Saturday 17 October 2015

A Cultural Vandal's Favourite Things (October 2015)

While attending a meeting in Glasgow (regarding the newsletter I work on at NAS) I was persuaded to do a piece of work for an art competition NAS is holding. The theme is "My Favourite..." and the winners get to be exhibited in a gallery in London.

I couldn't say no.

As I liked a lot of things (as evident on this blog) the obvious medium was collage. Work on it began last week, with me pondering what to put on it. Then I had an awesome idea - burn on a DVD a selection of video clips, music tracks and images of things I like, then shatter it and stick the fragments onto the collage. At the same time I had another idea - the base should be the musical notation of the song "My Favourite Things" by Rodgers and Hammerstein (from The Sound of Music (which isn't one of my favourite things, but its a cool idea, considering the theme). After sourcing the dark blue A2 card (my favourite colour) I printed out the sheet music of the song.

After that it was the task of selecting and printing the images of the stuff I like onto photo-paper (as regular plain paper produces a haze filter on photos if printed by inkjet). A special case was the Lego DeLorean, which I have photographed especially for this piece.

After the very laborious task of cutting out the things with craft knife/scissors the items were arranged and stuck down using PVA glue. I deliberately places the items in a way it covered the text of the music sheet but left enough for someone who can read musical notation to work out what the song is (as if the title of the work (and the theme of the show, I imagine) would give the viewer a massive clue).

I handed in the final piece yesterday. 

But I did take a few pics of it before hand. 

And this is one of them....


This photo was taken before its mounting onto a thick sheet of black paper-board backing to prevent bending during transportation to Glasgow to hand it in.

I imagine this piece will stand out from the crowd, as I imagine most participants on the contest would paint or draw their favourite things, such as their pets or One Direction (I hear their a big thing with the kids these days). Maybe the gallery show would be like that Big Alphabet draw event took part in back in July. But in the end, the idea that something I made could be on display in London next month kind of excites me.

UPDATE - This piece will be on exhibit in Glasgow from Friday 11th to Sunday 27th March in the basement of a coffee shop called Offshore. Its part of an exhibit relating to the competition it was entered. I didn't win... but I don't care. I'm not that egoistical. I'm happy by the fact that people are able to see it in a public space. 
Oh, I should say (after I visited the place today to check it out before the exhibition begins) that the enterence to the exhibit space is well hidden from view when you enter the place. The flight of stairs that leads to the basement room are hidden behind the counter. You'll see it if you look around the left-hand side of the counter. If somehow you still can't find it, ask a friendly staff member (that's how I found it).

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