My work so far....

Above: a "pebble" with a footprint 

Today I have been thinking about my ow practice and trying to come up with a plan for the final resolution. I had a chat with Stephen about it all because I have been so interested and involved in the making of the work, that I had forgotten why I ever started making it. Stephen explained why he thought I was making it:

- To explore the negative space between human interactions; to cast the gap between a cheek and a pair of lips, a hand and a shoulder and feet on the floor.

- To tap into a very small but very important personal memory about the beach and collecting the things found on it. This is a childhood memory that has in ways shaped who I have become, I prefer the country to the city, I miss not being able to look out to sea and see nothing at all, and for this reason I feel very claustrophobic in the very middle of the country. I also like the simple joy picking up a perfectly formed pebble can bring, and I think everyone can relate to that. 

The audience for my piece will obviously be the people attending the exhibition, which will probably be at LCAD. I have decided not to show at the hospital because I think there is quite a fine line in my work between craft and fine art. I think if it is seen by the untrained eye, it could simply appear a representation of a beach, and if that is what I had wanted I would have made a watercolour or taken a photograph. 

I have also been discussing how my work should be displayed, and I was surprised how different the pieces looked when they were taken out of the window sill and laid out in a line. They had a real sense of movement, and therefore a much more heightened sense of human presence and impact. I talked to Stephen about creating a much more realistic looking "path" through the stones by documenting the movements of my feet as a carefully picked my way along a route as you often have to when walking on a very pebbly beach. 

I think it is interesting that the smallest touch can convey human life; a finger tip pushed imprint in a "pebble" shows it just as well as a whole body and I am interested to see how little information I can provide the audience and  still have them understand what is happening....