Postcards from beyond the edge

This work was partially inspired by an article I read about sending postcards from space. Soon after I got the brief for the next ReOrsa artists project, dealing with notions around boundaries and the breaking of them. The two seemed to coalesce instantly into the beginnings of this work.

Boundaries and Beyond flyer

Thinking about the nature of boundaries and what boundaries mean from a tourist or postcard perspective, I decided that not only did I want to send postcards from space, I also wanted it to seem perfectly normal. I had also recently re-watched a episode of Horizon called The Core which talked about the interior of the Earth and how it may be the last place we ever explore due to its phenomenally inhospitable conditions.

This sounded like a challenge to me so I decided to create a series of postcards that infer that the current limits of human exploration and some of the most inhospitable and remote areas of the world are perfectly normal holidaying destinations. Creating, photographing and using free to access images I have produced 60 postcards with images from all around the globe and beyond. Jungles, Deserts, Arctic regions, Space and under the earth are all represented as well a a few other areas.

Original test postcard

Additionally many of the images are not of the places they say they are. I wanted to take to the extreme the postcard tradition of showing places in the best possible light, often to the point that they no longer look like the place they depict. I won't spoil here which ones are fake, I will leave that for you to work out.

I've always been interested with perception and the power of suggestion to produce views and ideas that are not true. This is one of the reasons that postcards interest me so. The idea that one or a few perfect images of perfect places can represent a place really fascinates me. 

 

Intital mocked up postmark

To accentuate this power of suggestion, I took all 60 postcards and created a universe where these cards were sent from one person to another, arranged them into series of cards from individual holidays and gave them an entire timeline and false history. The cards were written in order according to my timeline and frequently contain references to previous holidays or past unknown events much as a 11 year association via postcards would do. I created a false publishing company and a QR code, that when scanned should take you to my website. Finally I created fake stamps that referenced the general locations of the cards and 60 individual postmarks.

Final work

From my 6 years working with postcards I seem to be mainly producing works that cannot be touched and are quite traditional from a fine art aspect; paintings, drawings and prints. For a medium that is first visual but also quite tactile this can be odd. I have recently started archiving my collection so I have had a lot more tactile relationship with them in recent months which may be impacting in the scope of my work.

I liked the idea of creating actual postcards and of forming this entire new world where a weekend in space is as normal as a weekend in the south of France. The idea of looking into a future where the infrastructure to allow postcards to be sent exists everywhere seems both utopian and disturbing. Being able to go anywhere that easily seems amazing but also the idea of every wild and natural place becoming as false and uniform as most other highly touristy place goes against everything I believe.

Example of one of the finished cards (text side)

At the end of the day there are not (quite yet) shuttles to hotels on the Moon, but I am interested to what level visitors believe what they are given. And I like that they have to rifle through the postcards. I'd want to see how many people feel the need to read from start to finish and how many pick up the first one they see. I had a great time making up this character writing the postcards, who is effectively me, but me writing from a position I could only imagine rather than experience.

As to the addressee, which I really agonised over, I decided that I would have to take inspiration from a fictional explorer. Hopefully before I said that most of you didn't work out which one immediately.

Example of a finished card (image side)

Often the ReOrsa space is only accessible by looking in through the windows. I was highly aware of this when I was planning the work so I wanted my work to be at least partially readable through the windows. So far every time I have gone past the Gallery@49 windows I have seen at least one person trying to read my work. Additionally it seems every time I have gone past more and more of the postcards have escaped from their box. As well as a few originally scattered on the plinth they have seemed to explode exponentially with masses on the plinth and many now sitting on the nearby window ledge. It seems the postcards themselves want to take their own journey.

Boundaries and Beyond is on from 15^th - 31^st March at Gallery@49 in Bracknell Town Centre. It will be open 12 – 4 on the 31^st March and I will be there from 2 – 4 pm. 

 Check out the news: http://www.bracknellnews.co.uk/news/bracknell/articles/2012/03/19/58017-taking-art-to-the-town/ 

Installed work at ReOrsa Gallery@49

Links:

Horizon: The Core - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0148vph

Postcards from space - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-12/02/content_14199778.htm

Underwater post box - http://rainbowstampclub.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/underwater-post-office-at-bahamas.html

ReOrsa and Gallery@49 - http://www.reorsa.org/Activities/activity6.html

Sketchbook project 2012

For those of you that don't know, ArtHouse Co-Op in Brooklyn, New York has been doing a yearly sketchbook project, where for a relatively small fee (compared to the usual entry fee for UK exhibitions) they send you a A5ish sized sketchbook which you can alter almost anyway you like, a project title and will then exhibit the sketchbook around the USA and store it in the Brooklyn Art Library forever for people to look at.

For 2012 the project is also getting toured overseas, so my sketchbook should be available to view not only throughout the USA but back here in Blighty as well.

Pages 6 and 7

There were a selection of topics to choose from, with my love of postcards and subverting the traditional postcard image I chose “It's Summer Where You Are”. I intentionally wanted it to be quite free flowing like a sketchbook should be, also like a journey and work with images and postcards that were from places I had travelled. I was tempted to use postcards I owned to present some kind of story from a fictional person on a journey but felt that it seemed a little forced for the idea of the sketchbook. It is after all meant to be an exploration of ideas as well as a body of work. There needs to be some experimentation. Additionally I'd tried previously to produce my painted postcards with reverses, this seemed like a good idea but in the end it just served to make my point about these paintings being postcards too bull headed. Of course there is always a exception to the rule as Greetings from the Mantelpiece showed.

