSTARTER

The Last Part (Unit No.3) - a very delayed post!

I've just found this as a draft in my post list (from December!) so I thought I might as well publish it, I think I was waiting for a photo to choose itself.

So now I start the final leg of my MA - the Final Major Project and I am extremely excited... shall it be the culmination of something? I doubt it...I truly believe it is only the start. This whole experience has changed my life and my outlook on art, design, creativity and thinking. 

So after a restful weekend spent going to see 'The Lady in a Van', wrapping Christmas presents, making special cards and eating chocolate with my feet up behind my new double glazing (I actually can't feel the wind in my living room anymore) I am ready to start Practice 3. This is what I am going to do...

'My rationale is to bring together people, place and politics through carrying out work in situ in Chernobyl and presenting a video of this as a major piece of work. 

And produce a large-scale exhibition piece: ‘What Once There Was’ (working title) using life-size interior pieces for maximum impact and real human emotiveness which essentially will bridge the gap between space and time, between 1986 and now and between the Ukraine and here. It could be an immersive installation that will intend to convey the emptiness, the fear of what has happened there, what could happen here, allowing the viewer to connect and (only) imagine loss of this magnitude.'

This is how I am getting on - i.e. 'not well', it could be a major waste of time/disaster but who knows what will happen before I finish it, it is by working on it that I am generating new ideas, all the time :)

                
via GIPHY

A Process of Technicalities, Eliminations and Refinements

After sampling both paper and fabric, layers, 'negative' techniques and the idea of 'suggestion' rather than purely figurative imagery, textural surfaces (after trying to fight against this) as well as colourways, I am investigating more with printing with plaster (if I'm doing texture I might as well go for it) using the piece of work below as a starting point alongside fresh photographic imagery of interior walls in Chernobyl...

Don't Let History Repeat Itself...

Technical issues, successes and the way forward...

15T mesh

on coloured 'waste' paper background

'part' pattern very effective  with abstract ground on paper

residue from mixing plaster with procien dye - the dye
seeps through in parts and the plaster 'sits' in other areas

palette knifed on

'Now what to do with it?'

Better than the print...

#spoon #plasterofparis #texture

A photo posted by Edith Chick (@edithchick) on Jan 14, 2016 at 2:45am PST

#spoon

A photo posted by Edith Chick (@edithchick) on Jan 14, 2016 at 2:43am PST

Nothing new here...

Sketchbook page, layered samples

Texture, embossing

Ghosting

Stuff

Colour substitution

Collaged samples

Looking back over P2, time to get some new work started... thinking about absconding to Wordpress as I am so annoyed that these images are now not the same size, even though I resized them on Photoshop especially. What. Tut.

Show (and tell) time...

A very handy pinboard with 'censored' lengths

I have been quite stressed, somewhat, or rather what comes with being mentally busy. Preparing for hand in today was slightly fraught to say the least. Other things were determined to get in the way but I eventually got there, minus 2 x A2 paintings that strangely have disappeared off the face of the earth, no doubt I shall find them tomorrow. Maybe it was a sign.

Bound to be writing

I have less practical work this time, more thinking and focusing though..and, there is still a way to go; sampling, experimenting, refining (repeating ad infinitum) and only then producing final pieces.

Pantone colour for 2016 :-)

Today I had to present my work, I had a plan but as is usual it went by the wayside once I started rabbiting, as sometimes I am wont to do. I managed to continue to speak for a good 20 minutes and for someone as quiet as me (!) I think that's an achievement, and I only slightly 'filled up' with the emotion of my subject, once.

I said all I had to say, another achievement as usually I'm kicking myself for missing out that all important, crucial word. (Although one will probably come to me later).

Anyway, I feel good.

Worn out. Raised pile

AND I have big idea's. I will tell you more/them next week...Ciao

P.S. I have just remembered... I forgot to mention Auschwitz.