my work - Flag 08

Flag 08 - family
somewhere when making this flag I hit my stride in using stitch in the making process. Embracing the slowness and the concentration required, this deep concentration gives to me a great deal of peace. I am also feeling like I can create a little finesse with the stitch now, rather than awkward accidental beauty.

amazing discovery - something for Amanda

Surfing the interwebs as I do for inspiration - I went to check on a fav website by Keri Smith and for some reason I got jumped to a post on July 9th 2008. I think it was written for another Amanda, but I also think it has been written for me. The title even says it - truthful things about being an artist and a mother, (for amanda).

One of those moments that lights my thoughts and feelings that I am part of a bigger system, a message written 2 years previously that speaks to one of my burning questions. As I finally hit upon my creative gold am I willing to risk it for another life that includes being a parent?

Today it is my Dad's birthday, he would have been 65.... he didn't make it. In times like this when life, death and meaning are so big in my daily life. It makes the parenting question have a different light. It feels like such a gift to make the discovery of Keri's writing.

Maybe a reverse birthday present from Dad.
x

This week has been a little different, not as much making, more feeling, my flags are still progressing and there is more to share and for something different snapshots of the making in the environments I work in (bus,my room, college).

my work - Flag 07

Flag 07 - untitled 07

This was my first flag where I distinctly and specifically was drawing with stitch. I followed my instincts and stitched from a feeling. The flag was prepared cutting up family clothing with a really bad pair of scissors (have since invested in sewing scissors) then my painting it with gesso, next step inspired what to do next.

I am guessing it is against all principles of what should be done, but I am genuinely discovering things as I go. Just like I did when I made things when i was a kid, with no formal instruction or person who knew such things, I made made concoctions, of wood, leaves, nails, or badly making barbie clothes.

my work - Flag 06

Flag 06 - oh Perrier how fizzy the sound

my work - Flag 05

Flag 05 - the places where he lived

my work - Flag 04

Flag 04 - face in the dirt

This project will have 65 flags, I will share each on my blog and it will be no easy feat.

They be shown as flags only maybe only as photos, or in situ or maybe they will burn. All I know is I I need to make this work, I am note sure where it will lead or become.

I am trusting that it will head in it's own direction and the making will be my focus.

my work - Flag 03

Flag 03 - the magic of paradise

artist to watch - Nicholas Hedges

on the vast interweb yesterday I discovered Nicholas Hedges who is currently artist in residence in Newscastle, Australia. I was moved by his work, and his articulation of time, discovery and his art and in writing on his many blogs. In my current personal work I am referring to memories and family and the below jumped out, 'the past too is like this. It appears fixed in its final shape by history, but when we observe at length we begin to see things differently.... the shape not unlike the present constantly chnages it shapes around us; because the pas was once present' Nicholas Hedges.

here are the links to his websites and blogs:
the lockup residency
personal blog
mine the mountain

my work - Flag 02

I promise to reveal more as I feel I want or able to, in the meantime - FLAG 02.

my work - Flag 01

On the topic of my current personal work, I have lots to tell but I want the work to say it more.

The first of a particular number, FLAG 01

'authentic' the word and all it's baggage

adj.

1. Conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief: an authentic account by an eyewitness.
2. Having a claimed and verifiable origin or authorship; not counterfeit or copied: an authentic medieval sword.
3. Law. Executed with due process: an authentic deed.
4. Music.
   1. Of, relating to, or being a medieval mode having a range from its final tone to the octave above it.
   2. Of, relating to, or being a cadence with the dominant chord immediately preceding the tonic chord.
5. Obsolete. Authoritative.

[Middle English autentik, from Old French autentique, from Late Latin authenticus, from Greek authentikos, from authentēs, author.]

authentically au·then'ti·cal·ly adv.

SYNONYMS authentic, bona fide, genuine, real, true, undoubted, unquestionable. These adjectives mean not counterfeit or copied: an authentic painting by Corot; a bona fide transfer of property; genuine crabmeat; a real diamond; true courage; undoubted evidence; an unquestionable antique.
ANTONYM counterfeit

acknowledgement to http://www.answers.com/topic/authentic

part of me has a sense right now that this word is now in the category of overuse. The perplexing thing is I don't even have a word before that I have felt this way about. In recent weeks I have been super busy and engrossed, in love and enthralled with my life of making. It is perplexing that something about the word authentic and authenticity has been really bothering me.

