Week 01 : Recovering a Sense of Safety

Join me for a new series of The Artist Way!

Before the detailed feedback and write up of the experience, the self-enquiry and final thoughts on the whole experience, I want to park here some of the pictures I have taken of the process, starting with the [ingenious] system I used to hang the paper since nothing was available: And here are some of the pictures I have taken along the way, starting from yesterday: And then moving on to today: And this is now the “final piece”: #cryptgallery #research #abstract #london #res

It’s Thursday afternoon, and everything is almost ready for me to go. I don’t actually even know how I got to this moment, where my large suitcase is full, on the floor in my living room, waiting for me to grab it, jump on a coach, and wake up tomorrow morning in London. But from tomorrow, for 3 days, I will be doing / performing / making / showing … my before nothing in a gallery in London, at The Crypt. There have been back and forth of emails and plans, and cancellation of

I have written, created a mind map, and paced up and down this library trying to make sense of my ideas. And then, while flicking through some books and jotting down more ideas, I have come up with what I believe is the perfect synthesis of my project: before nothing Because the viewer sits and watches a white canvas turning into a painting / drawing but which is Nothing until the artist says that it is finished; Because the Artist, as human-in-a-cage to be observed and analy

I am still looking for a name to give to the project, a brief definition, unique and personal but universal at the same time. And I believe that not having the “perfect wording” yet means that I haven’t defined nor circumscribed what I am intending to do, to a T. In the meantime, I am linking here the two videos I made yesterday, this time not using the headphones but still listening to the music. YouTube silenced one of the songs, so you might hear just a couple of minutes o

After the first experiment the other day – yesterday! – I decided to go larger and wider and louder. I have been listening to a compilation I made ages ago, on Spotify, titled “my writing vibe” and I collected cardboard pieces on the studio, propped them as good as I could, asked my fellow colleague M. to be as quiet as possible since I was recording, and off I went into my creative frenzy. I have made three videos of the process in order to make sure that something was recor

After reading the first material, I wanted to try what it would feel doing what I have been having in my mind for a while. When everyone left the studio, I grabbed a large piece of cardboard, propped it against a whiteboard, set the video recording, locked the room, got the music ready. The music I have been drawing to is Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major, the famous piece. My mother’s favourite. Here following is a version with Itzhak Perlman as soloist: I d

I am writing this post after my first two university interviews and two UAL Awarding Body Standardisation events. Basically, in one week I presented my body of work twice via portfolio and twice via PowerPoint Presentation. Both instances meant that somehow my work, my act of “being an artist”, and in the end my abilities to present and I have been judged. When I deliver workshops I always go out, sit with a coffee and think: tell me at least three things that went well, thre

I am writing this post now, on this Blue Monday, because the task of designing and creating a portfolio is finally finished. I only need to go through it tomorrow and maybe add a couple of things but the whole process is finally finished, ended, done. And I hated every moment of it. [ps: it's not true, it's not true] I found it overwhelming, emotionally draining, complicated, constraining,  incomprehensible. And I felt that my life was in the hands of : the printers the tutor

On Tue 10 DEC I went into College with the idea of working in the corridor (or how I call it: The Gallery) and potentially finish the whole project. I feel I am at a point where this project can end here: I am ready to finish it and put it out there for a critique. And then learn and move on. Little did I know that while being there in the morning and chatting with Kim and then with Jamie, I had another couple of ideas I wanted to explore and to add to the piece. Here are som

This is all about experimenting and the need for belonging, as realised at the end. Being at College and noticing all my colleagues who seem so good in drawing and painting, spurred me into trying. I bought a new set of colours and brushes. And watched videos. I was writing part of the story and then I was feeling the need to visually create the location, that house, that bridge. I was looking at artists I liked, hating them with a vengeance and envying them for their abiliti

This is the original video recording of my pitch / presentation re. the FMP, as presented on Tue 5 NOV 2019. This following is a video recording I did following the presentation, showing the PowerPoint Presentation and adding more slides on extra work done. Enjoy! #ual #blackburncollege #pitch #fad #blackburn #fmp

I felt so protective and there she goes, covering everything! And here I am thinking: that’s it, done, ruined it forever.

Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien, Sinome maruvan are Hildinyar, Tenn’ Ambar-metta, I hum to myself while walking upstairs.

I want to dress like a combination of Lara Croft, Indiana Jones and Dr Hodgins (satchel and all), be adventurous...

I set off with 5 of my pieces in plaster and went there. I chose the pieces carefully and I went there. I made sure that my camera was fully charged, the laptop ready, the sun hidden behind some clouds, that I had all possible needed connections, cables, phones, wifi. That the coffee was warm, that I had some food with me; and I went there. I went there. It’s incredible how the mind plays tricks on you: I cannot remember things I did or places I was in the company of some peo

Following for the idea of the disposable sentences and the influx-by-Fluxus, I created some chatterboxes: they are disposable, made of paper, hand-folded, funny, ironic, sarcastic… basically, everything I wanted to convey. Some of them contained made-up sentences, others “stolen” phrases from John Cage’s 1959 Lecture on Nothing (here). From a self-development as an artist, I noticed how my own concept of art, making and creating has dramatically changed. I stepped into that l

And then, one day, I had a tutor mentioning me to have a look at FLUXUS… and my world just opened up and new ideas came rushing in and flew out, running after each other, and dancing in the rain in the middle of a street in a cacophony of music and sounds and deafening silence: I found a way which justified and validated my Self. I didn’t feel poor man’s Matilde anymore, misunderstood and mocked for her ideas, but I felt invested and complete. My first thoughts were to find t

I have accepted to take a risk and on Wed 7 Nov I have stood in front of my class in the lecture theatre and presented my work so far. I was tense, feeling vulnerable, and I knew I was taking a risk: I was the first one, I have a creative past most people didn’t know about, I have about 30 years of extra experience compared to my fellow students, some clear ideas, a lot of confusion, and I felt very much a fish out of the water. I have re-run same and recorded the audio of th