Post Private View

Overall, I feel that the private view last night went really well. My idea to coordinate my outfit and make-up to my project also payed off, as even if I wasn’t near my pieces, I had people come up and ask if my work was “the pink wall”.

From overhearing peoples conversations and talking to people, it seemed that people understood what I was trying to portray with the wall and books. One guy wearing a pink shirt walked into the room and his family asked him “which one is yours?” (i.e. which swatch matched his shirt). I also had an in depth conversation with a lady about colour and how subtle it is when changing what you mix. She said she worked with dying wool and fabrics, so she said that colour and subtle gradations of colour are really interesting to her.

It also seemed to be a good idea to have business cards, as people have found my instagram page through it. There was an open day at the uni today, and I’ve had two artists comment on my instagram post of the wall, saying that they “loved seeing your[my] work this morning” .

Unfortunately at the time I didn’t think about taking photos of people interacting with my work. Also, if I redid this, I would seriously consider having the tape peeling be part of the private show as a live performance piece.

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Pre Private View

Today, during the day before the private view, I have just been doing little bits to touch up on cleaning the floor in my room and put up my wall statement. I decided to have two separate wall statements, one for my large wall piece, and another for my two books. I want to make it really obvious that the swatches are a piece in themselves, rather than just a background for the books.

I also managed to print my business cards, after having to wait over an hour in a queue at brookes print. It seemed like there was a deadline at 1 p.m. for a lot of people, as they were printing off large books of work. If I had know that there were going to be so many deadlines for people on that day, I would have planned out to print the business cards the day before. Despite this I think that the cards came out quite well ; simple and minimal with focus on the colour, which is a good representation of the work I have produced.

After sorting out my own area I briefly helped a peer with a few others to clean his room. He had finished working quite late so the rest of us who were left at the studio chipped in to help clear away things and sweep the floor in his exhibition room.

I then went and got dressed into my outfit and put on my makeup. This is another important part of the private view, as I have chosen my outfit/makeup to go with my pink theme. Hopefully people will see the relationship between my outfit and my work.

Wall Selfies

As we progress towards the private view, I have found that people want to photographs in front of my wall. It’s nice that allot of people see it as aesthetically pleasing, as this is one of the main goals of the piece.

As well as my friends (shown above) taking photos in front of the wall, I have also had other people in my peer group take photos in front of it. One person even matched her t-shirt to one of the swatches. Ideally it would be really nice if people in private view or coming to see the exhibition, would have things that they then try and match to a swatch.

Peel Porn

As I have been painting the rectangles, I have had many of my peer group come in and say how satisfying it will be to peel off all the masking tape to reveal the clean lines underneath. Many had suggested that I even film it and create a time lapse of it being peeled, and my group of friends had also requested that I message them when I would be peeling so that they could watch.

In addition to this I also did a live instagram video, which allowed my followers on instagram to join and watch the peeling live. Since I was so excited to peel off the tape I hadn’t really planned everything out. If I did something like this again, I would have maybe considered leaving the peeling as a performance piece for the private view as a live action satisfying experience. Despite this, I feel like the audience from my peer group and instagram live video enjoyed watching the peeling process.

For my time lapse video I decided to put the song Primadona by Marina and the Diamonds, in the background. I feel like the lyrics and pop sound fit well with all the associations and opinions towards the colour pink that I have collected over the course of my project. Overall I think that the time lapse came out really well, apart from at the start where someone from my peer group decided to walk and stand in front of the camera.

Although originally I was going to peel the tape off all by myself, I knew that I would need help to reach the top lines of tape, as even using a step ladder I am too short to reach. This meant that I had James help me peel the higher sections. Halfway through filming, other people watching asked if they could also peel, so I decided that I would let people join in. I think this actually makes the video look better and more dynamic, as people suddenly descend on the wall halfway through to peel off the tape.

 

Final Two Lines

Today I started on the final two lines of the gradient on my wall. Instead of doing each line after the next, as I have done for the rest of the wall, I have started to do a lighter shade as I go along, meaning I do these last two rows at the same time. This therefore means that it is easier and quicker to get the correct shade for the last row.

While I don’t need a ladder to be able to paint the last squares; only needing a step ladder with the paint brush extending my reach, I am not tall enough to reach the top line to put the masking tape down. I had looked round to see if I could find the ladder I had used when I was marking out the grid, however all the ladders are being used. Therefore, I asked James (who is at least a head taller than me) if he would be able to help and put the masking tape on the last and highest row. After this I was then able to start on the these rows, and I should be finished painting by tomorrow.

Painting Progress

Over the past 3 days (Saturday, Sunday and today) I have been coming in from 9 am to 6 pm to paint more swatches, and I am pretty happy with the progress. Although at the start I was planning to follow the swatch sheets I had printed out, I soon found that it was allot easier to just mix the colours that I thought fit best next. Although there are some anomalies that stand out, I feel like most of the colours flow really well in all directions (up and down, left and right, diagonally).

As long as my progress keeps up at this pace, I should be able to finish a day earlier than expected; hopefully finishing on Wednesday rather than Thursday.

Finished Books

After yesterdays problems with the colour, I found that the problems weren’t over. Although most of the book had printed properly, I realised this morning that the first section of the book had printed its pages on the wrong side of the fold. This meant the page numbers appeared on the inside corners of the pages, and not the outside corners. Thankfully this wasn’t too difficult to fix, as I went to Ruth first thing in the morning and she helped me reprint the first sections for both the books.

Ruth then helped me through the process of actually binding my books.

1. Fold each page at the crop lines, keeping them within their small bundle of 8 pages.

2. Use an awl to make holes along the folds of each page.

3. Stitch each of the sections together using a specific stitch.

4. Use PVA glue to glue the sections together. Leave to dry for 10 minutes before coming back to glue some fabric to the spine.

5. Using the inkjet printer I printed my two front covers, allowing space for the spine.

6. Measure out the spine and a small section of the page and glue the cover to the book.

The books were then cut at the crop marks and they were finished. Even though they have taken allot longer than I had anticipated, I am really happy with how they came out. I’m also really glad that I decided to print them myself, as if I had sent them off to be printed elsewhere, and the colours had been printed wrong, there would have been little that I could have done to make it right in time for the private view.

Since printing had taken up the entire day, I also went to talk to David to ask if he would be able to help me tomorrow with how to use spirit levels and ladders so that I can start measuring out the grid for my wall.