I have been thinking about writing a post about a moment that could be described a breakthrough, where my art becomes more authentic but quite frankly that word now holds a lot of baggage for me. Right now that words rings alert for a tosser. So you can see it is bringing up a lot of feelings.

I was even thinking of avoiding this blog altogether and never posting again, maybe it is all a giant waste of time.

Never the less I am here, I am in a new place my personal project and art has become incredible personal and once again I feel reinvigorated and like I moving towards goodness. At previous moments like this I may have described this as being more authentic but these descriptions have caused a reaction. Which I find interesting in itself as I remember many many years ago reading the seminal Sarah Ban Breathnach's Simple Abundance and all the talk of authenticity was inspiring and revolutionary, and I guess the word and all it holds for me has now moved somewhere else.

Discovering sound, RjDj is brilliant

I was very lucky to be introduced to RjDj an amazing app by a great person I worked with until a couple of months ago. I really couldn't enjoy or experience it as I didn't own an iPhone. Since being the proud owner of an iPhone I have been more focused on all the visual discoveries but now into the world of sound I dive.

As with most of my personal research I started out this sound adventure with the tube - the experience in 35mins on the way to work this morning was so fabulous it has reignited my energy and creativity. As I posted yesterday I am feeling really tired and flat and this has given me a great boost. So exciting to think of all the things I could explore with sound on the London underground. I am very unsophisticated in my use but it has opened up a whole new world of sound and listening.

Go RjDj so awesome and so much fun and creating in ordinary moments - highly recommended. If you have an iPhone have some fun @ rjdj.me

I am so tired

I am so tired, tired of working tired of thinking and right now tired of life. I have lost my fight and I am feeling very very lost.

I was looking at my photos and spotted an image of a moment in time when I decided I have to change, I took photos to remind me of making the decision to get out from beneath the committment that was suffocating me. I have done that but I feel even more lost, I thought this would bring some relief. Which perpetuates me feeling more lost. Which leads to more tiredness, so that is where I am.

the halftone tube experiment

Trying a direction with my photos on the tube, my snapshots have been edited into a cinema shape and style and now I am playing with halftone. Right now the halftone images are more appealing to me, I have tried to put them into a sequence I don't think it works, see link below.

Not sure if I should take these ideas and experiments any further.

Tube View from Amanda Carmichael on Vimeo.

hand drawn map association

I am loving and inspired by the Hand Drawn Map Association ! It is all about collaboration, contribution and hand made, add that with my love of maps and this equals website lust.

The interweb has so many jewels.

x

trained - my first animation

This little project has been a long time in the making. I don't even think my little project shows the hours and hours of work, but it is has been finished and I am putting it out and into the world.

Trained is my first attempt at animation, the idea grew from the sketches I had been making when commuting on the tube. Made in AfterEffects I spent many hours trying to work the whole thing out and making a mess of things. I have learnt many lessons some that seem small but give you hours of headaches - like how important it is that sketches/drawings are all done with exactly the same pen.

My obsession beyond reason with the tube continues even as a struggle to understand anything about why and what I am doing.

I just love making.

Trained from Amanda Carmichael on Vimeo.

more tube o'clock

More images collected for my personal project, using a very cheap pinhole application on the iphone. The application lets you take double exposures, I am loving the ghostly images and not spending a fortune on film to get the same outcome.

a mythical creature - a happy commuter

I continue to work on my personal art project, my interest/obsession with the London tube and those people who use it. On Tuesday at lunch time I took a twenty minute walk and captured people moving through the station on my iPhone. The purpose was to gather more research material, my personal objective was to bring some creativity into my day. I have shared two of my fav pictures above.

At this point in time the output for this project is a concertina book with images abstracted from my source material. Currently my source materials is from my tube sketchbook developed last year, my photos and the drawings I do while on the tube. I started doing the drawings when I was doing a 3hr daily commute in 2009, I continue to do the drawing today although much more rarely as I don't have a big commute and I am usually riding my bicycle.

