Fran Alison

Fran Allison is a contemporary New Zealand jeweler based in here in New Zealand, working and teaching at Manukau School of Visual Arts. Her jewelry has rendered the ideas of re-formatting and past-histories.

The inspirations for her work varies and is influenced by many things including interest within the idea associated with found and discarded objects. She quotes Julian Schnabel: 'I work with things left over from other things' as a reference for her interest in found/discarded objects.
Fran’s works are often made from found items, household material, such as handkerchiefs, doilies, pins, fabric etc.

In regards to Collaboration and collective,

The Audio English dictionary describes Collaboration as the “act of working jointly” Or as Richard Loveless may put it "Collaborations become great only when everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best — and is committed to seeing other members do their best as well” Collaboration may also give artists the opportunity to take risks or experiment in ways, that they would not be able to achieve working alone. Where as an artist collective is an idea that is the product of a group of artists working together, usually under their individual supervision, but with the same aims. The aims of an artist collective can include almost anything that is significant to the requirements of the artist. This can range from sharing equipment, space or materials purchasing bulk materials, through to following shared philosophies, visual and political views. It appears that a collaboration is a group of people working together and a collective is a group that is somewhat influenced by each other. Fran explained how collaboration raises questions about ‘ownership’ over the finished work. I feel that this could result in a dispute due to several proud artists wanting to claim credit for the handwork they put in. I can recall an example of a successful collaborative piece done by Deborah Crowe and Eldon Booth entitled Cantilever.

Fran is a member of Weeds (a group of New Zealand artists involved in Object or Jewellery making). They were all angry by a 'Bone Stone and Shell' lecture, which suggested these materials and this traditional style as being the definition of New Zealand jewellery practice. As a result Fran got together with Lisa Walker, Shelley Norton and Andrea Daly, to change things. The objects prepared by all four artists involved in Weeds is far from the traditional ‘bone, stone and shell’ jewellery, which they were against, it is more domestic and hand-made due to the ‘craft’ materials, symbols and techniques. Weeds gave Fran the opportunity to move her ideas, for her practice, from the house, into the garden.

Although I’m not much of a jeweler, Allison’s work has encouraged me to be more experimental in my own personal art practice.

Deborah Crowe

14^th of September, if I could remember on that day we had Deborah Crowe come to give us a lecture about her practice. I remembered she showed us a slide show of her pieces of artworks and practices she made well coming up as a young Scottish artist. In her works I noticed that she uses a lot of different types of materials and also notice one thing about her is that she constantly pushes her ideas of concepts in her practice. Well to kick start off this blog about Deborah Crowe’s lecture, I had to back and look at my notices I wrote down about her. Deborah Crowe was originally from Dundee, in Scotland, she immigrated to New Zealand twenty years ago. Going through her photos of her work on emit, I noticed a pattern in her practice in where she uses a lot of bridges, space, containment, architecture, weaving, recycling pieces of her old works. As I checked on Emit to try and remember what Deborah’s work looked like, I remembered this work she had called ‘Beneath the surface’ where it was all to do with “containment of the body” in one of my notices that she quoted in the lecture, she said ‘the idea of how women contain their bodies, and in the way torture themselves. She also looked into torture as a part of her work, putting people in the room with objects, creating space i their mind imaginations.

Another key thing that Deborah uses to show her ideas is that, she does a lot of planning and drafting her work. One of Deborah’s works was held at Te Tuhi. The ideas in her practice how she plans and draft her work become actual drawings. Pretty cool.

Overall I thought her lecture was great but sadly just wish I could of wrote about it, due to my late blog entries I am forced to type them all up at once. Sorry tessa XP

Steve Lovetts

This week I was very delighted to have Steve Lovett to come and show us some his works of art pieces, and also which he goes on to tell us some of the statements and ideas that when on to make and produce of his fantastic pieces.Well for what I have come notice in his work is that he’s basically based his most of his work on the relationship, the relationship between his friends and family and also making a political statement, and at the same time while he’s also doing this kind of work and how he’s approaching it in he’s own way by hitting what he wants to bring to life with he’s type of artwork. What I’ve noticed now with Steve Lovett work is that he always uses different the styles of layers and color tones of an image, which also puts the image out of place.

I really liked one of his exhibitions that Steve showed us the one where the screen prints on the wall are like talking to each other, I really liked that piece, I thought that was very creative in a way that how he managed to capture there voices and also playing them through speakers, making it sound like as if his artwork pieces were talking to each other in the gallery.

I later heard that those images on the wall were good friends with him that have passed away.

I truly think that was really effective, it’s as if the images came to life with the sound of people talking, still can’t manage to think how he would come up with that idea. The other piece of art work that Steve done that I really liked was the one that was called ‘remain’, that work alone shows what Steve’s like (personally wise) and what he must have been feeling. Overall Steve's work was truly jaw-dropping for me, especially from that audio imagery one because it was mainly bringing what he thinks art is to him was.

