R&M1: Claudia Kappenberg

On methodologies

[Points in italics are my own insertions]

To offset the dryness of the material, Claudia chopped up and positioned juicy fruit and veg inbetween making her points.  Some of these positionings could be interpreted as enhancing these points.

Methodology n. 1 a body of methods and rules employed by a science or discipline 2 the analysis of the principles or procedures of enquiry in a particular field (Longmans dictionary)

Research methodologies incorporate theory and practice.  How do they work? – this is the source of ongoing debate.  Here are a few possibilities:

1.  Jim Mooney argues that the scientific paradigm which tends to be used is inappropriate as it cannot cope with the narrative quality of much contemporary art.  For Deleuze this scientific model is arborescent – linear and constraining.  He proposes instead a rhizomatic model which has multiple roots emanating  from a centre 

So if I make a piece of art, that could be seen as a centre into which various ideas feed and from which other ideas emanate.

2.  JM argues that the methodology could mimic the art-making in agglomerating various strands, combining high levels of information (without impeding communication) and recording fluidly

And some of those strands might derive from and feed back into the art work.

3.  A model of translation and resistance to translation, where translation means a kind of crossing over between practice and theory that sets up a disturbance i.e. an unsettling of familiar interpretations.  Barthes suggests that this leads to a re-ordering and creation of new meaning.  

So my art process might be ‘disturbed’ by new ideas, or generate disturbing new ideas for the theorist.

4.  Umberto Eco in ‘The Open Work’ writes of a mutually interpreting relationship between the two, an open dialogue.  

5.  Hide argues that accidents are needed to bring change into an orderly system.  Jacques Monod suggests this happens where two causal chains cross paths (symbolized in Yoruba culture by the trickster who stands at the crossroads) 

So I-in-my-art-process might bump into a new idea (itself part of a process) which encourages me to move in a different direction.

How do methodologies relate?  Perhaps in a piecemeal, shifting way.

The values of the interpretant are crucial, shaping conclusions which are therefore by nature subjective.

New art may require new methodologies, and methodologies can provide a framework out of which new artwork emerges, they can inform artwork (e.g. Susan Hiller, Louise Bourgeois)

The Crumb Road

Talk by Buddhist poet, Maitreyabandhu
at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre 27 October

Prizewinning poet Maitreyabandhu was interviewed about his work and read from his latest collection, The Crumb Road.

The point that most interested me and which related to my own concerns was about what connection he saw between writing poetry and his meditation practice.  Like me he was very aware of the danger inherent in creativity of inflating the ego through wanting attention and recognition for his work.  But he said that he had come to see each as 'a path or gateway into depth', that each was a way of going beyond his present limitations, of venturing into the unknown.  

Suddenly the two came into alignment for me, two paths but one direction.

Eccleshall Woods

Sunlit leaves 

 As we walk in the woods I ask Dan, what is the difference between looking at these leaves, translucent in the late October sunshine, and those that appear solid, opaque.  He says you can see more serrations, they're more complex and interesting. 
For me it's the quality of light in them, they're filtering, giving me access to the sun which is the source of life and energy; they make me feel more alive, joyful.

Are these always properties of something translucent?

Paper at Saatchi Gallery

Han Feng, Floating world 2008
I made an immediate connection between this work and my own tracing paper structures.

It consists of photos of buildings laser-printed on to tracing paper and folded into 3-d forms, suspended from the ceiling with fishing tackle thread.

This is a 21st century version of Japanese 'floating world' woodblock prints showing the ephemeral realm of urban entertainments, produced between the 17th and 20th centuries. This reference enhances the significance of the work.

The buildings literally float in space, at the mercy of the slightest current of air, pointing to the fragility of the 21st century city that seems so solid to us.  This fragility is further underlined by the delicate appearance of the paper, its rough torn edges, the lack of any supporting foundation.

Its complexity and movement draw the eye in and invite reflection.

Serpentine

noticed at the Serpentine Gallery

Sou Fujimoto's pavilion: the overlapping acrylic discs out of which it is made permit different depths of seeing, but after several months have accumulated an interesting grime:

Marisa Merz exhibition: structures knitted with fine copper wire (she was part of Arte Povera) and suspended against a wall, layering creating different degrees of opacity; two floorworks made of what looked like taped together sheets of tracing paper with melted wax pooled between.

ArtSpace week in Cornwall

Art and meditation retreat 
at the Bluff Centre, Trecknow

I co-led this week with my good friend Vilokini, an MA printmaking student, for artists within our Buddhist tradition (the Triratna movement - http://thebuddhistcentre.com). There were 10 of us altogether in this beautiful guesthouse on a clifftop overlooking a stretch of the north Cornish coast.

