LOLA, or The Girl Who Lost Her Mind.

2012, film school was coming to a close and I realised too late, that I wished I had had the balls & the ego, to pursue directing and it's specific creative tyranny.

I also realised that to make a film you don't need much, not really.

And so, with the help of three close friends, the talented Nat B, Bene L &  E Rogers, we workshopped two characters for one week, in my bedroom.

The resulting story, about two girls who torture animals for fun, was bleak at the best of times. We had improvised everything from the moment they met, the height of their fascination with one another, to the moment Alice visits Lola 5 years later, in an institution.

We chose to capture the moment Alice confronts Lola and leaves her. 

We shot it in one day.

The edit took three years. 

Possibly nothing is as horrifying as watching the footage you directed over and over and over and over. 

You are made increasingly aware of it's many short fallings technical and otherwise: the lack of varied points of view, of angles, the absence of movement to cut on, how little of what you wanted to convey has made it through the lens, your own general incompetency - it was nightmarish. Over the course of those 3 years I sat down many times to finish the edit, but couldn't.

I was told that I was being hard on myself. Personally, I just think of it as honesty.

After a drunken conversation I finally knew how to finish it. Just cut the shit. Use the rest.

Making sense is over rated in short film.

I think ultimately, it's brief. The narrative is foetal at best, but I let myself hope that the final film is restrained and somewhat emotive. 

And so in 2015, I had finished my first short film, not just that, but it was screened at the Tabacco Factory Theatres in Bristol.

Despite the film's shortcomings, if that isn't a finishing project, what is?

Kate x

147 Days, or Ignore This Post

4 months, 3 weeks, 6 days since I closed STREAKS, moving away from blogging to focus on writing fiction.

And how did that go for you? I hear you wonder.

HAVE YOU WRITTEN A WHOLE NOVEL? You gasp!

No.

I have not. 

What I have done is try to adhere to the two rules I set myself after writing that post:

1. Finish what you start.
2. Be so good they can't ignore you.

I needed to know that once I had a big idea (or a small one) I could see it through. And now, today, I know: I can finish.

Now, while this output is hardly 'so good' it simply CAN'T BE IGNORE, OH MY GOD!  in order for some one to ignore you, you've at least got to be in front of them.

I am abysmal at self promotion. And so: STREAKS. 

This blog has always made me feel comfortable putting my Maxwell shaped voice into the world, and gosh-darn-it, hoping for the best.

Over the next few weeks, I want to share with you some of the things I have finished, as well as some that I have started and hopefully you will think they are, at least a little bit, good.

Truly - Maxwell

Avoid At All Costs, or The Last Post

Those of you who know me well, will know that at any given time, I am working on at least 6 projects at once. I suppose this has characterised me - I would say, 'if you want something done, get a busy person to do it'. 

But, throughout the Great Vagabond year that was 2014, I was hounded by the quiet certainty that I had at long last, too many projects. Zines, short films, poems, spoken word, a novel, a blog, and trying to pin down those basic necessities: a flat & a job.

By the end of 2014 I had a room in a little basement flat (see above) and a mad-cap job at an renewable energy company (no, I'm not sure how that one happened either).

And 2015 began. The basic needs are covered: after nearly 15 months, and upwards of 50 beds/tents/sofas/floors spread over two continents, working on and off as a dish washer, I now have my own roof above my head and my own pillow under my neck. And a stable income. 

So - what's next? Deep inhale. What's next is the barrage of click-bait articles telling me helpfully how to MAKE THE MOST OF THE YEAR TO COME! HOW TO KEEP YOUR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS! And more such self-help inanities. Until... Oliver Burkman's brilliant, cynical piece on the Guardian telling me with great certainty:

"[...] select something to stop doing this year. I don’t mean bad habits, such as injecting heroin or picking your nose; I mean something worthwhile."

And I found myself falling down an 'open in new tab' rabbit hole, of productivity-themed articles that all had one message, loud and clear: Do Less. Focus. 

From the Steve Martin Method ("Be so good they can't ignore you") to Warren Buffett's "Avoid At All Cost" list, and finally the "Power of No", that quiet feeling that I was spreading myself thin became a crashing wave of reality.

Lists were drawn up, gut feelings were assessed and decisions were made. 

It's time to put a few things down.

