5/7

Crit Notes

General:
- acknowledgement that an abstract painting probably does not somehow explicitly reference specific historical background/inspiration
- working from intuition vs. research

My work:
- "are they made with a machine?" - I'd like to think this means I achieved my aim of establishing a mechanical, repetitive routine
- people got that the work was meant to speak about futility
- gendered?
- nihilistic or passionate? (I find it interesting that someone else identified that it could go either way)
- include everything (since I aim to show process) or be selective?
- art that references art
- where does it go from here? (I think it continues in the same vein, indefinitely)
- arrangement as if it is accidental - I was told that it probably wasn't disingenuous
- "are the boxes filled with other work?" - I'd have liked to say yes
- other embroidery/tapestry artists can be researched - some communicate passion rather than detachment, but would be good resources for work that is not about gender

To Do

I was looking for my first and second year work last night, and I realised that back then I was using this blog as a notebook, and failing to add pictures. So I'll be doing that soon, because I feel like those ideas are still important to me.

I also added a contact email address: blanketsasmakeshifthugs @ gmail.com (without the spaces).

Last Tests

Last tests for the installation.

The steps suggest progression, but I wanted it to be more subtle/accidental than just having them arranged exactly like stairs.

I've now gone over the floor and wall paint several times and filled in the numerous holes in the wall. The painting students who had been using the studio before hadn't made things easy for us. Luckily everyone showing in the space was more than happy to do their part and help others, and share floor/wall painting/repair tips, as well as supplies. People have been very kind.

I decided that it would be best not to over-think the arrangement of my pieces; it's supposed to feel natural, like the pieces of fabric have just been gathering there over time. They're the side-effects of a process, and it shouldn't look like I've agonised over how they should be displayed.

"Artist's Statement"

(The final version, in case I get to the studio on the deadline day and realise I printed the wrong version.)

I aim to explore futility, and productivity for the sake of productivity: the perceived importance of “doing things.” The line between “productivity” and neurotic ritual can appear to blur when productivity starts to become something that happens primarily for the purposes of preventing a feeling of futility. Some of my work acknowledges this in an intentionally literal way.

I have created other pieces using dice rolls to make decisions regarding visual aspects. Sometimes the aim of my work is to mirror the compulsive, automatic nature of the “productive” actions that are carried out to ward off feelings of futility. People often aim to fill time “effectively,” but the emphasis is on filling the time, rather than creating an outcome. Sometimes a feeling of being productive is based more on the ratio of time spent “working” to time spent “not working,” and is not related to the amount of time a task could or should take when carried out with efficiency.

I am interested in how inefficiency with time becomes a “positive.” Time invested into an object’s creation adds to its perceived value. Sometimes an object’s worth comes from the time invested, as opposed to aesthetics or function. I explore this idea using cross-stitch, as it is relatively time-consuming.

For someone whose intention is to make art, the perceived importance of “doing things” can go hand in hand with feeling the need to have a point to make. I aim to acknowledge having nothing to say. 

I intend to create work that describes a process and the motivation, or lack of motivation, behind it. My installation shows the outcome of time invested, and attempts to question whether it is actually time invested or merely time filled.

Themes In My Work

(I decided to put this here because I completely rewrote most of it for my final version. In this version, I completely miss the point of an artist's statement, but it works as a useful write-up of some of my research/analysis.)

I aim to explore futility, and productivity for the sake of productivity: the perceived importance of “doing things.” The line between “productivity” and neurotic ritual can appear to blur when productivity starts to become something that happens primarily for the purposes of preventing a feeling of futility.

The perceived importance of “doing things,” from the point of view of someone who makes art, can go hand in hand with the pressure to have something to say. Some of my work deals with the idea of having nothing to say.

I am also interested in how inefficiency with time becomes a “positive.” Time invested into an object’s creation adds to its perceived value. An object that is created using a method or medium that requires less time is often seen as inferior, even if it is superior in quantifiable ways (such as factors to do with practicality, or efficiency with other resources). This idea of “inferiority” can be conveniently attributed to aesthetics, as they are subjective.

Changing tastes can make it less appropriate to use aesthetics as an explanation for the value of an object (or craft). For example, attributing the worth of a decorative object created in an out-dated style to aesthetics becomes less convincing. It becomes clearer that perceived value is often based on time invested; inefficiency has become a source of value.

