As part of my MA, we were required to keep a creative diary keeping track of the professional practice lectures, research, reading, exhibition visits and general inspiration. I finally got around to scanning some of the one from my second year. In the first year I used blog posts for the same purpose, but I felt the need later on for a physical record.
It’s a 1/4 sized sketchbook with pictures printed out onto cheap supermarket photo paper. I started colouring in the pages with indian ink because the printer ink kept rubbing off the cheap photo paper and leaving grubby marks on the opposite page. That’ll teach me for not buying the original cartridges or paper, I guess.
I just scanned the odd page here and there, chosen almost at random, because I filled up all 100 pages over the course of the year, and I doubt anyone here has the patience to look at all one hundred. The lectures we had were more about artists discussing their work and the path of their career than information that had to be written down for later learning, so I got into the habit of only jotting down phrases that caught my attention and encouraged further thought for my own work.
Inside cover. The b&w passport photo is one of many I took in Vienna, where they have quite a few old-fashioned photobooths that only cost €2 a go. I’m holding a bag of Schokobananen, an austrian sweet that it seems only me and austrian people like. They’re foam/gummy bananas covered in dark chocolate. I love T.S.Eliot’s poetry, but I’m not keen of what I’ve read of his politics.
Exhibitions in Vienna.
The Sound Museum, and an exhibition about Jan Ṧvankmajer at the Kunsthalle
This is the short film I talked about. It’s really worth a watch:
Some things from the Museum of Childhood.
A lecture from John Vernon Lord, a very well known children’s illustrator.
An exhibition about the beginnings of colour film at Brighton Museum. All-singing, all-dancing Kinemacolour, the height of technology in 1908:
Some books I enjoyed.
Forkbeard Fantasy at the Royal Festival Hall. I wrote about the exhibition here.
Lectures about my tutor George Hardie‘s garden and from furniture designer Fred Baier. Fred reminded me very much of the professor in Back to the Future. Also, I can’t spell in Russian. It should be Чернихов instead of Черниkов.
A shop window display in Palma, and modern science not being as good as its advertising. The thermoplastic looked like old candlewax when it dried.
A summary at the end of the diary of all the influences that fed into the finished project.
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