FMP

FMP Breif.

My FMP project is called ‘Biography’ as soon as I get put with something I a click happens in my head and clogs start moving… but the most challenging thing in the hole of this project has been writing my brief. Through-out this project I’ve sivved through a pretty enormous range of project themes and because this is the first project I’ve had to do all myself, no specific title or theme, I’ve looked in every nook and cranny, I started out with nature, then moved onto recycled artwork, then moved onto African culture, once again moved onto 60s kitch theme because I’ve always been fascinated by it, by the whole Stepford housewives thing. But I just didn’t feel like I wanted to do any of this, so I sat down and thought, biography, just one person, so I chose Amy Winehouse, because I love her edgy culture, her kitch beehive look and her attitude. 

Then my thoughts blossomed why just do Amy? I started doing art about other celebs and looking deep into why we put them on a pedestool and want to be famous? All my life I’ve grown up with this false sense of the glamorous fame life that I’ve aspired to have….how shady the word famous is…

Fame is a lonely, 24/7, whirlwind of abuse, pressure and just like a hound hunt. Being in the limelight all the time can cause a sense of suffocation, like you have all these eyes watching you constantly, following your every move. Another feeling is loneliness, you could have all these people following you and wanting to be with you, but you can’t live a proper life, can’t go out and see people, date people because the press is always one step behind you and the public will always have something to say about you. You find it hard just walking down to the corner shop or just generally walking anywhere because of your status qo, like I was waiting for my bus the other day (not like you see many celebs at bus stops) and this old lady came up talking about how her tele broke and her son doesn’t get back from Spain until nine and how she would miss corrie, you don’t get those random but needed conversations with absolute strangers that ground you back to earth and make you feel normal. Being famous and having all that money can attract people, and what struck me is people aren’t nicer to you….they don’t respect you, they respect your money, they see pound signs in their eyes and that causes a false sense of relationships, and the everyday question are they just with me for my money? Charities will right to you pleading for money, hounding you. Old friends start popping up and being a little too nice to be true and sponging off you. Like I’ve seen some amazing artists in little studios and living off nothing who could make a success from just one exhibition and asked, why do you not show your work? Some say ‘can’t be assed’ and some say ‘ because I’m happy, I’m doing fine and I don’t want any more than I’ve got’ that they don’t want to be known, if they can live happily from whatever they are doing why do any more than needed. Just because your famous doesn’t mean you get out of peer pressure from others, drugs and alcohol and the rock and roll lifestyle, can sometimes take the lives of these talented souls such as Amy, why did she feel like she needed to take drugs? Why did she hide away and not do as many tours as requested? Why did she feel that on the night of her death to take so many substances to take her life? Some celebrities find themselves in seldom and take serenity in drugs and alcohol whereas in reality, just talking to others and not trying to prove your Rock and roll status or just not being able to afford drugs can find serenity In the nature of the world.

All my life I’ve wanted to be this big I am, this jet-set person who is a household name and brag’s the high life…. And now? I want nothing more than a sustainable job, a normal life. This project being biography kind of took a turn for auto biography thinking about wanting to be famous but also analysing fame in itself and how much of a understatement it is and how it can make or break some celebrities. So basically my biography project is about the bitch fame and is named ‘The Fame Game’. 

Jennifer Collier

Jenifer collier is a creator and master at paperwork, I’m not talking about office paperwork . Im talking about breathing an image, a creation into fifty pence per piece of paper and making it a priceless and thought provoking piece of art.

From frilly frocks to explorers goggles she’s explored them all through tea  bags and wax, paper and fabric. Her style is home-made housewives and I love it. It’s fascinating to see how she puts them all together; she must carry the patience of a saint to pull that off! She is not willing to shy away her secrets by holding classes to teach her skills to the public, luckily my mum took part in one and showed me how to do it and now I can’t stop! I’ve made a bag out of tea-bags, a dress, shoes and a face collage with my own actually (pricey) hair extensions! It’s not hard to do it but it can be quite testy.

Jennifer is very precise and talented with her sewing machine; she holds all her work together with stitching. I love her confidence with common house objects making them into a piece of art. She traps objects in tea bags ad wax and turns them into a dress or…..a pair of wellies, the randomness is never ending with her work, what I loveeeee is her common interest with what she is making, say she’s making a suitcase, she makes them out of maps with the common thing of travelling, a type writer out of writing paper, its well put together and thought out and you can see the craftsmanship and talent in her work and I love it and tread very slowly n her footsteps. Practise makes perfect!

I wanted to see what approach i could take from Graphics with my project the 'The Fame Game' and how i could portray some of the people id chosen to study to show some of the traits with the pictures, so i chose to use Photoshop, mainly because i know more on that than any other, and chose some images of the Internet and thought about what they are really known for, all talented people but, if you said Amy Winehouse and thought of the first thing that came to your head i think of her raging drug addiction and how much of a shame it was to let it take over her as much as it did and eventually take her life. John Lennon, The Beatles, the most extraordinary and British band to ever walk this earth, Bob Marley, known for his 'cool as a cucumber' attitude to life and the enormous amount of weed he smoked, Audry Hepburn, known best for the character in breakfast at Tiffany's, a woman of beauty and class, she has an extraordinary personality but shades her real self and puts on a persona for all the swish men she hangs with until she meets the love of her life. 