Various industries are seeing examples of services or goods whose value stems from time invested, and not practicality or aesthetics. Older methods of creating images, still or moving, can be highly valued, even if they no longer match up with people’s tastes and are less practical. Value is placed on goods that are hand-made as opposed to mass-produced. Each example can be explained with various excuses such as nostalgia and sentimentality, but what they have in common is that they use up more time. We are valuing inefficiency.

Reasons I changed my mind about some of this:

- If I use examples to justify some of these opinions, it becomes very easy to find flaws and inconsistencies.

- Sometimes an out-dated, decorative object whose creation took a relatively large amount of time is actually not valued (i.e. it is sent to a thrift shop or thrown away). Or sometimes objects like this are valued because some people genuinely do like the aesthetic, and while this occurs less frequently, there are fewer of the objects left. This means that the object's value is due to simple supply and demand.

- I was going to mention inefficiency with resources/money, for example when rarer materials are used for objects while there is no quantifiable benefit - but this is also simply supply and demand. It is not that inefficiency with materials has added to its inherent value.

- Minimalist objects (furniture etc.) can take less time to create but are still valued for their design.

- Sometimes mass-produced objects actually are worse quality, or at least this belief is prevalent enough.

- In conclusion, the relationship between inefficiency and perceived value is not strong enough to make sweeping judgements. So I guess my point is just that sometimes we value inefficiency, such as when we praise Yayoi Kusama for, in her words, suffering for her art, and when demand that everything is painstakingly hand-created, and not made by machines or outsourced (Damien Hirst etc.).

Boxes 2

Set 1 seems neat and clean apart from the text on the side, which I wouldn't have a problem with if it were something like dimensions of the box, or something else non-distracting. However, it loudly advertises a stationery chain in text much larger than any text in the embroidery.

Set 2 would be fine if the dimensions didn't result in a large expanse of cardboard.

Set 3 seemed like the most obvious choice before putting the boxes together, but the flaps won't really close flat. I can tie the boxes up tightly, but there'll still be some bulging that prevents them from stacking together nicely. Tape does the same thing. In the end, I closed the flaps the way you'd usually keep a cardboard box shut by itself - I was initially hesitant to do this as the boxes were double-walled, so it would have to be done with extra force and visible creasing. The boxes don't look bad individually, and actually the flaps create a pattern. However, the ratio of visible, protruding flap to neat, straight cardboard is too high because of the boxes' size. They also don't fit together that closely, so the boxes are as messy as the arrangement of work: there's no contrast. Also, the dimensions of the box faces are too close to the dimensions of some of the pieces.

Set 3 looks a lot worse in person than in the photographs, so I think I'll cover up the text in set 1 and use those. I'll experiment with mixing set 1 and 3, since they are similar colours.

People haven't finished installing work in the space around me, but I know the work includes a laptop on a small table, which I've seen, and something which I haven't seen, but that I think will resemble a shelf. There is also a large painting. If I use boxes to display my work, as opposed to the table or the shelves I tried out, we'll have limited obvious repetition, and a nice range of heights.

Boxes 1

I have three different sets of cardboard boxes to test.

Set 1:

Set 2:

Set 3:

Each set has fairly obvious disadvantages. I'll elaborate tomorrow, and see if I can find some sort of solution.

Installing Work

I've been in the studio to paint the wall, but it's pretty much still empty. I think the best way to go about this is to experiment with each variation of the installation regardless, but analyse each option in a way that doesn't lead to me accidentally making a definite decision without having seen how it works with the pieces surrounding mine.

(before painting)

Filling Time

Filling time:
productivity for the sake of productivity
in between, topping up the short-term happiness (which is perfectly logical)
motion, then tea breaks
(this is especially relevant now)

Glenn Ligon Talk, Tate Modern, 11052015

- How much do people appreciate the honesty when one openly admits that money was what persuaded them to take part in an interview?
- To what extent was that statement a joke?
- Is this okay? (I'm not making any judgements, personally.)
- Did people laugh out of politeness?
- Did honesty, in this case, actually create an air of insincerity?
- Would fewer people have fallen asleep in the lecture if this comment had not been made?
- How much do students feel pressured to make judgements for the sake of making judgements because they need to score marks for their degree?

