Feedback From My Hangout Group on A Day in a Life.

I have had this project in mind for some time.  I have always been fascinated by going back into the past to be a 'fly on the wall' and I think that this project using my mother's writing has done that.  I also have a theory that the landscape holds memories and this project is a way of exploring that idea.  As part of my networking I have become involved with a group of artists as part of the Arts Meridian initiative led by curator Linda Ingham.  Although continued Arts Council funding for the group failed to materialise, Linda encouraged us to continue as a self supported group included in which are painters, ceramicist, textile artists, sculptures, printers and myself as a photographer.  A title for our initial project was agreed: A Day in a Life (inspired by the Beatles song), with a view to exhibit later this year.  This was an ideal opportunity to begin work on my project using my mother's writing.  I had also discussed the project with my tutor during my feedback for Assignment 5 and he suggested that it would be good to submit the project, even as a work in progress, as part of my submission for final assessment in order to show evidence of sustaining my practice.

I have been working on the project over the last couple of months.  As well as my own contemporary images which I took while retracing my mother's journey at the same time of year as her day out, I have gathered images from our family archive, old maps and images from the internet and, of course, my mother's writing.

As part of my research I was recommended to read the paper: Photographs and Signatures: Absence, Presence and Temporality in Barthes and Derrida by Lori Wike.  I found this work fascinating and relevant when comparing my mother's personal writing, my own contemporary images and archive images.  I will write my thoughts on this paper in a future blog.

I shared the work with my Hangout Group on Thursday 12th July.

Overall the work was received positively by the group and they made very useful and helpful comments which will enable me to take the work forward.

All of the group felt that my typed text did not work well when it was part of the image as in numbers 1 - 20.  It was felt that it perhaps worked better when set out in book format in numbers 21 - 40.  However, despite being my mothers words, it was felt that the typed version did not work.  One suggestion was that I might extract my mother's own writing and use that as a caption or even rely on her writing as part of the image, even if the viewer had to look very carefully in order to tease out the image.  It was suggested by one that perhaps I was directing the viewer too much.  One person argued that the actual handwriting contains the essence of the person and this was lost if I type out the words, even if the writing is difficult to read as part of the image.  One excellent suggestion was that the words could be spoken instead of typed and form part of an audio visual presentation.  If I read the words it would be a direct link to my mother.  I am very taken with this idea and may well do this as well as exhibiting the work on a gallery wall or in a book.

One person liked the way that I had 'cut out' the photo of my mother in the first image and perhaps I could try that with other photographs.

It was generally agreed that consistency of presentation was lacking in the work; it was currently too haphazard.  I agree with this.  This is my first draft of the work and I have left it experimental in order to see what works and what doesn't, but I now need to work on consistency of approach.

There was some discussion on whether it was better to leave my mother's handwriting blue as I had converted some to black and white.  The general consensus was that I should leave it blue.

One person suggested that it was more difficult to respond emotionally to images of buildings and also that it worked better when none of the layers were opaque.

One member of the group felt that the execution of the work was very good, although there were some consistency issues.  This person felt that the second set, set out in book format worked better although my typed text was too modern.  It was felt that the images were too busy.

I also showed the work the same evening to a portfolio group to which I belong.  The agreed with much of what the Hangout group commented and also made the suggestion that I could try converting my contemporary images to sepia.

One member of the group couldn't make the hangout, but very kindly responded by email.  Many of the comments agreed with the rest of the group especially on the work being too busy with too many layers. Another point of agreement was that the actual handwriting was more important than my typed version.  Perhaps the images could be simplified by just using the maps and images and cropping the piece of handwriting that I wanted and using that as a caption, perhaps on the opposing page if using a book format.  The point that I really like is to produce the work in a journal format and physically layering the images, maps and prints to make a collage., perhaps experimenting with textures and giving a 3D rather than 2D outcome.

All in all some excellent feedback and plenty to think about in order to further develop the work.  My thanks go to the group.