STREAKS has had many incarnations, since it's first posts as a style blog, I've written about everything and often nothing at all. It was briefly an arts magazine when my ambitions took over and then slimmed down to a music blog when some sense was knocked into me. Everything is still online and will remain that way. But for now, there will be no new posts.

I'll still be listening greedily to all the things (or as many as I can find) so please, if you are curious add me on Last.fm & if you ever want suggestions of things to listen to, I'm on all the social media (check the links on the right hand side) so by all means! Ask! 

There's no knowing if or when I'll be back posting reviews here, but for now - that novel won't write itself.

Until next time - Kate x

ART // Janie George

I recently visited the RWA's 162nd open exhibition, where I discovered the ethereal and dream-like paintings of Janie George.

In her accompanying text she talks about her fascination with "disparate" objects, and more importantly for me, the function of clothing:

"Clothing is a signifier of human aspirations, vulnerability and loss."

I found these words to be extremely potent, and beautiful. They shone new light on her delicate depictions of bonnets, the transformation of a moth's wings into a tender cloak.

I became fixated on these three functions.

Aspiration. Vulnerability. Loss.

Loss.

In all three, clothing serves to hide - hide the reality of our status, making us into something we are not, shielding our delicacy, our wounds from the open & patching up our loss.

Loss. 

What have we lost?

What have we lost that clothing can cover?

Or, alternatively, what is lost that clothing helps us find?

All images are from George's site, which you can find here.

Check out detail of the RWA's exhibition here.

I hope you find both interesting!

If you want to stay up to date with STREAKS, give us a like on facebook!

Hopefully see you here again soon :)

Kate x

// THE PROMETHEUS EDITION // Rodin

Looking at one of Rodin's sculptures is the least passive experience you an have when walking through the V&A. It amazes me how people manage to sidle by without so much as a sideways glance.

Don't they know? Didn't any one tell them? This is a goddamn Rodin!

One in particular - The Fallen Angel, I find particularly compelling. Like poking a bruise. Or rather, punching yourself in the gut. But more of that to come.

Rodin changed the critical and public perception of sculpture. He is heralded as the father of modern sculpture. His pieces provoke an inherently primal response, why? Perhaps it is their extreme poses. Or their extremely natural ones, but perhaps it is best to consider the sculpting process first, as the process is primal in itself.

Indeed, the action of carving, structuring, forming an unformed material into not only logic but beauty and emotion is inherently physical. But as I try to explain the palpable physicality of Rodin's work, I am made maddeningly aware of my ignorance of his process, his method. Google is quick to give me quick answers.

"Instead of copying traditional academic postures, Rodin preferred his models to move naturally around his studio (despite their nakedness).^[7]The sculptor often made quick sketches in clay that were later fine-tuned, cast in plaster, and forged into bronze or carved in marble. Rodin's focus was on the handling of clay.^{[48]"  -  From Wiki.}

Jianou, Ionel & Goldscheider, C. (1967). Rodin. Paris: Arted, Editions d'Art.  
Morey, C. R. (1918). "The Art of Auguste Rodin". The Bulletin of the College Art Association of America

[As if my "to read" list wasn't long enough]

From observation of life to the final forgery and carving, the process is one of physical creation - life is given from the tips of his fingers to the balls of his hands. 

The act of creation is, in it's essence, a visceral act.

And so, from the viewer's perspective, this transforms into a visceral experience, that is to experience something in our guts, in our insides. It is an experience of crude, primitive emotion. A visceral reaction is intrinsically un-intellectual. It opposes the outcomes of the great classical sculptures. They are steeped in mythology, allegory and symbolism. They are the product of an obsession with an arguably academic notion of beauty. 

Rodin has no desire to hide behind allegory. He gives us despair. And flesh. And weeping. 

He gives us the body in it's most contorted horrors and it's unadultered platitudes.

And it is here that the form, the medium within which he creates is so fundamental. Sculpture: the medium that allows for radical and absolutely consumption by it's audience. Indeed, from it's conception, through Rodin's method of clay sketches, to it's final state in bronze or marble, it exists in three tangible dimensions. It is beyond the illusory shadows of cinema, the gloss of the photograph, the canvas-bound representations of painting, and the printed cage of words, these forms are by their nature, surface.

