After our pin hole workshop we were asked to create our own unique pinhole camera and look at making it from uncommon objects! I thought I would create one which links to my work on cigarettes and what better than a cigarette packet!

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I thought about developing my sculpture more by adding more fag ends. Rather than collecting butts and placing them my self I thought I would get people to interact with my piece, and placed my sculpture in the smoking area and asked people to put out their cigarettes there instead. This way they are placed/dumped how people would on the street, I have not moved any and personally think it helps narrate the story of cigarettes polluting the world.

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To enhance my paintings I started to look at how visually I could show my story of cigarettes polluting the world. I began to make a sphere shape out of old (recycled) scraps of paper and rubbish (to give the notion of a world) and then started to paste cigarette butts on, to show the pollution.. I also experimented with the scale of my drawings, I thought that to give them more impact I could look at making them on a larger scale. I used the same method as previously and burnt a whole in the middle and painted with the ash around that to create this kinda of dark grungy black whole, I feel that the paintings create a whole different atmosphere at different scales, and it was interesting comparing the two.

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Unfortunatly I have still not found a way to put my sound clip on my blog, I have played around with distorting the sound but I feel that although it fits with my work well it does not ‘speak for it’s self’ and it is something that would need to go along side my paintings or sculpture. I also personally don’t feel like it is strong enough to represent the ideas I have, however I have enjoyed experimenting and playing around with the sound and it could be something I look at in a different project. 

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At the end of this week we have to display our work from the project we have been working on for Steve. We have been told the key goal is the work should speak for it’s self. I need to present the narrative with out talking about it, so i’ve gathered all my work and am looking at which pieces best explain themselves. All together I have my series of paintings, my photos, my experiments, my research (on this blog) and my sculpture.

• After the a3 crit on monday I feel my sculpture needs to be developed more to help explain it’s self so that would be the first thing I could do. I got the impression that people got the general idea of pollution, but not necessarily from the cigarette butts, so I feel to make the work more explanatory I would have to look at adding more cigarettes to the piece.
• This is one idea I could develop, the next is my paintings, I feel like I could maybe play around with the centre of the work where the burnt whole is, already the paintings are creating this black hole, which I think represents polluting the world, but visually I feel maybe if I added some more ash/and fag ends it would help get the narrative across of the mundane object taking over and destroying the world. 
• My third idea would again be looking at my photos and the idea of nature fighting back, which I have tried to represent in my sculpture, I could play around with recreating another photo, or displaying them in a way that is suggestive of the idea. Hopefully if I have my blog for people to look at along side my work people can look through the series of photos I have taken and be able to get a better idea of where my work has developed from.

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On monday afternoon I had my crit for the a3 only exhibition. I found it really interesting to look around at first, second, and third years work, our crit was also a mixture of all years and I got some really constructive feedback from my peers. With out explaining our work we listened to what people thought it might be about and what they feel it represents, and I found it very helpful to hear different opinions. I also got some ideas on how to develop my work further. 

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This is how my sculpture looks so far! I am pretty happy with the outcome, I have decided to leave it outside to weather it to add to the authenticity of it. 

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I wanted to make sure I documented the process, I felt it was important that people knew that I spent time building up the layers and didn’t just throw anything in. Everything was put in for a reason! Each small bit of greenery was gently unrooted and replanted in my tray making sure to appear as if it has grown around the rubbish.

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After creating a base, I spent the afternoon building up my sculpture always checking back to my photo for guide lines. The photo I took was only of a small area so I wanted to create that and develop the surrounding area, and for this I wanted to express pollution and nature fighting back. I used old rubbish (plastic in particular because of how long it takes to disintegrate) and dirt, shrubbery to show nature pushing its way back, growing around the rubbish. I spent time rooting through my back alley and garden to collect the right plants/soil/dirt to finish my sculpture.

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From the start of my project I have been interested in the work of Anya Gallacio who addresses enviromentalism and uses work that gradually decays/melts over the time it is exhibited and this is something that I wanted in my work, so I needed to make sure the shrubs in my work would last but slowly and surely start to die. I filled the bottom of my tray with a layer of old dirt/soil. Not only does it create a base for my sculpture but I am reusing earth that is set out to be destroyed (which links to my research/influences of recycling).

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