Simon Martin, UR Feeling

Simon Martin, UR Feeling, Camden Arts Centre

- people
- experiences of surroundings
- response to architecture
- physical world vs. perception
- this idea was weirdly fitting as I was finding that the heatwave plus a lack of food and water and sleep greatly impacted the ability to experience the exhibition or make any kind of observations other than the obvious

Presentation Tests

The steps help to show time, progression, a process or a journey. The scattered pieces of fabric almost resemble a trail left behind. There is a subtle sense of falling/dangling, which I could exaggerate if I wanted to increase a feeling of uncertainty or vulnerability, and potentially fear of the future.

The furniture suggests that a human was present. Maybe this draws too much attention to the fact that the human is no longer present; it may look like they have left, and are finished with the work. It has a slightly nostalgic feeling, like when a home environment has become cluttered with relics of the past; someone's home has become their little museum. This probably wouldn't be remedied by having me there with the work, still creating. It would tell a different story with a nostalgic feeling - something like a hoarder being buried. None of this is negative; I just need to figure out if it's the story I want to tell.

The shelf suggests an accumulation of objects (since the objects are laid flat, rather than being objects that can stand, or flat objects displayed on a wall). My issues with this are mainly visual - the lack of contrast, and the space between the shelves.

Finish/Unfinish

Photos from rethinking the following:

- finished vs. unfinished

- product vs. process

- result vs. experience

- space vs. time

Presentation, Degree Show, Part 2

We (the people showing work in the same area) have started discussing how our work will fit together. Since mine is about a process and not a product, I feel that its display should be flexible and not demanding. I have some shelves ready to experiment with, and I plan to get some cardboard boxes. I plan to see how this all fits with the other work, making sure that its presence comes across in the appropriate way.

Presentation, Degree Show

- show time within space
- time as linear: show pieces in rows/columns/stacks?
- placed on surfaces as opposed to being pinned to a wall: showing process rather than a "finished product"
- brown (wood/card) surface for contrast
- shelves - storage, rather than display
- table - placed on and possibly under
- placed on cardboard boxes, varying heights
- non-sewn objects: keep these as supporting material rather than part of the main work
- test all options to see what fits best with others' work

Planning Arrangement Of Pieces

I'm using a new camera, so I realised too late that these were out of focus. I won't worry about retaking them for now, since I just took them to see what I have, what I need more of and how to arrange the pieces. (This means that retaking them would be unnecessary labour for the sake of perfectionism.)

To do: take photos of the sewing process from the point of view of the person sewing?

Unnecessary Labour

- planned obsolescence - products that aim to cease functioning after a certain period
- planned obsolescence - the idea of "fashion": it still functions, but someone else has decided that it should be swapped for something that is a different colour/shape/material/other
- buying useless objects, fuelling the cycle of creating useless objects, enabling and requiring people to  do more jobs that they do not like (retail, factory etc.)
- work that becomes undone by living (washing clothes, then wearing them, then washing them etc.) - these cycles can be broken by ceasing to live - this adds to the feeling of futility in someone who feels unfulfilled, or someone who is only managing to find the time or energy to do the kind of "work" that repeatedly gets undone (personal hygiene, chores etc.)

This idea can be negative if we are doing jobs we don't enjoy, and earning money that we use to fund businesses where too many people are doing jobs they don't enjoy. Someone can be doing a job that they would not be doing, given the choice, and their money can be used to fund suffering (e.g. factory farming, sweatshops) and boredom (e.g. factory jobs, retail jobs). In an ideal world, everyone would be getting paid to do something that felt fulfilling, and their money would be used to pay other people to do jobs that felt fulfilling. This, I guess, would be an argument in favour of funding smaller businesses - someone pouring coffee in a cafe that they are helping to run, and that feels like their own, is quite possibly a lot happier than someone pouring coffee in a Starbucks.

The lower someone's wage is, the more likely it is that they have to get their food, clothes, etc. from businesses where more people have jobs that are unfulfilling. This is a cycle that can sometimes be slowed by reducing the consumption of unnecessary objects (for example, in the case of a broke student who still buys a lot of clothes), but sometimes it is almost impossible (for example, some people only earn enough to buy food that is unfairly traded or unethically sourced - the consumer may not have the power to change this, but large companies, in this case supermarkets, do).

