Research

south pier
 

south pier silver
 

south pier
 

To start off unit X the theme as such was "archives" to which this word archives allowed us to start this thought process to black pool.

Black pool the wonderful seaside, fresh air, blue skies and sea fronts filled with black pool rock, fish and chips and fair grounds. The place all families go for a day out. But on the other hand of my visit it was cold, windy and no one to be seen accept the textile group... not the black pool I know.

To start this research, was visiting black pool library to see the archives stored there, followed by a trip on the sea front to then visit the illumination's and then the south pier. It was enjoyable looking back a black pools past and trying to guess the eras. But what stood out for me was how packed it use to get, black pool use to be the place to be, if you didn’t go black pool then more fool you.  Through the whole talk it was the word ROWS that’s stood out for me, picturing and even seeing these crowds of people gathered round on these piers. It was the only word that stuck out for me at the time. Following on when visiting the illuminations and seeing how they are created was the visit to south pier.
South pier is not one of the piers you really hear about very much but it’s known for its art works. Once on south pier it was peaceful and quiet and the weather was amazing to create a wonderful backdrop for these artworks. But, whilst standing on this isolated pier it was then I kept imaging all these flocks of people in their Sunday best dresses, coats, hats all here in there deck chairs.. Row after row after row all crowding round each other enjoying the weather and the sea side.  But in contrast it was just calm and quiet... relaxing
It’s fair to say from the first week it was the black pool trip that got my research flowing, not the talks that we had.



Rows.

Gathering the photos from black pool, it was these three images that really stood out to me ( South pier) it was just generally because I liked them and it was something about them what I liked but couldn’t put them into words of what I liked about them. The Second image was a quick flow of an idea I needed to get out. This was purely me thinking rows, could not get rows out of my head.
Those images and the drawing produce was my lead. They are the starting point. From the three ‘isolated’ images I taken I started to create color and collage in them, I never wanted to recreate them I just wanted the color and texture out of them just to get me going to be ready for the crit.


collage 1

collage 2
 

collage 3

Taken from the first group crit gave me a clear understanding not such an idea, it guided me to focus on my strongest areas which was mark making through my "isolated" images that I recreated.

I found it hard to try and think of a context straight away at first, but once discussing my initial findings and presenting them  in a mood board and allowing as group to see what I produced clearly, it was more of a straight forward decision that in my mind and on paper it was wallpaper that was the context. Taken forward from my first group crit it was clear I needed to get my ideas moving and get my context moving also. For that next week that is the focus of looking at artists and context, as well as getting my ideas flowing.Further key to my development at this stage was the Friday drawing day exercise of scaling up and scaling down pictures, drawings etc. from the research gathered. But it wasn’t the 5x5cm squares produced that gave me the idea it was how I was blowing up and down my work which allowed me to look into quiet interesting areas of my work instead of the whole piece. To which that then helped me focus on what I could do with my work.

From generating this primary research into secondary I needed to get it flowing into stages of ideas.