Viva

I just had my Viva and apperantly it went pretty well (at least thats what the tutors told me). I was quite nervous and offcourse afterwards remembered alot of stuff I forgot to mention (like helping to screenprint the fundraising bags, and planning to apply for a technicians position after I'm graduated). Well If they read all of my blog they will be able to find most of these thing I just can't blame them for not reading all of the posts I have made during these last 2 years as it has become quite a bookwork.

At this moment I am rounding up some stuff to make my work look at its best for the degree show aswell as casting some final pieces while I still have acces to the casting facilities.

Done!

A long weeks has finaly come to an end. I have finished the setup for my portfolio review. This includes (besides the degree show content), 11 big screenprints, 5 smaller prints, 7 invites and a technical sketch for my billboard. As my larg prints where too big for a regular frame I will have to wait untill after portfolio to present these. I also need to r-create one of the bases for my car models (as the glass is hand blown it doesn't fit the base perfectly, so I have to cut a groove in the wood to make the glass sink in).

I couldn't have managed all of this without the help of my wife Manami, and my classmates who have been of great assistance during the making and hanging of my billboard.

On monday I will have my viva where I will talk to my tutors about the work. But for now its resting time!

Getting there

Less then one day before hand in and it starts to feel like it is al comming togheter. Today we hung almost everything in the spaces where it is going to be. though I have to say that alot of my work isn't certain yet and it could be that some of the pieces that are placed now will be removed tomorrow (the spaces are still not entirely emptied yet so it is a bit difficult to see whether a space is too crowded with work or not). The big difference is also that I am still waiting for my prints to be framed, luckily I make everything in edetion so I have the exact same prints up now, but due to issues with the size of my work the frames are not going to be done in another week or so.

Another thing is that I am not sure if I should attacht the glass domes onto my modell cars yet or that I should wait with this untill the degree show aswell.

Something else to mention is my personal invites for the show. As I felt that it was important for me to have some invites to send out to the Netherlands and other friends (they will also be used with the billboard project that will start soon in the Netherlands). I have 7 different ones which are printed in the same way as my big screen prints and on the same kind of paper.

Degree show website

After many months I finaly got everyones information and completed the degree show website (well completed?). It's not looking great but everyone is represented.

If you're interested just have a look at:
http://relay.eca.ac.uk/zine/?page_id=762

Hommage to MFA 2

Today I learned that sometimes it's better to ask for help than to try and do everything by yourself. The day started very early as I had to go to the college copyshop to get the faulty print they gave me re-done. They restored their honor by immediately starting to print me a new billboard poster.
Unfortunately when it was done I decided tat it would be a good idea to glue it on with just the help of Manami. Besides that I also thought it might be easier to put the wallpaper paste onto the billboard instead of on the poster. This resulted in a near disaster as all the paper did was creating bubles allover.
Luckily one shout for a little help resulted almost the whole MFA group running for help. After some desperate attempts to try and get rid of all the bubles I saw my project going into the bin. Furtunately for me Gregor knew what to do and we just peeled the whole thing of and started right from the start (this time by glueing the back of the poster first. Miraculously this worked out great and it looked better than I could imagine. After a good few hours we got the second half done aswell and my billboard was complete (the poster that is, as it still needs to dry before I can put on the frame and hang it on the wall).

So I learned that it isn't a bad thing to ask for help when you might need it.

A big thank you to all that where there to help safe my project and an extra thank you to Gregor (http://www.trinomes-thinking.blogspot.co.uk/).

College screwups

Today started not as I had planned. For some reason the scaffolding I had reserved for tomorrow afternoon arrived this morning. And since I had my billboard laying on the floor they asked me if I could move it. Besides still being at home my billboard was still laying on the floor (the same reason as why I wanted the scaffolding tomorrow and not today). I have been working for a month on getting my billboard image printed which I would get today and wanted to glue on the billboard while laying on the floor.
I had some great help from my classmates but a special thanks goes to Jonathan from the first year who helped me greatly in sorting the hanging system out for my billboard.

However the second big screwup of today was done by the college printshop as they failed to print my poster (which is in 2 parts) at the same scale. So I think that was my chance to get it done in time for the assesement next week. I will go in really early tomorrow but I doubt they will get it done (I remember something about them not even having the paper anymore).

So not really a succesfull day today.