Aesthetics (Again)

Last week I heard a talk in which someone was describing the need to photograph work "properly," and how it reflected on how "seriously" we took our practice. I was reminded of my foundation interview at UCA Epsom (which was my second choice due to the limited number of foundation courses near London), where the interviewer sighed a lot and berated me for the use of staples in my sketchbooks. I liked stapling in snippets and small experiments, and the way each spread was an experience, and there were layers of notes and pictures and drawings that I felt reflected the journey that the course was taking me through. The interviewer was complaining about presentation. To me a sketchbook was the physical object representing my thinking and experimentation; to her it was the method of presenting to teachers (but actually my teachers at the time were happy about the way I presented my thoughts) and interviewers such as herself.

I feel like while I can see where these people are coming from, from what we've been taught about the roles of contemporary art, I think that when an aesthetic decision has to be made that is not relevant to the ideas behind the work, there should be no "shoulds." (Some may argue that it is all relevant, but the idea that it's all relevant is subjective, and I think that pretending that I feel that all aspects are relevant when I don't would be pretentious.)

Naturally I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that in a lot of situations there are benefits to photographing work clearly - I feel that the person suggesting that was making a different point to the UCA Epsom interviewer. But it made me think - we have a right to choose what we do and don't take "seriously."

Aesthetics

I ran out of the turquoise thread I was using for a piece, and was initially thinking that I had to get more to continue. Now I'm thinking that I maybe have to question why I feel that's necessary. It felt like something that I "should" do, but actually I can't come up with a reason why I have to. So I think I won't, and I'll just continue with whatever thread is available.

I think that a reason to get more thread of the same colour would be that if I continued in a different colour, I'd have to justify "changing colour." But this doesn't make sense since going out and getting more thread of the same colour would be the action that requires the most effort. I'd be making a conscious decision to use the same colour throughout the piece. I can't justify that.

So the choices are:
- Continue with whatever thread is available, and have to justify (to other people) why I "changed colour," when actually it was the action that required less effort, and for that reason, the default action.
- Acquire matching thread. This would be making a special effort and a conscious decision that I can't justify to myself, but would not have to justify to anyone else, purely because they would not ask.

Essentially it looks like since the second option is NOT the default option, I'd only be taking it because it would look like I should.

Things To Do

- More of the above, less uniform, also change the tone

- More "I'm just trying to..." pieces, either whole or snippets/repetition

- "Unnecessary Labour" pieces, different media

Trying To

I figured that the slightly enlarged holes following the text were too subtle a way of suggesting that the words were being undone. I'd been considering the order of the pieces before, so I also tried an order that was entirely going backwards (most words to fewest). I may also consider a version where the fabric has space for the whole sentence including the parts that have been missed off.

Looking at the three photos together, I think more repetition could also work; I could make more of these.

---

- Are the words being written forwards, being choked out bit by bit? ("I'm just trying. I'm just trying to drown.") Are they being undone bit by bit, each time changing the meaning of the sentence?

- I think it is mostly the latter.

- Which order works best to communicate each of these options?

- I like the first best - it leaves a hint of stammer-y hesitation in the beginning, but the rest is a sentence being taken apart to create new meanings.

- Would more repetition be good?

- It may be interesting to observe what it feels like to read a longer string of these altered sentences, alternating between each separate message.

- Does it matter how much space is left on the fabric? What does it mean?

- It makes a difference to how intentional it feels that the sentence is cut off. I'm going to experiment more with this idea, but using the "I ran out of" text.

I Ran Out Of

fabric.
time.
ideas.
space.
energy.
enthusiasm.

Display Experiments

These photos weren't intended to be pieces I'd exhibit together, but now that I'm looking at them I think if the bottom one were black and white it could work. 

