Friday 27 September 2013

Project ideas and personal reflections

View from my bedroom window back home.

Been thinking a lot about what I what to do for my project this semester and ended up making lists about my interests and themes as a creative person. I've found that I would like to do a project based on the natural world and natural materials.

I've always had a keen interest in the natural world and this comes a lot from childhood nostalgia. Spent a great deal outside in rural environments playing with other kids or usually on my own in woods near my house.
Their would be the usual tree climbing and collecting leaves/twigs/nuts/conkers every year and also sometimes insects and flowers in tubs.

We would also make dens out of old junk and rubbish we found and hang things from trees and play hide and seek and pretend to be various different animals. Me and the other kids would also make little dams out of mud/twigs/leaves and dig little trails for the water to run down into them that we would fill plastic bottles from the garages up at the street near by.

Me and My nieces in the woods I grew up in.

Not to mention the visits we would make to one of my Grans houses which was in a very rural area with a stream nearby. I made a project last semester about her home which is here.

So I seem to associate the natural world with very positive memories and associations of my childhood. I've always wanted to do a project about it or even using natural materials to create something. I'll be doing research into other artists with these themes and how they explore the natural world in their work.

When I went camping in the Lake District one of my most happiest recent experiences.

More recently had a lot of images of trees in my head this all came from the unusual place of prejudice about my body shape. Since I'm quite a thin person I started getting a lot of visual ideas and images about trees and their meanings.Theirs possibility for this project to be partly gender based but I need to do my research first. But I see it moving into the direction of rural materials and the human body represented in this way or a form of belonging and identity.

So in ways I think I associate forests as safe places and that I felt safe there as a child cause there was no prejudice or bullying. Since coming into University and coming into a city and out of a rural environment it's made me value my childhood and what I felt in natural environments a lot more.



I'll be experimenting with this idea and natural materials as a medium will have to see which ones work out best through my research and my work progress.

1 comment:

  1. I'm so excited for your new blog, Deborah! Great to follow you along as you're exploring the world of art. And I can definitely relate to your love for nature theme - there's so much art in it already. P.S. Love-love the picture with your nieces - reminds me of my childhood;-)))

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