Pages 8 and 9

In the end I dumped the writing idea completely leaving just a few examples on pages that were meant to be more about unformed ideas than actual semi finished work. Which in the end was just some musings on all the various ice cream trucks I had encountered on my travels over the last 5 years. The rest became a mix of small scale biro drawings, a few unusual or interesting photographs and printed on postcards.

Roughly the sketchbooks journey started with an exploration of places around the coast. I'd been to Southwold very recently on a summer holiday and as one that reminisced heavily from my childhood holidays with my parents it seemed an obvious place to start and spend some time/pages on. Moving on, the sketchbook visits Portsmouth (including Portchester), Cowes and from the boats of Cowes to the boats of Venice then through other foreign places including India and Tenerife. Returning back to London and following a route west towards my home, through Kew Gardens, Windsor and Virginia Water.

Pages 16 and 17

The inside back cover and front cover are the same image done using two different methods that both had heavy use in the sketchbook. This image of Brooklyn Bridge was taken by me when I visited New York in 2005 and is one of my favourite images from the trip. I wanted to include it as a homage to the sketchbooks final resting location and organisation that created the project. The original idea for the book was to have the book reflect the actual physical journey it would go on but I felt uncomfortable trying to reproduce images of places I had never been. Nor at that time did I know if I had postcards from each of these places. I still am unsure but thats a story for another day.

Pages 18 and 19

Many of the methods used you will recognise. The biro drawings I have been doing for a few years now. I was interested however if I could do them that small and in trying to push myself technically.

The photographs were chosen because of an inherent oddness or importance to the visit I made. For example on page 9 I have a photograph of a sunny Southwold with an obvious and somewhat ominous rainstorm on its way (No photoshop by me, this was real and I got very wet that day). On page 16 there is photograph of a pair of entertainers in Cowes week, dressed as sailors they arrived and created an utterly surreal air about the place. It was fantastic and really set the tone for the rest of the day.

Pages 20 and 21

The printed on postcards embraced a number of methods depending if I already had produced a plate for another purpose of that place. There is a postcard of Southwold beach huts that has on the reverse a print from my Southwold Beach Huts etching. There is a postcard from Tenerife that I have printed on using a solar plate of Tenerife and there are a number of postcards that I have used the polymer plate lithographic process on including Venice and the front cover showing Brooklyn Bridge.

The method of printing was fairly immaterial, polymer plate won out with the newest plates only because it was cheap, quick and very graphic. Mainly I was interested in the idea of printing imagery on the reverse rather than words. It seems subversive and can produce some aesthetically interesting combinations. While imagery, it still retains this contrast from the highly detailed photograph.

The tour starts in April in New York. http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject2012

Images are my actual sketchbook.

Pages 24 and 25

Getting into it - Photo project 2012

So it is time again for a new photographic project. The idea that has been brewing for some time is an extension of the looking at reality of a place, however instead of trying to find an objective reality, this time I want to use photography to look at views that would be unfamiliar from a human perspective. I'm not interested in photoshopping my images beyond some gentle cropping as it is the idea of the camera as a true medium, if that makes sense, that interests me more, certainly when a photograph is the end product, rather than a painting.

Perambulation: 28th Oct 2009

One thing I do know about photographing is that an unusual angle is often more interesting than shooting from human head height. The Perambulation project reinforced that in me, early photos of fungi are from above with me standing or only leaning down, later ones might even have me spread eagled on the leaves and I think we can agree which are best.

Perambulation: 6th Oct 2010

I like the idea of manipulating reality using camera angles. Of going more extreme than that to produce images that might not be immediately known what or where they are. Predictably my life is all over the place already and it's only just 2012 so for now I either have to be flexible about when and how often I get these images or I have to be flexible about where.

Perambulation: 29th Jan 2010

So,

Option 1: a full 365, time fixed like Welcome to Simons Wood, of where ever I am that day and time. This would be looking more of a subjective reality of my life rather than a particular place. It is interesting, but why would I want to complicate it with the challenge of finding unusual angles.

Option 2: a project like Perambulation, 6 days a week not time fixed. I'd probably stick to nature as my backdrop but might find a few other ones here and there depending on what I find interesting that day. It has the potential to be interesting but feels like it might be a little unfocused and I know work will get in the way massively.

Option 3: probably a 52 although I am tempted to define it as twice a week rather than once. Not date or time sensitive but would focus on one place or one type of place. Certainly won't be objective in any way.

Perambulation : 1st June 2010

For those of you with long memories the seed for this idea has lasted over a year and was known once as Secret Project 3. (Secret Projects 1 and 4 were revealed to be my Postcassettes and my foray into Printmaking. Both now on the website. Secret project 2 ran into technical difficulties.)

I'm going to go with Option 3 although Option 1 might become it's own project one day. Mainly because after the restrictions of Welcome to Simons Wood I feel the need for a relaxed project with the potential for large creative output. I also wanted a project that would challenge me as well as not interfere to much with work. 

Perambulation: 26th Aug 2010

 

Photos: some examples from Perambulation, plus below, the first image of the project.  Find it on Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noblueskies/sets/72157628733339427/

Photo Project 2012: 5th Jan 2012

 

Happy New Year!

Just in case I have loyal followers here that don't use Facebook or Twitter (or do and have never found me there) and also aren't on my mailing list, here is a link to whats coming up in the New Year for me.

http://www.gemmacumming.com/dec_newsletter.htm

I hope you all have a fabulous night tonight and that 2012 is your best year yet.

Happy New Year!

Balloon!