'Film Star'

I love this one, I do, it took so long, so much patience and a whole new language that I had shouted out through-out making this. 

Marilyn has been a big part of our culture American or not she has postmarked herself and her story all over the world and her careerer and antics are known through out generations. I chose to include it in my project because of her promiscuous personality and her cheeky sense of humour that touched every heart the day her death arrived. She too struggled with being famous i think, with a report of tireless drug abuse she never really coped with handling the fame all to well and she fits right into what I am trying to portray in my project. 

The collage was honestly done because id been rooting through my stuff and found old cassette tapes from decorating my room with them all last year, then I had bought an old film roll? carrier? what ever its called and put the two together, I stuck it all down with PVA glue. But before i start any piece I look at how others have done it and it what way have they done, so I just Google'd to see what anyone had done and found this brilliant artist called Erika Iris Simmons, her work really inspired me and pushed me to finish it and i love mine, obviously not even in the same laugh as hers but for a first? Id say it is ok...

'Ye old Vimto box'. 

Theres actually a really funny story with this and i will try to tell you in as little words as possible. But this is one of my teacher (kim)'s favourite possesions that at the the time, we didnt knwo and she brought it in because it had loads of cute, kind of kitch, collage stuff that she said we could use, and one onf my classmates Eve just destorys anyything he can lay his hands of to make it into one of his artworks so seeing this box he must of thought, goldust because he has cut it all up and said everyone could use it, and it did look desirable at the time for a collage so me and my friend beth took some of it and the next day she came in ranting a raving demading on of our my precious things in trade for the vimto box and i could not in a million years give up mine and finding out her kind of wine from colleges me and beth bought her wine and a 'sorry for your loss' card, i think shes still waiting for eves gift of appology  but yeah, she eventually got a new  but old vimto box from another techer who had a few so shes now a happy chappy. But i didnt end up using this until to end of my project, just incase she hadnt quite got over it yet. But the moral of that story is never leave Eve with a stanley knife and your ost preciuos box. 

ANYWAY. i do rather like it, to make the holes, i used this, i think its called a leather hole puncher> stronger than others? But yeah and in using this i found out it punches these little gold rings into just about any material and need something no line to break up the kindof 'box' ragueme. I found an old price marker of a sewing magaine and needed to use that on one and i cant tell you why i place things where i do ive tried and tried to explain this but all i can say is i move everything that i wantn in the collage, add and remove until i feel like its working. 

'Organised Chaos' 

This is kind of a summery of me...organised chaos, the periodic table is something that really captures my imagination....i know nothing that atually in it but its the way its presented, every box has a mix or different stuff that all makes the one thing, all organised and boxed up. See, im a bit of an organiser like everynight i lay out an outfit for College which i will probably change in the split ten mins i have left in the morning and organsie my bag but nothing tidy....its all just placed where i know i will find it and other stuff i may or may not need... bit crazy, i know. 

So the flower, start kindof pattern on the bottom is actaully a boutique, which is like sketching an image on to muslin with wax and filiing in the lines with ink, then ironing over the top to clear the wax away. So then i added some old oil painting tubes that had drid up that i found in kind of the same colours, and added the periodic table on top. You could say it kind of represents a chemical explosion tying it into the periodic table..ort a growing of differet elements but i do my work to open the mind of the viewer and let them decide what is represents.

'Signs of a no mans land'.

This is an experiemnt to see how i place certain shapes and why I put things together, but it think what i put together is just for what i see that i like, i love textured work and kindof 3D not 3D lieka sculpter or none of that hologram crap, i mean that hint of 3D like a really think acyrilic painting or some thing just coming out of the picture. Im a complex mind... and useless at describimg things in such 'one see's this is the picture' ways, i am who i am. 

John Spedding.

John Spedding is my fave fave fave artists, he local to me with his studio just in Waterfoot and he’s as mad as a hatter. I got in touch with him and gladly obliged to an interview in his studio.  John was born in Liverpool, on the date of 26/8/67. He studied at Exeter Art College and is now a self-made artist.

Johns work consists of the seen and the unseen; he uses numbers, words and completely random pictures on his pieces and very often layers his work. The most frequent number he uses is the number three, johns meaning to that number is that most things turn into a three like, egg and bacon turn into a fry up or a man and a woman turn into a couple which is pretty trippy when you think about it but then, your nodding your head saying yeah…true.

The words in his work all come down to what music he is listening to at that time and the lyrics he likes. He gets his inspiration from just about anything and everything, from images off the tele to the internet. Sometimes he will search a word on the internet then either looked at some information about it and find a sentence which could be ‘three policemen picked flowers, then paint three policemen, then search flower in images on the internet and choose the most the related picture there. This mad crazy way of doing is work means the every one of his pieces is unique and random and they’re all full of colour, to get this bright colour he uses emulsion paint and paint pens. John says ‘It’s whatever material and paints I have at the time’. He usually paints onto different sizes of MDF wood.

His pieces can start from one simple image but grow into a whole creation of work, when finished, if he doesn’t like it, he just paints over it, he might leave a bit of the old one and add a new bit, expanding his work into unique and mid exploring artwork. I asked John to describe his work in three words ‘Chunky, Funky and Tribal’.