Conveyor belts and Snobbery

So today has been very long and tiring having spent most of the day in the workshops with Ruth. Also we ran into Stephen who offered us a space in a bigger studio, at first we were nervous about accepting it because it seems like a big place to fill but after a chat we decided that it would be silly to decline it, plus it'll allow us to have bigger and more ambitious plans.

We would like to use some conveyor belts to create a "dream factory" but we are going to have to work out where we might be able get them from and whether it is going to be more expensive to buy one or make one. We also face the issue that we are useless at DIY so may have to ask for a few favours.

This evening I went to the Martin Parr talk in the lecture theatre. Honestly I didn't find it of much use and I found him to be incredibly snobby and obsessed with money making issues. It was so built up like some amazing person coming into the college with so many people clawing to be up his rear end, I was expecting them to ask us to stand as he entered the room. His money-mind was especially apparent when he said that he has started to make work on the subject of climate change because it is a way to get published due to the high interest in that subject. Also when he said that his photographic library goes to the state when he dies, that somehow seemed like he was really bigging up his work as if they would really want it all.

He began to talk about the realm of digital photography and about how it makes a lot of photographers work look similar and the only way to make your work individual and unique is to really show your personality and sensitivity with the subject matter. He also mentioned that it may seem easy to take a good photograph but the amount of time and effort is transparent within each photograph and thats what makes it good; the best photograph tackles a difficult subject matter and shows vulnerability.
He kept repeating how it takes an obsessive person to make it; being persistant, serious and working hard. In all honesty I just found him annoying and the hype about him was riddiculous.

Next week I'm going to go on the art walk in Leeds, hopefully that will be of use to me. In the meantime I'm going to attempt to track down a conveyor belt.

Dream Factories

For this project I am collaborating with Ruth. We have been looking into the theme of dreams and nightmares and the feelings that surround them.

Today has been a busy day trying to grasp the vast subject of dreams. I spent most of the day in the clay workshop making a dinosaur and then creating a two-part mould for it. I plan on making a baby's mobile with 4 wax dinosaurs hanging from it which are mealted and distorted to try to represent how dreams are not always complete or rational.

I ran into Stephen this afternoon who gave me some really good ideas. He suggested that because we are working in a collaboration we should try to force ourselves to have the same dreams. He also suggested intead of creating an object as a representation of something from a dream we have already had, we should create an item (such as my wax dinosaur) and then try to dream about it. If the dream changes the appearance of the object then we should try to create that as well. Then hopefully we should end up with a table of before and after, effectively becoming dream factories.

I've been researching the most common dreams tonight. Apparently the most common are:
being chased, missing an important event because you are late, finding yourself naked at work or school, falling, flying, losing your teeth and snakes.
I've never had a dream about a snake though, unless you count a long necked dinosaur.