October - full steam ahead

Claude and I set off for Kensington for another year with grateful thanks to all those who have made this adventure possible.

The first month focused on planning and a review of published work  review trying to decide on the emphasis of the project - should I go down a cultural or scientific route? From this would flow a whole series of choices such as who to approach as a supervisor, the form and structure for the written work and the direction and context for the studio practice.

After much surfing and soul searching and conversations with inspiring tutors including Steve Brown, Annie Cattrell and Al Rees, it became clear that I feel more comfortable with the way that scientists have looked at space and perception and so would be more likely to get something finished in this relatively short time. I was so delighted that the psychologist Priscilla Heard agreed to be my second supervisor. She suggested that I look at the work of the German artist and academic Ludvig Wilding who developed a series of art works exploiting the way that moire patterns create extraordinary mobile illusions of space.
The first step was to get to grips with the variables involved, working first with printed paper and transparencies, then with glass. Slumped, fused, cast, blown, etched... it felt wonderful to be able to use all the skills and connections built up over the past two years. Things that used to take me weeks were suddenly possible in days.

working out Wilding

I borrowed Richard's car and drove up to Oxford to install the musical instruments at the Bate Museum of Musical Instruments and spent a very happy hour playing with the singing bowls and Chris Garrard and Chris Ferebee, PhD students in Music at St Hilda's, planning for the performance at the Music Marathon in November.

Bate Museum of Musical Instruments

Chris Ferebee and Chris Garrard

I also had the chance to work with staff and patients at the Bristol Children's Hospital to introduce them to Apophysis, a brilliant fractal pattern generation programme that I used for the Eye Hospital panels.
There was also a meeting with  meet Becky Jones, a wonderful medical student at Bristol University who is doing a PhD on the immune system in cancer who was keen to find out more about the work that Annie Hinchcliffe and I have been developing over the past year or so.

And went on a white water training weekend trip with the Canoe Club to sunny Tiverton!