To Do

- think about repetition
- think about presenting all the work together, since it's about the process rather than objects
- think about how to display it - walls may suggest finished products; tables may suggest an unfinished process
- since it's a process, maybe I should be in the exhibition, still making the work
- alternatively, I could just add to the work over the course of the exhibition so that it changes during the show
- think about the role of excess canvas
- think about the role of staining - embroidery represents working time; tea stains represent breaks
- experiment with various ways of displaying the work
- think about leaving the needle in, or leaving the work obviously unfinished, or outlined/planned without being complete - this emphasises that it's a process and not a set of objects

Futility, And Colours

I think that while some people have interpreted my work as being nihilistic in a negative way, I see it more as speaking about how the lack of intrinsic meaning/purpose is something that frees you up to make decisions on a whim. I think this is reflected in the decisions regarding aesthetics - decisions that have no justification other than being whatever I feel like. Because it could be handled either way. Either:

- the work is pointless, so putting energy into varying colours is pointless, so don't do it,

or

- the work is pointless, so you are free to make decisions that make you happy such as varying the colours.

Although maybe what I'm communicating has changed; I vaguely remember that maybe at one point my work was about complete lack of meaning/purpose, including fulfillment. Now maybe it's more about lack of intrinsic meaning/purpose as something that emphasises the importance of fulfillment.

Still Making Dice Pieces

outcome is determined by dice rolls, so it is random/'meaningless'
certain visual aspects make it resemble a written language
the piece hints at a meaning, but this meaning does not exist

Things To Do

- Finish the series of pieces that have the above caption. Decide on presentation (also means evaluating the role of presentation/aesthetics in this series).

- Analyse the "Unnecessary Labour" piece, especially how it was last presented. What needs changing? How much should it stick to the original plan? In which ways has it evolved from the original plan? Maybe I should take some photos, playing with the presentation.

- Keep going with the pieces whose outcome is determined by dice rolls. This reminds me of aleatoric music, so I'm guessing aleatoric visual art also exists. I will research that.

Intentional Inefficiency

(Doing things for the sake of doing things - fixation on the perpetuation of cycles...)

- Exercise, e.g. running in circles, picking objects up and then putting them down again (and repeat)

- Having nothing that needs doing, so doing something for the sake of doing it, e.g. leaving the house for a "change of scenery," attempting to learn something to "keep your brain active"

- The cycle of manufacturing objects, convincing people that those objects are things that they need, selling those objects, convincing people that those objects are outdated, making new objects etc. (planned obsolescence, consumerism, buying out of desire)

Dice Rolls

I guess the fourth one makes the others self-explanatory. (In case it does not: these were all created using sequences of outcomes of dice rolls.)

- If something is random, does it have any meaning?

- Aren't we/our thoughts/our actions a consequence of chains of events that start from a random occurrence?

- Does a piece of "art" which has been created out of randomly chosen elements have any more meaning (in the eyes of the viewer) than one that has not? Especially considering that most contemporary art is intentionally displayed without some sort of description, and a large amount of it does not explicitly or literally illustrate its intentions - art nowadays often acts as a blank canvas onto which viewers can project their own ideas, and any specificity that comes from the mouth/hands of the artist is dismissed as being an attempt to "force an interpretation." If it is in the form of background information, then the viewer states that it represents failure to communicate through the work alone. If it is the work itself that provides specificity, then the viewer states that it is too literal. In that case most abstract art could be just as easily replaced with randomly generated images.

- Can something created without purpose serve the same function as something created with a purpose? (Probably.)

- Where there are no meanings, we invent them. Are these worth more, less or the same?

- If our existence does not come with a meaning, what is the difference between the life of someone who has invented their own meaning/purpose, and the life of someone who is also carrying out a series of actions, but without having assigned a meaning/purpose to these actions?

Labour/Work/Effort (Unfinished Brainstorming)

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does an equal amount of work in terms of the amount of energy used over the course of their lifetime."
- This would mean that it is not okay that people can inherit or relatively easily acquire assets and then profit off those assets in a way that means they do not have to do as much work.

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does an equal amount of work in terms of the amount of energy used per year/month/other."
- This would mean that it is not okay that people can inherit or relatively easily acquire assets and then profit off those assets in a way that means they do not have to do as much work.

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does an equal amount of work in terms of the length of time spent working over the course of their lifetime."
- This would mean that the importance/impact of a person's work was irrelevant.

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does an equal amount of work in terms of the length of time spent working per year/month/other."

"The ideal situation is one where the work is split in a way that is proportionate to the amount of work that each person is capable of doing - everyone ends up making the same amount of effort."

