video still

seven months ago, i had a compression fracture in my spine.

500 Miles North

500 Miles North opening at the Hannah MacLure Centre, Abertay University, Dundee.

Erin said that I look the perfect mix of both my parents, but as I have my back turned to the camera, you may never know...

Now, if you will excuse me, I'm off to sit by the beach with my wonderful boyfriend and a glass of strawberry wine.

more images at:

http://www.janeymuir.co.uk/section418486.html

more images at

http://www.janeymuir.co.uk/section418486.html

false positives/ false conclusions

There was a big importance placed on resolved work for the Postgraduate Diploma assessment. At this time parts of my work were partially resolved - Oil on Cardboard was finished, TOUGHEN UP LIGHTEN UP in cardboard said 'TOUGH', CRUEL TO BE KIND was documented in photographs as it was in The Outbye Gallery, i had the sledgehammer and cubic zirconia pieces, flyswatter was hiding in the sculpture department for repairs, the bird whistles were sitting in the studio - there were lots of little conclusions.

I've spent the last two and a half weeks out of the studio, trying to rest, recover and find some clarity.

I had some big ideas: an anti-performance stage - a stage that would be unusable due to being too steep to physically stay on, or too flimsy to hold a performers weight. An untitled work that i toyed with calling WALK IT OFF (the title comes from being in the A&E department of Ninewells with a fracture in my spine that the doctors didn't find for 3 weeks and I was told to 'walk it off') although I also call it Smash Piece - is a work in which I smash handmade porcelain trophies with a sledgehammer.

I thought these ideas might be my Masters Show works, but now I realise that this is an artificial conclusion. In my last tutorial, Graham said that that I had to go back a couple of steps and resolve works that were unfinished, that I had stopped making so that I could start making something else. So, this week when I return to the studio, I will finish TOUGHEN UP LIGHTEN UP, which needs ENUPLIGHTENUP in order to conclude. Then I think I will turn my attention to making some of the objects that are in my paintings. I never work in sketchbooks, instead I make large-scale drawings or floor based drawings or large paintings, in order to work through ideas and document them. I have been wondering if I can make the objects in the paintings as sculptural objects - the pill bottle already exists in ceramic and the flyswatter grid is in the acrylic painting, as the oil rig legs - I imagine these to be similar to the legs of the stage pieces. Oil on Cardboard has the lightbulb and plug object and the triangular shapes that I imagined the stage to be shaped like. Both paintings have the black and white checkers and stripes that I wanted to paint the stage surfaces with...

So, tomorrow morning I need to get into the studio and hang the paintings, and start playing with the objects that are inside them. I need to collect the pill bottle from the sculpture department and drop off the trophies. I need to speak to the technicians about what i what to build. I need to move a painting into the new studio. I need to find a stack of cardboard boxes to finish the text pieces.

I need to get back into it.

you see? I'm still functioning.

“The general consensus is

that one must resist the temptation to urinate in a Duchamp fountain…”[1]

Functional objects communicate usability: blowing a whistle, playing an instrument, smashing that fire alarm, pissing in Duchamps fountain. The Duchampian idea of a Readymade removes this use value and instead projects a high art status on the useable. Unable to perform the object we must admire it from afar, commodities become objects of desire.

A disposable income buys luxury goods. It seems that, the less we can afford them, the more we desire them. Attaining objects of desire requires an exchange: money swaps hands. Fluxus says: "Hey! - coffee cups can be more beautiful than fancy sculptures. A kiss in the morning can be more dramatic than a drama by Mr. Fancypants. The sloshing of my foot in my wet boot sounds more beautiful than fancy organ music.”

Caught somewhere between the desire of the unattainable and finding pleasure in the everyday, there is a harsh realisation that life may just be about surviving: smashing fire alarms and pissing in urinals.

---

[1] A. Satz, ‘Sculptural Fits’, Henry Moore Institute: Sculpture and Performance Conference, 2010