Eureka Moment: Visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Photographs: 

Risograph Outcomes

Lino Outcomes

Collaborative Lino

I like the prospect of "experiential art" much more than I initially thought I would. The Yorkshire Sculpture Park was a beautiful location to just enjoy making and creating in different ways that I wouldn't have associated with my practice a number of years ago! Responding to sound, texture and my own words, rather than the visual, really pushed me out of my comfort zone but it was rewarding to find I can still make art with other processes. My initial worry was that this was going be an observational drawing exercise and, as someone who has lost the majority of their sight this past year, the trip filled me with slight terror. Learning more about experiential art, logging my personal journey and my own responses made this so much more individual and integral to my self-growth as a person and an illustrator. Being outside and amongst nature, rather than in the studio, was extremely therapeutic and advantageous for my outcomes and my mental health showing a positive effect in my work. To be working with constraints of particular colours, sizes and within a certain time frame helped me not to overthink these aspects, as I often do. I found the collaboration part of the brief difficult as it is hard to relinquish control of my work but I was surprised by the outcomes of the risograph prints and how well my pieces work well with someone else's in terms of the composition. The lino collaboration was a struggle as someone had printed twice instead of leaving a space for me and when we tried to redo it, not everyone reprinted. This has soured my feelings of collaboration and furthering thoughts that mistakes are made in groups, rather than working solitary, and not everyone is mindful of others and their abilities. To be made aware of a collaborative booklet with my peers, putting my work into a printed context, conveying visual language of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a delight. We all went to the same place but experienced different things!

I didn't have as much time in the print room with lino as I'd like, with having a small group of people also using the facilities and a limited amount of time for demos on cutting, inking, using the press, hand printing and cleaning up the inks and tools. It took me a little while to carve out my lino stamp just how I wanted it, with limited vision and no sighted assistance, which I am very proud of! I was able to complete one hand print, one Albion press print and one ghost print along with one red and blue print for the group collage. As soon as those were done it was time to clean and out things away.

I would have loved to experiment with lino printing more as I was really getting into it! I mocked up a few things in Photoshop that I would have done if I had more time:

 

I love how playful these are, adding another dimension to my sculpture park experience, mixing colours, angles and ghost prints, and filling the canvas in different ways. 

EXPERIMENTING MAKES ME EXCITED!