In sculpture Rodin stands before you - humanity is here. Pain and torment, passion and lust. Thought itself stands solid and substantial before us. 

I wanted to talk specifically about The Fallen Angel (which is on display at the V&A, so get to it!).

As we move around the pedestal on which these two figures contort in their suffering, we are God-like. In our position as observer we become a character in the scenario cast in bronze. We are part of the power play, the status struggle.

The tension in the calves of the angel, the arching of her feet, how her back curves and how she is held tight in the anguished embrace of her companion. 

The bronze cast muscles captivate. 

Their pain will endure. Captured. Forged. Displayed. 

And as we watch, it is our pain, and our helplessness and it endures with them.

The Cry, first modelled circa 1886, this cast dates 1964 and can be seen at LACMA in Los Angeles.

M. Auguste Rodin, circa 1911

Head of Pierre de Wissant

The Eternal Idol, 1889

The Thinker, circa 1904

The Fallen Angel, 1895, Bronze.

Rodin circa 1862, by Charles Hippolyte Aubry

Any one else into Rodin? Or modern sculpture? Seen those Kelpies up north? Mad keen for that!!

Thanks for stopping by :) Check out my piece on Jordan Eagles' Blood Work if you like your art gritty!

Kate x

Art // JORDAN EAGLES Blood Work

"It must of necessity be concluded that the blood is driven into a round by a circular motion in living creatures, and that it moves perpetually..."  William Harvey (1578 - 1657) from  On the Motion of the Heart and Blood

It would have been impossible to anticipate the full effect of seeing a sheet of blood, preserved in plexiglass and resin. In the same way that Kubrick confronts us with our own gaping mortality in the climax of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the sheer vastness of all time and space, Eagles' work is an equal if more internal confrontation with life and death. He creates an arresting representation of our vital fluid, our life force: here it is before us, captured, glorified, decimated.

In BLOOD DUST 4 the volume of blood caught in resin is so great that all we can see is a smooth, black surface seemingly absorbing all the light that strikes it. It is only on closer inspection that the familiar crimson gives itself up to us, lost in the blackness shimmering like crushed velvet, the deep red of life, a richness only to be glimpsed.

My favorite three pieces, ROZE 18, 17  & 14 are displayed as a tryptic, each standing large at roughly 1mx2m. 

ROZE 18 made of blood, gauze, plexiglass and UV resin, has an extraordinary color range from black to brilliant ruby. The fluid mosaic pattern has a strong sense of organic creation, of living tissues, the shifting arrangement of life. 

ROZE 17 almost a negative version of 18 has the addition of blood dust (fine, potentially decomposed matter). The focus of 17 is the delicate trajectory of the gauze, vein like, cappilary, always an imperfect symmetry, the freely constructed grid of life. Streams and rivulets patterning the gauze, trapped in motion in the resin. The blood dust gives this pieces a less bold tone, brown creeps in, the whole is rust tinted.

We move with this rust closer to the brilliant, religious gold of the thick copper streams that course through ROZE 14, the only of the three to feature copper in it's construction. It is regal, hypnotic, awe-inspiring. The blood is thick and black once more, in sharp and excellent contrast to the golden pathways, the opposition is exquisite, precious.

As you step away from ROZE 14, the distance merges the streams, creating a greater sense of the gauze as a material, and here before us, an opulent blood-tapestry.

The continuation of this exhibition explored blood as death and ending. BARC20X20-1, LIFE FORCE 2011-1 and LFV are all constructions of burnt blood. A terrible ensnaring of our own frailty and mortality, what was so strong and resplendent is now decimated. These thin layers of blood are set in larger casing, allowing the light to filter through the entire, part scorched, layers showcasing it's, and subsequently our, fragile nature. 

Natural order has ceased. Haphazard chaos rules.

How angry the hot blood death.


- Kate

-------------------------------------------

'Blood Work' is showing at the Mütter Museum, Philadelphia until  March 31, 2014
http://www.jordaneagles.com/
http://www.collegeofphysicians.org/mutter-museum/exhibitions/

Notes from the Mütter Museum on Eagles' methods: 

"Through his self-invented process, Eagles encases the materials in plexiglass and UV resin and manipulates the texture, quality , and colour of blood. Eagles heats, dries, burns and pulverises the blood [...]. The resulting works preserve the blood - notoriously difficult to achieve [...]. Eagles has been creating multidimensional works with animal blood procured from slaughter houses for over a decade."