Frances Hansen: My process

This Tuesday we had my old life drawing teacher France Hansen come into show and tell us about her work and she talks about how she balances being a art lecture and being a mother and how her ideas of her practice all came about. To start off the lecture she showed a slide show presentation of some of her past work and her most recent project. Out of all the pictures on the slide show I only remembered one, which shows that I haven't been paying close attention to France's lecture, damn.. I should of typed it up straight after class, oh well.. I'll explain to you her work from what I remember from tuesday's contextual studies class. From what I remembered about her work on tuesday's class is that her work is very creative and very original, and it also reflects on who she is as a person, because I think Frances is a very smart, creative and also aery intelligent lecture.

One thing she really didn't really mention in the lecture is nature, I like how she applys nature in art practice and it reflects on her work and her transition of being an artist and a mum, and it's also how she arranges the objects in many different ways by 'developing' it before settling on the final design. One the key fatcors in her work is 'gathering'.. gathering materials, ideas, information, collecting organic goods and recycling them by reusing them in her sculpture pieces and paintings etc. One thing that stood out for me in the lecture is that, she said that she likes to go through her neighbours (trash) organics stuff, while walk about with one her little sons, looking for some materials that will help to develop more idea for her work, which I think that is very smart and interesting.

That's another word that was not mention in her list is 'recycling', recycling play a valuable rule in France's work, I mean I would never have thought of that idea, I really like how she's uses those found objects and how she experiments alot with them such as one of her paintings can't remember which one, but I remember she painted a stencil shape of that Ajax spray cleaner in one of her paintings.What I can take from learning about her and how she works? is that I need to be more out their just like Frances, I need to go 'plan' my idea then 'gather' my materials then just develop and experiment with them such as Fances herself.

Eldon booth work and elephant

Tuesday was a very interesting day to attend too, because I actually got school on time, which was good for start to day. We had Eldon Booth an Ex-MSVA student to come /into our class to talk to us and show us two of his short-films that he made in his younger years as a student at MSVA. In lecture I found him very interesting and really fun to listen to, he laughs at his own jokes while talking about some of his works. He also talked to us about how he graduated from Manukau School of Visual Arts (MSVA) back in 1999 and he showed us a two of his short-films focusing mainly on documentary and drama techniques with the intention of blurring the line between illusion and reality for a viewer.

The first film he showed us was called ‘Extract from withdrawal’. He told us that it took him 2 years to make that short-film, where as when you watch the short-film you see time slowly past by and how the actor start to kind of age. I really liked how he used his family members as actors instead of hired actors because it's pretty smart in terms of how he used his brother for example you don't have to like pay him because your like family. Another thing that I thought was pretty interesting about that short film was that, he used a handheld camera that followed his actors (brother and grandfather), he takes us as a viewer in their normal day lives which gets it a reality look inside there. Split screens also played a big part on it, it made a huge different to the film in terms of how it show in their timelines of the day; both characters were in two different places such as the grandfather lying in hospital and the grandson smoking weed with friends and catching trains. I liked how he went for that amature style, quality to his project because it got us as a viewer to get to know the both characters though there actions.

For the second short-film he made I think he went for a drama/ documantary style of filming because I remembered in class he mentioned that he was really inspired by a 20/20 program interview that came once, he said that he really amazed and inspired in how real that interview on 20/20 was because of the camera angles, sound and lighting that was used really contributed to that interview. When Eldon makes works he said that he trys to challenge himself by editing all his short-films etc, less than 5days. To personally I don't like his style of film but I really respect his work and I think think it's cool, just not what I'm into.

Elephant was a true story film directed by Gus Van Sant. To me personally I thought it was just really to see all those innocent students die, sample just a cruel way to die for me really. I like how the director used P.O.V shots on the mass killers and how the camera follow them around, as if you just right their with them at that very movement.

Dion Hitchens

This week I turn up to the lecture 15mintues late, which was embarrassing because, as I walked in I got greeted by Dion (lecture). For my punishment for being late was to either dance or tell a joke to the class, but I was to shy to do either. Dion Hitchens talked to us about his art practices and sculptures in which he made back in his younger days. While listening to him explain to the class about his sculpture pieces, he mentioned one thing to the class about his cultural background and heritage and how it influenced him in most of his sculpture works.

He said being part Asian / Maori really helped him find the base platform to structure his sculpture pieces of his artworks. Seeing Dion apply his cultural heritage into his practice makes him and his work very significant, to me personally I think I can sort of relate to him and his work in a way because, I also come from a cultural background that is quit similar to Dion’s culture being Samoan, we both come from a Polynesian descent.

What I can learn from him and his work is that I can also apply my Samoan cultural background into my art practice, which will also make me, and my work very significant as well. The two distinctive artworks that stood out for me the most was the one he did in manukau called Maumga and the Big Egg looking sculpture he made, which terrified a small boy.

As Dion talked on and on about his interesting sculptures, he mentioned to our whole class that all of his sculpture that he ever made was homemade in his backyard, and he even said that he had to get a crane to get his sculptures from out the back. The Maumga piece was very cool and interesting because Dion was inspired from the mountains of Tahiti. I also liked how he used technology in the egg as well as collaborating it with his cultural heritage.