Over the week I set out to explore:
1.  how our art and meditation practices could influence one another
2.  how I would respond visually to the environment

1. art and meditation
We began and ended each day with meditating together and also had a period of ritual puja at the end of each afternoon.  We quite naturally fell into silence during the day, a time in which it was possible to be quite deeply focused on our art.  In the evenings we shared what we were doing or watched art films.

Most of us noticed early on that meditation was having a positive effect on our art, making us more receptive to our surroundings and to creative ideas, but not necessarily the other way round! - minds were more distracted than usual by thoughts of the day's projects.  However as the week wore on I found myself growing more spacious around these: they were after all just thoughts like any others and I could practise watching the thinking mind trying to seize hold of them, control the creative process.  

Being aware of my body in meditation also made me realise that I was getting very driven in some of my artwork, creating stresses on my body that I was ignoring.  This encouraged me to work in a gentler way.

It was moving to be connected with the others in letting our work flourish together.

2. my visual responses to the environment 
I went out walking each day and built up a bank of photos to work from.  I experimented with: collaging outlines of the cliffs and hills, and of marks in the sand left by the receding tide; relief printing of lichen shapes using sticky-back foam; closely packed linear scratchings marking my out-breaths.  All on tracing paper.

The work I was most pleased with, however, and which I want to continue on my return, was inspired by Mira Schendel's Variants and the title of her work 'Little Nothings'. Walking back up the cliff track one morning I was drawn to the plant fragments in the hedgerow: decaying stems, dried remains of flowers and seedheads. Things that normally go unnoticed, that are passing out of existence.  I made small (10 x 15cm) etched drawings of these on tracing paper and hung them vertically with transparent thread. They are hard to see, hardly there - 'almost nothings' - an expression of the Buddhist teaching of insubstantiality (that nothing has a fixed state of being).  I felt in these I was giving expression visually to what I have learnt and absorbed in meditation.

I'm imagining hundreds of these hanging together, catching the light, in a way that people can move amongst them.

Mira Schendel

exhibition at Tate Modern

I read a review of this exhibition and knew I needed to go because of close-sounding similarities with my own work.  I went with some fear, that she might have already trodden the path I was just starting on!

Mira was an Italian Jewish refugee who produced work from the 1950s to 1980s in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Some of her influences were similar to mine: textiles, architectural forms, Eastern philosophy, Chinese calligraphy.  Initially a painter, in 1964 she was given a stack of rice paper which is soft and semi-transparent, and from then on used this material to create some 2000 works.

Sheets with drawn forms, or letters written and transferred (she was employed as a graphic artist), placed between acrylic sheets and discs and suspended; overlapping collaged sheets; paper worked on both sides, each visible viewed through the other; books made of transparent pages; blank sheets hung on a horizontal line.

Great delicacy and beauty, the works interacting with light, their own shadows and the empty space around.

'. . . I would say the line, often, just stimulates the void.'

'. . . while pursuing transparency as an issue I arrive at the object'

'. . . what really counted was the light and shade cast on the wall. . . '

At the level of form this really worked, the formal qualities communicate a lot.  BUT on top of this she loaded more: slogans, lines of poetry written in different languages, symbols from maths and physics, ideas from western and eastern philosophy (particularly relating form and 'void') - all incomprehensible except to a few.  So the formal transparency is offset by often impenetrable meanings, meanings which are not available from the work itself but require further research to bring out. 

This underlined for me that in my own work I want to trust in what is visual to communicate what I have to say.

My research statement

Translucent

Aims and objectives

o               To develop an initial exploration of working in 2- and 3-dimensions with tracing paper, expanding this to include other translucent papers and possibly materials such as resin
o   To create through this process the space for my understandings as a Buddhist and meditator to emerge visually e.g. as embodying through the quality of translucency some aspect of illumination/clearer seeing or being; in changing or impermanent works; in expressive word form
o   To use siting and lighting of work to optimize the paper’s qualities

At the moment I have three separate things that I want to get working together over the course: a kind of material, various media and a set of ideas relating to Buddhism.

By the end of the course I would like to have created a large-scale installation for a public space.

What the work will involve

I will be developing some of the stronger ideas from my initial experiments – a project entitled ’50 things I can do with tracing paper’ - while remaining open to different possibilities.  So the work will be an experimental process of working on and constructing with translucent papers, using different media. These will include  cutting and tearing as mark-makers, relief printing and creating sculptural forms.

The direction of my work is definitely into the 3-dimensional.

I will be looking for sites for my work which provide a light source that enhances their translucency and which invite contemplation.  Ideally these would be spacious indoor sites with strong natural lighting.

Starting research for the work

In recent years I have been absorbing the influences of artists working with paper, textiles and light; also of architects, and artists interested in expressing a spiritual dimension in their work.

Moving into the MA course, I’d like to take this further – I’m currently interested in Japanese textile artists such as Reiko Sudo; also Brice Marden, Rebecca Salter, Mariko Mori, Zarina.

My work is also influenced by reading of and reflection on Buddhist texts.