Time for something fun which is a picture of my almost finished car model, and one of my screenprints to show where I'm modelling from:

Billboard comming soon

As the weeks fly by I just remembered that not this week but then next will be the start of my billboard campaign. In week 20 my billboard in the Netherlands will go up for 2 weeks in Nijmegen. This will go down when my show in Edinburgh will be opened officialy, which will hopefully be followed by a showing of the piece in California. Here's an image of the billboard.

Framing

As I am working on finishing up my A0 screenprints with airbrush (and comming up with titles), I am also working on getting them framed. Unfortunately becausse of their size this is not an easy task. After doing lots of research I decided to go with a smaller framing place which is run out of an artist studio space. I think this (besides being cheaper) a good thing to do as it's fun to deal with someone who doesn't see the framing just as a job.

Unfortunately this will mean that the framing won't be done before the portfolio (besides having to work on framing for someone's show in London she also has to wait untill matterials get in as again the size of the needed frames is larger than normal). The good thing is that it will be done for the degree show and the fact that I make stuff in series means that I will be able to show the prints for portfolio either way.

Here are some new pics of my latest prints with airbrushed colour (you might have seen one before as I tested it out on a printed version to see if it was worth making a screen print out of it).

Titles

For the degree show I am starting to finaly think about the titles of my work (ok I have done so before I just didn't mention it yet).
For some of my pieces I don't think it is necessary , but for others I do think it is Important.
My billboard for example shows a very specific car (a 1971 Plymouth Duster), this was the last model made before the exhaust environmental rules came in to play. And thus by many is seen as the last "real" (budget) Muscle car.

I am thinking about a couple of titles but maybe seeing them under the image makes sense. And again any help is welcome (especially from the car people out there that know more about this cars history than I do, so feel free to correct me when I am saying stuff that doesn't make sense).

          71' Plymouth Duster, May 2012, Sander Schoonbeek 

          Untitled (71' Plymouth Duster), May 2012, Sander Schoonbeek

                      

         1971 Plymouth Duster, May 2012, Sander Schoonbeek 

Billboard

Another day at the college and it's good to see how well the studio's are being turned into an exhibition space. We patched up some more walls and started to paint all of them.

After having done enough painting I decided to give my billboard construction a go and I was surprised about how quick it went. It isn't going to be perfectly flat but I am quit happy with the result so far. I was thinking about the fact that imperfections are always important in my work but that it becomes more difficult to look at them when you get better at what you do. Especially with all the screenprinting I have been doing all year long it's hard to see imperfections while that is actually what I enjoyed at the first place. It reminds me of blowing glass for the first time. When you start blowing glass you get al sorts of weird lumpy cups but once you know how to make a cup it's pretty much impossible to create one of those weird lumpy onces again.

I have to say a thank you to Gregor, Kimberly, Yao Lung, Tomoko and Iain for helping me with the billboard when I needed an extra pair of hands (or feet).

Artist Statement

I have been thinking about making my own small publication. For this I want to include the work that I have made either during this course or all my art college years. As I think it would be a bit strange to make a publication without writing in it I have been trying some of that.

Here is a go I took at an artist statement (which I will use for this degree show).
I was inspired by Baba-san whom I have met in Japan and told me something about how Japanese people see the car's I've been using for my work.

草むらのヒーロー - Kusamura no hero - A hero in the field

'A hero in the field' is used in Japanese culture to describe a rusty car standing for so long that it has almost turned to dust. A car that has completed its duty but is waiting eternally for its last journey. The Japanese may feel a touch of pathos seeing these ‘once’ great automobiles abandoned and alone.

As in Japan the rest of the world has many of these ‘great’ heroes waiting to be discovered and given a second chance. Unfortunately we have become blind for what once was and only want to see what is to come.

I am trying to give these forgotten heros another chance and make people aware of our once great industrial era which we are now melting down to create new resources

Setting up

Almost midnight and I just got home from college. It's amazing how different the rooms look and I want to thank my classmates for doing an amazing job today cleaning and patching up so much (especially Simone who's got her own space somewhere else but is still helping out as much as she can), it's good to work as a team.

after doing some of the cleanup I moved my stuff into the room where my billboard will be and started to paint the panels in another layer (with the help of Manami). Since I am glueing the billboard poster on the board I am painting both sides of the panels to prevent them from warping when the glue is put on just one side.

Now it's of to updating our degree show's website as I am head of that department (not that there's anyone else in it).