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does the amount of work that makes them happy."

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does the amount of work that leads to a feeling of fulfilment."

"The ideal situation is one where the total amount of work carried out is the smallest amount possible."

"The ideal situation is one where efficiency is valued, but people are willing to do more work if it leads to increased quality of life."

"The ideal situation is one where everyone does the most work possible."

"The ideal situation is one where the work a person does benefits only themselves and those they intend to help (i.e. no one ends up doing any work that benefits those they would not choose to help)."
- This suggests that ideas such as socialised medicine are not 'fair.' Some people believe this to the point where they would be a lot less happy in a country where they were paying taxes than in a country where they felt like they only had to pay for themselves and their families - even if the total amount of tax would have added up to a lot less money.

"The ideal situation is one where people's preferences (regarding type of work) are considered relevant to what is considered 'fair' distribution of work."

"The ideal situation is one where work is assigned to each person based on aptitude/abilities rather than preference, leading to greater efficiency."

"The ideal situation is one where each person does their share of every type of work."

Abstract Things

I'm starting some abstract pieces to do with the ideas of:
- repetition
- mindlessness
- working like a machine (this does not refer to quantity of work)

I may create some where visual aspects are determined by dice rolls.

This relates to the idea of futility and the instinct to be "productive" without necessarily having a purpose, or the instinct to invent a purpose and then work for that purpose (since people were not put on Earth with a set of goals).

Unnecessary Labour And The Phrase "Creating Jobs"

The phrase "creating jobs" sounds like it refers to creating work that did not particularly need to be done: unnecessary labour. It sounds like a way of saying, "We'd like these people to get the money that they need to have a decent standard of living, but we don't want to feel like they're not working for it." The term seems to refer to deliberate inefficiency. "Let's not find a way to spread the existing work around. Let's make it feel equal by creating more of it. Let's create more factory jobs and retail jobs and other repetitive things. The people who already had jobs won't have any less work but they'll be okay with it as long as the other people are being put to work somewhere too."

"There are two babies and three nannies, so we'll get the third nanny to carry a bag of rocks to make it 'fair.'"

"Let's make products less hard-wearing so that we can keep being paid to make things."

"Let's make people forget the difference between need and want, so that there will be an everlasting amount of labour that feels compulsory."

As we're told, the cycle goes "work, buy, consume," ("die," if you think about it, is not actually part of the cycle at all, so let's not be needlessly morbid) but we probably don't need to cycle so fast; if we slow down the buying/consumption, we can slow down the working (whether this means personally consuming less so that you need less money, or on a larger scale - everyone slowing down so that companies/countries/other are not having to work more and more to compete).

But then, even if we do not have financial problems, we're conditioned to feel guilty about not being "productive." Often people seem to feel a certain level of regret if they sleep in, or relax a bit "too much," regardless of whether or not they actually had something else that they intended to do. And people who feel they've escaped the so-called "rat race" and are providing for themselves without working excessively are dismissed as being "country bumpkins."

Ignoring the financial side of things, there's probably a balance to be achieved between feeling useful/fulfilled and feeling relaxed. It's just a shame that people often mistake the need to do something productive/fulfilling for the idea that relaxation is something to feel guilty about.

(We're all assigned an arbitrary length of time on earth anyway, so why would that amount of time specifically also be the amount of time that we would "need" to fill? That implies filling the time for the sake of filling the time, not for the sake of getting something necessary done. See, unnecessary labour...)

Thoughts On Decorative Crafts

Purposes include:

- "filling time," the implication being that there are no necessary tasks left to do (e.g. gathering food, creating shelter) - to what extent do MOST actions resemble this? are most of our actions meaningless? or is it wrong to suggest that actions that are not strictly "functional" are useless? (probably - no part of existence is compulsory, and fulfillment can be seen [by those who do not believe in an afterlife or a similar idea] as the only purpose of living)

- showing off wealth: person A has spare money; person B needs money and has time; person B invests the time into the creation of a decorative object; person A trades money for this object - to what extent is this a little bit sadistic? does person A effectively have a chunk of person B's time crystallised into a decorative trophy? is this less appropriate an observation now that a person buying a handcrafted object is not necessarily richer than the person making it (in the Western world, anyway)? (and yes, probably)

Post-Formative Review, Part 2

After reading the feedback:

- I need to evaluate whether or not the fact that the "unnecessary labour" piece is unfinished actually adds to the work or says something that is worth saying, as opposed to being a flaw I need to correct.

