Current obsessions – Page 13 – An artist's practice

Image above by Roger's Eye <(r)>

My reflections, 9 months on …

My friends and family naturally ask me how and what I am doing, now that I have the time and inclination to pursue my ‘passions’. Back in August I was telling everyone that I was doing bugger all. Which was sort of true and sort of not. I wasn’t spending a lot of time on any one thing, but I was spending time on lots of things.

Good friend Peter asks me about my ‘masterpieces’. He’s coming to visit soon. My family are due here for a special birthday event in a week or so. I will update them on my progress. This post is also an update on progress in the past few months, and a reflection on the interconnections between the many and different things that are fascinating me at the moment.

Diversification, that’s what it is.

Another blogger I read talked about too many fingers in too many pies. But he said it was good—it was ‘diversification’. I tend to agree, mainly because the more I do, the more I get ideas. And those ideas inform each other.

My website work brings me into contact with the imagery of others, which …
inspires collections of images, which …
resonates (thematically) with my painted images, and ideas for digital images.

My knitting inspires colour, textural and technical exploration, which …
helps me to understand the importance of technical mastery, which …
feeds the same desire with paint, pen, pencil and pixel.

Cooking speaks to my desire for a world that is aesthetic, wholesome and sustainable, which …
makes me rant even more about the ugly and unjust in the world, which …
will in time, motivate themes in my work.

Playing Sims 3 has had an astounding impact on my aspirations (not only within the game), which …
encourages me to paint, draw, knit, garden, cook and keep fit, which …
motivates the diversification of interests, and reveals the interconnections!

I will post some more details about these projects in other posts, but here is a summary update:

Dancing Capital

My Dancing Capital website has undergone a complete rebuild with an update to Joomla 2.5 and a new template (Lifestyle from Joomlabamboo). I’ve also more than tripled the content and now have Violet’s blog up and running.

A couple more tweaks and it will go live again. I hope it was worth the wait!

Other blogs

Apple and walnut cake — My ‘food promise’ blog

Self-making blanket — My ‘Master crafting‘ blog

Scratch-built Ymir — Chris’s phlog STATIC CAPITAL

I have 3 other blogs going:

Master crafting will track my progress from beginner to master in craft-related pursuits (starting with knitting).
Static capital is Chris’s photo blog.
Food Promise is a documentation of how I feel about food. It chronicles how and what we eat—both day to day and on special occasions (not quite ready to go live yet).

Everybody knows that it takes time to develop content for a blog. With each of these blogs I have to make stuff (real or digital), document (e.g. photography), then organise into something that is instructive or interesting. I love it, but it takes time. There is also inspiration that comes from doing this. I have started a garden and am growing some edible plants to support my food blog. My knitting is also inspiring some of my art making.

Art making

My studio in early October — My studio: October 2012

Lots of explorations in the studio. I am working on quite a few things at once. Some are beginning to work to some sort of a resolution.

‘waste paint’

I have lots of ‘left-over’ paint. I experiment with the left-overs by smudging, scraping and scratching, then painting over. These are a bit of fun, but also helping me to understand colour, layer and texture and how to manipulate these.

‘conundrums’

I am working on a series of ‘seals’ or ‘monograms’ which are visual puns or conundrums. The grab above is a work titled ‘Watercrest’. I’m layering paint, pen and pencil in these works. I want to explore transparent glazes. The spheres are the basis for these works.

paintings

I have a stock pile of canvases now so am working on a few a once. I’m still working on water, bubbles and fish (technical exercises). This grab is of a painting with working title ‘Lava’—which has resulted from the ‘waste paint’ explorations. Many more layers to come I think with this one.

knitfish

No images to share quite yet, but suffice to say, these are works about fishing, and about knitting. I am very excited about these! I will share soon!

Sims 3

Last, but not least, an update on playing Sims 3. Fran, my latest Sim, lives in Twinbrook and is an Architectural Designer. I am documenting her home renovation and some of her design projects for clients. You can see above that at the beginning she starts in one room on a swampy, misty lot. In this grab she has started to build some platforms out over the swamp which will form the foundations for her extension. Her lifetime wish is 100 top reviews from clients. By all accounts no Sim has ever achieved this, so I am persevering.

So, there’s the update. So much to do, so much to share, so little time!

Interior, luxury cabin in Hidden Springs

Nick Bostrom, a professor of philosophy at Oxford University, together with other like-minded philosophers and scientists, concludes that there is a good chance that we are living in a computer simulation.

‘Already you have people building these virtual worlds in computer games, and the more realistic they can make them the happier they are. You could have people pursuing virtual historical tourism, or people who want to do this just because it could be done. So I think it’s safe to say that people today, had they the capabilities, would do it, but perhaps with a certain level of technological maturity people may lose interest in this for one reason or another.’ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/were-underestimating-the-risk-of-human-extinction/253821/

So I am playing Sims 3 – that’s my guilty pleasure. Everyone has to have a guilty pleasure don’t they? And I don’t like chocolate much, or spending all day in bed reading, or watching reality TV. Wait, yes I watch reality TV too. But I haven’t yet gained the technological maturity to lose interest in playing Sims.

My justification for engaging in such a lowbrow activity is:

1. the ontological possibilities
2. the creative space Sims 3 affords
3. play is good for the brain, and perhaps even the soul

So here are some snaps of my favourite Sim bits at the moment.

I have been creating customised patterns in the Create a pattern tool. Simple and fun to paint, draw or steal images and then layer them into customised fabric, wood, metal or masonry patterns and textures. These can be applied to virtually every object and surface within the Sims world. Note the ‘Fishy’ sofa featuring a great photograph by my good friend Peter.

Sofa in Sim 3 pattern tool — Sims 3 ‘Grass’ sofa

I have been making Sims who aspire to creative careers—photographers, painters, sculptors, inventors, singers. The snapshot below is of ‘Nirvana’ who has succeeded in her lifetime wish to be a descendant of Da Vinci (top levels of painting, sculpting and inventing). And she did it without money cheats! She is also a super gardener and used the proceeds of her quality produce, and placing her work on consignment, to make a lot of money. She now owns property in Twinbrook, Shang Simla and Al Simhara.

Sims 3 Nirvana in her studio — Nirvana in her studio: making a metal sculpture – also two of her own paintings on the wall

I have also been building houses. This is quite a challenge and I’m still learning. My aim is to build bespoke but affordable accommodation—looking luxurious, but within the reach of my first home buyer Sims. My ‘cabins’ in Hidden Springs are just a little out of reach at the moment but I am working on getting the cost down by building on increasingly smaller plots of land and using the vertical space effectively. The views from these cabins are to die for!

Building 'cabins' in Hidden Springs — Building ‘cabins’ in Hidden Springs

If my Sims are virtually ‘real’, or really ‘virtual’ … I hope to be a benevolent creator.

When I first started playing Sims I was trying to level up as quickly as possible, gain money and other resources even if it meant cheating, and avoid any negative aspects of virtual life, like ageing. Now I care more about the particulars of the journey of each Sim, and am starting to get interested in a Sim’s relationship with others in the community.

Strangely, the achievements of my artist Sims spur me on in my own work! Back to the studio …

Category: Current obsessions

Reflections: a finger in too many pies?