It was a small group of focussed, hard-core attendees this month to balance October’s packed out numbers! James Sharp, Kevin Linnane and I started off by looking through and discussing the use of Weebly as a tool for creating websites (including the one you are currently reading!) James has recently re built his own website having previously used a web designer and is finding Weebly a useful tool to give him control over the content, despite some frustration that there is not an option to automatically send an email out to a mailing list when he updates his blog. We discussed various elements within the tool including adding custom html (we didn’t manage to get that to work last night but I’m blaming the group downstairs for streaming video and slowing up the web connection!?) and using the revenue options for making sales through your site. This includes the welcome recent addition by Weebly (a US based company) of different currency options and not just USD! We also briefly discussed the pros and cons of social networking media as tools for promoting a practice as well as ways to link your different web presences (e.g. sharing website updates on Twitter, etc.)
For the second half of the session, we got started on discussing a collaborative project for CRITgroup members, which is something that has been theoretically on the cards since we started. We agreed that there were two ways to approach this; a group show that simply allows us to showcase our individual practices but from the perspective of the CRITgroup or a more integrated ‘research’ project which would allow us to interact a lot more and would determine the direction of the outcomes. We agreed these would in fact both be interesting to pursue and so it was left for me to try and arrange time and space to show work (hopefully at MadLab) before following the group show idea up any further.
We then spent the rest of the evening discussing how to best format a specifically collaborative project. Taking the CRITgroup concept as a starting point, we talked about the potential for basing our investigations around the perceived differences between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, as this has been a feature of our conversations in several meetings. This led us on to reflect upon the apparent need to ‘label’ oneself as a particular kind of practitioner (e.g. a ‘photographer’, a ‘painter’, a ‘craft worker’, etc.) and how those descriptions of discipline relate to our methods of approach for producing outcomes (if indeed they do). We eventually formatted three ‘mini projects’ which we now plan to run in order to first pin down and agree a clear research question that can then be used to inform the next working stages of the project. The idea of these is that by introducing particular boundaries or criteria, it will help us flush out key aspects of our respective practices which will better equip us to discuss our area of interest. For brevity, I am not including an outline of these in the text of the blog, however, if you are interested, you can download them. We will be kicking off the first one (which I have since titled ‘Creative Whispers’) at the next meeting which is also the CRITmas Party. If you are interested in collaborating, and I think that first and foremost this is going to be a lot of fun, please download the CRITmas Party invite for further details of getting involved!
So, we approach the end of the first year of CRITgroup and it is with a warm sense of satisfaction that I look forward to celebrating this next month along with more than a hint of excitement for the future of CRITgroup into 2013, especially now with a view to our collaborative proposals!
Don’t forget to have a look at the CRITmas Party and Invitation to Collaborate documents! This is the perfect opportunity to get involved if you’ve been monitoring us from afar but ‘never quite got round’ to popping along. Equally, if your practice in in need of a kick start, revamp or change of direction in the new year, what better way to get the creative cogs turning than a dabble in a group project? We hope to see many of you next month!
We then spent the rest of the evening discussing how to best format a specifically collaborative project. Taking the CRITgroup concept as a starting point, we talked about the potential for basing our investigations around the perceived differences between ‘art’ and ‘craft’, as this has been a feature of our conversations in several meetings. This led us on to reflect upon the apparent need to ‘label’ oneself as a particular kind of practitioner (e.g. a ‘photographer’, a ‘painter’, a ‘craft worker’, etc.) and how those descriptions of discipline relate to our methods of approach for producing outcomes (if indeed they do). We eventually formatted three ‘mini projects’ which we now plan to run in order to first pin down and agree a clear research question that can then be used to inform the next working stages of the project. The idea of these is that by introducing particular boundaries or criteria, it will help us flush out key aspects of our respective practices which will better equip us to discuss our area of interest. For brevity, I am not including an outline of these in the text of the blog, however, if you are interested, you can download them. We will be kicking off the first one (which I have since titled ‘Creative Whispers’) at the next meeting which is also the CRITmas Party. If you are interested in collaborating, and I think that first and foremost this is going to be a lot of fun, please download the CRITmas Party invite for further details of getting involved!
So, we approach the end of the first year of CRITgroup and it is with a warm sense of satisfaction that I look forward to celebrating this next month along with more than a hint of excitement for the future of CRITgroup into 2013, especially now with a view to our collaborative proposals!
Don’t forget to have a look at the CRITmas Party and Invitation to Collaborate documents! This is the perfect opportunity to get involved if you’ve been monitoring us from afar but ‘never quite got round’ to popping along. Equally, if your practice in in need of a kick start, revamp or change of direction in the new year, what better way to get the creative cogs turning than a dabble in a group project? We hope to see many of you next month!
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