- Striking a balance between: 1) an amount of labour small enough that it doesn't feel like "labour," and 2) an amount large enough that it is impressive and doesn't seem "unnecessary," seems like the best way to communicate the point, but I will experiment further.

- I should "revalue futility" / question views on labour and futility.

Habits To Kick

More stress:

more time spent trying to split the workload into tasks, remind self it's all okay, make sure all pieces of work are listed somewhere so they won't be forgotten, make sure there isn't anything I'll forget to do,

less time spent getting stuck into work.

I Should Write Fortune Cookies

Cross-stitching is like life; it's too hard to keep going because of the fear of making a mistake.

Kerning

While embroidering a text piece, I realised that I wasn't sure whether to measure the spaces between the letters as being between the very edges of each letter, or ignoring the 'overhanging' bits. I was doing the former (I figured it was fine as long as I was consistent), then remembered that the latter was probably what 'kerning' was, and that I should probably look that up. The former option seems more consistent, while kerning looks more consistent. Consistency is important to me, so it's a dilemma.

Post-Formative Review, Part 1

I was feeling pretty ill on the morning of the crit, so I missed half of it and then felt that it would be rude to ask to discuss my work anyway. Naturally (or not), I am now plagued with the idea that if I had been present through the whole thing, maybe someone would have said something that would have turned out to be somehow vitally important and/or life-changing. I may just have to settle for guessing what that thing could have been.

"Did you choose the colours for a reason?"
The colours are not in some way symbolic, but follow the (arbitrarily chosen) rule that no colour is used more than once (if we are being pedantic here, I guess I mean "shades" - no specific shade of a colour is used more than once). I could make up a reason why the colour choices are somehow significant or meaningful, but I feel that that would go against the intention of the piece. The colours end up being meaningless; each is chosen with aesthetics in mind and goes with the colour next to it, but all together they make up a muddled selection of unplanned-looking rainbow colours arranged in a pattern that to me conveys both monotony and chaos, and well as being kind of ugly but also kind of pretty. I guess the idea is that you'd ask, 'What exactly are you going for here?' and the answer would be, 'Nothing, but it took some time.'

"Should there be more contrast between the pink letters and the orange surrounding them?"
Aiming for readability would imply that the piece was created for a purpose, and then it would not be 'unnecessary.'

"Does the piece's setting matter?"
I think it's best taken out of context, so that it doesn't refer as specifically to a certain type of person or lifestyle. The way it's presented currently creates an ambiguity that I like. It's folded up, and there is a lot of unused fabric behind the embroidered pattern; it makes an effort to be neat and finished, but gently fails. It looks soft, like a cushion or quilt, but it does not have a function. Putting the piece in some sort of context risks upsetting the balance.

"Should it be bigger?"
A smaller amount of unnecessary labour is as unnecessary as a larger amount of unnecessary labour. It is either unnecessary or necessary, and the quantity does not affect this.

I may have to come back to this with further made-up questions, but I feel as though the nature of the piece leads me to answer every question, even those posed by myself, with some variation of, "This is all inconsequential."

"Unnecessary Labour" - Scale

I'm thinking that this piece may not need to be exceptionally big, since the idea is that the labour is unnecessary regardless of the quantity. A large piece would be a large amount of unnecessary labour, and a small piece would be a small amount of unnecessary labour. Both are unnecessary.

Maybe I should make a "SMALL AMOUNT OF UNNECESSARY LABOUR" piece, and a "SLIGHTLY LARGER AMOUNT OF UNNECESSARY LABOUR" piece.

To Do

- Expand "Unnecessary Labour" piece.

- Finish other series (the pieces that say, "I'm just trying to...").

"Unnecessary Labour," "Productivity"

I really get the sense that the medium I've chosen for the pieces I've been making fits as well as I was hoping it would. I'm spending hours a day cross-stitching, and the monotony makes me constantly wonder:

- Is this productivity?
- What's the point?
- What is life?

That, I guess, was exactly what I had been aiming to communicate.