January saw our first meeting for 2015, being the second of a revised bimonthly schedule and it was good to be back at MadLab proper, albeit still a ‘work in progress’ affair that saw us climbing slightly unfinished feeling stairs and avoiding the brick dust!
| With three ‘core’ members present, it didn’t take long to get stuck into the chat! Kevin started things off by reminding us of a couple of his recent and ongoing projects; those of the Cave Painting work and the 53 Views project. Whilst the Cave Painting work, projecting and drawing inside pill boxes, is for now, as complete as creative projects ever are, 53 Views has been on pause while a bit of a refocus takes place. The initial concept for the work was to produce 53 photographs from a specific square window in Kevin’s flat (apartment number 53), to reflect the square Instagram format. This lost steam, however and the parameters are likely to evolve, permitting a greater variety of ‘views’. Retitled Windows this work would then encompass photos take from train windows as well as existing images from the flat and of other locations. | 
Kevin Linnane; Cave Art
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Renate Wendel; Self Portrait
| Renate had been getting back into drawing with the Apple a Day series (See November 2014 CRITblog), work she has been continuing to a degree but which has also been overtaken by explorations in a few other creative areas. Some of this includes outcomes from life drawing classes, as well as sketches of musicians at various concerts. She’s also been reengaging with practical skills in the area of jewellery making, selling beaded and ceramic items at craft fairs. Whilst she has enjoyed this venture, it is unlikely to form a significant strand of future work as she explained that the ‘production line’ process did not appeal to her. This was something I could certainly identify with following my own experience of selling crafts and though Kevin suggested producing ‘limited edition’ ranges, Renate felt that once all the costs were factored in it was unlikely to ever be cost effective. At this point the conversation made James’ absence (due to the snow forecast) palpable and I felt sure he would have had much to contribute to that particular discussion! |
Renate has also been making the most of access to a black and white darkroom at Start in Salford, where she has been volunteering, to revisit these skills. She shared a self portrait with us, as well as some photograms designed to function as bookmarks (she likes work to have a purpose, she explained) and talked about ideas for moving in to the area of contact prints. ‘Get yourself some good quality acetate!’ advised experienced photographer Kevin!
| For my own part, I was able to share a new painting in the Serenity Series as well as a minor evolution in my own perception of this work; the question of whether or not ‘art’ that has been identified to have some therapeutic value (as opposed to enjoyment, as previously discussed) to the creator can really be classed as ‘art’. This led on to some analysis of the source of such perceptions, traditional academic views of this as part of arts educational institutions and established or well known examples in contradict of such dismissal, Tracy Emin and Sarah Lucas amongst others. | 
Annabeth Orton; Heart Sutra; Go Beyond
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As I have recently been in the unfortunate position of being unwell and not in work, I have had time to be gently flexing some other creative muscles and so shared with the group a recent collation of old and new poems (I even read one out!) as well as the fruits of my other labours in the form of baking; a gugelhupf in this case! I explained that I find cooking a very soothing activity, as well as actually quite creative and this certainly fed in (no pun intended) to the whole ‘what is art anyway!?’ debate. I’d already responded to this by describing Scott McCloud’s suggestion that art is any human activity that cannot be directly related to a need to survive, (as Renate pointed out, you can survive by eating the berries from the bush but do you need to spend time and effort turning them into jam?) and it was equally relevant to earlier conversation about art as therapy; where does mental and emotional survival fit in to the definition and how does that support or refute each perspective? Renate had explained that her voluntary work brought her into contact with people who had actually been prescribed a course of creative activity to help treat various mental health conditions and it didn’t seem entirely random that our conversation had come at least in some respects, full circle.
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