LOVED THIS TOO MUCH! Any one else in for 'bio-art'? x

Q & A // Emerging Artist HANNAH GRACE

I love the carefully constructed chaos in Grace's work. A symmetry of deconstruction that is at all times pleasing aesthetically and quietly unsettling in it's ordered attack on familiar objects and patterns.

I've know her for some time (we both studied at the Arts University in Bournemouth) I thought it would be really interesting to interview her about her work. Hannah, I was really pleased to hear, was one of ten artists to win the Free Range Emerging Artist Award, earlier this year :)

Talk us through your physical process, how do you bring your works into existence?  Do you have a routine for creating work?

There are fundamental elements which reoccur within my work such as monochrome, geometric shape, visual illusion. I think in a mathematical way and love to order and catalog information.

I do a lot of research, finding images that I like, looking at artists that share my interests.

I then work a lot in my sketchbook, exploring ideas and learning skills that are necessary for the work.

Next I chose images that I have created which I think work and develop them into more finished outcomes.

What skills did you learn for your GLITCH project? How do you go about learning them?

I did a lot of research into how Glitch and similar technological processes have been used in artists work. I found a variety of “Glitching” software online which I experimented with and then translated these into handmade pieces. 

How do you know when a work is 'finished'?

When I feel happy with the piece I will stop and not alter it from then on, even if later on I think of new changes that can be made. I don't like to overwork the piece. 

How do you take into account the idea of viewership and audience experience when creating your work?

I think the time that I consider the viewer is when I am working out how to present the piece. I start to wonder how they will perceive what I have made and how they will interact with it physically and what their interpretation might be. 

How do you feel about the possibility of your work being misunderstood or misinterpreted?

I am always interested to hear what people think about my work but once I have finished and presented the work it's up to the viewer to react to it and interpret it in their own way. We hardly ever get to talk to the artist about their work. If we put a work into the public domain it's meaning and perception is then open to the individual. 

Let's talk about your maps. Why cartography?

I explore how cartography is assumed to give a reliable and objective description, and thus is given authority. But maps are inevitably abstract as a result of selection, omission and codification.  A fiction created from a factual observation, they present only one version of the earths surface. Cartographic rules give a network of assumptions which I use and exploit within my work.

I use the language of maps to explore connections, systems and networks. I archive, order, catalog and arrange information and when this process is complete I can then dismantle, deconstruct, manipulate and reconfigure it. Using a variety of techniques I intricately cut, score, layer and fold maps to distort them.

Why break systems and reconfigure what is seen as 'authority'? Do you see your art as a means of controlled anarchy?

I like to question why we give cartography this authority. I think patterns and systems are interesting when you see their flaws. I want my work to allow people to perceive these topics in a new way. 

What's in your dream studio?

I would love to be in a studio with lots of different creatives with whom I can share knowledge and put on group shows. The ideal studio would have facilities such as a print room, cafe, outside areas, computer suite, art supplies.

Are social interactions very important to your creative process?

I am quite happy to work alone but I think being surrounded by like minded people is helpful for the creative process. Talking to people about your ideas helps them to develop and you start to see them in new and interesting ways. Showing people your work gives you an idea of how different people interpret it which can help to push it further. 

Why do you think you were selected for the Free Range Emerging Art Award?

I was very surprised to be selected for this award but I put a lot of effort into making the piece and I feel the fact that it was an illusion was engaging to the audience and cartography is an interesting subject that everyone can recognise and relate to.

What's next for your artistic practice?

I want to change the direction of my work more towards illustration. I love drawing and it is the way that I express myself. 

Who are some illustrators whose work inspires you?

Pat Perry is one of my biggest inspirations at the moment. I love that he lives to draw. He travels around the world, basically just with his art materials and soaks up new experiences which he then pours into his work. 

Hannah plans to move to London in the new year and work from a studio where she can develop her portfolio and promote herself as a free-lance artist/illustrator.

She will be exhibiting at Aspex in Portsmouth as a part of the 'Someone and Something' exhibition in October as well as 'The Great Exhibition of Boscombe'.

If you are emerging in any discipline and would like to have your work featured on Streaks, get in touch :)