There are thousands of ideas about how I want to continue to develop this work. Right now I am just taking baby steps.

I have a big question which is sideways and linked to my topic. Is there a person who exists that is in fact 'a happy commuter'?

online flipbook

A great fun discovery, create an online flipbook! Check out the website and application created by Benneton Play labs. FLIPBOOK Easy and fun to use, a gallery that makes you smile.

the discovery of the masstransiscope

Part of playing and researching my personal project has become about fragments of images or sights I see on the underground. Sketches, photos, prints, images that capture fragments or sideways glances(research album on flickr) . This has lead to current experimentation work I am doing into a concertina book, which this very lunchtime jumped in my brain to a flip book, this lead to internet research that lead me to the wonderful discovery of the the masstransiscope, the creation by Brand in 1980 on the subway in New York. It is all feeling weirdly full circle.

Thanks to the masstransiscope blog - 'Bill Brand’s Masstransiscope was installed in the abandoned Myrtle Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, New York in September 1980. It has been seen by millions of commuters for over twenty-five years. The 228 hand-painted panels are viewed through a series of vertical slits set into a specially constructed housing. The piece works on the principle of the Zoetrope, a 19th century optical toy.'



Not sure what I am going to do with this yet, not sure where to go. But very excited and I know somewhere it will have an impact.

goodbye Summer

Well I think it was the last adventure in the sunshine for this year. I have enjoyed such a lovely weekend in Sand Banks just near Bournemouth and I feel in love with England all over again. The weekend was full of sunshine, walking, fresh air, laughter, sleep, blackberries, food and wine. It was like a goodbye summer party and where the weather joined in. I went a little mad with the iphone taking photos and the feel like they captured the moments.

The rest of my Goodbye Summer album on flickr

when I grow up

I always joke about what I want to be when I grow up and then I found someone who supports people to discover just that. Michelle Ward looks like she does a cracking job, her site looks fantastic and it looks like she has a lot to offer. Very inspiring!

making my way back

I am making my way back from the black and blue. Home in London town I am starting to feel the sense of normality, though often rather strangely everything still feels new. Yet in the past weeks when I visited my original home town everything felt new there too. Like I am a traveller or tourist in my own life.

The familiar is the ongoing urge and fascination about the tube. This week when on the tube again after months of riding a bicycle, my new possesion iphone has had a serious workout.

month voided

For me September has been in another universe, it is been a time of great loss. Expected but still a shock. So I rushed back to Australia to be part of a leaving of the earthly part of this planet. Something fundamental in me has changed and I am navigating the way back to my life, I feel raw, vulnerable, impatient and disjointed from life.

I will officially return to life on October 1st, September 2010 is voided.

Street Art: Joshua Allen Harris' Inflatable Bag Monsters

I have been in the blog wilderness but it is worth coming back to the online world to share this street art!

Baket St

PolaroidSX70IP1000001
Originally uploaded by amandajaynecarmichael

When I am far away and I don't live in London anymore I think this maybe a favourite image. Much of my life in London has been book ended by journeys and experiences on the tube. I captured this image with my SX70 and Impossible Project Silvershade 100 on the way back from a work meeting.

So much fascinates me about the tube it has become a big part of my art and at the moment I am really digging in to all the meaning and cultural significance it has.

If only I could taken decent film photos inside a carriage.

the inspiration of a rainbow cake

image credit: Hula Seventy

sad day at the mill, yet inspired by the amazing cake by Hula Seventy! Check out Hula Seventy a great blog.

DianaF+ and my london

DianaF+120Film0007
Originally uploaded by amandajaynecarmichael

My london is the one of quirks and greys and browns of all shades.... no whites and not quite black. I feel like the DianaF+ helps me capture my version and experience of London. The specific images and characteristics that make it London and nowhere else.

I start to realise that this is home. If only for a period of life, it has now worked it way into my veins and being.

breakthrough on my Diana F+

I picked up these photos today and I feel like it is a breakthrough I am really starting to feel the magic of the Diana F+ I have had the training wheels on for a longtime. I am starting to wobble my way along the road.
Very excited.
See flickr for more of the photos taken on 120 film.
xx

the sketchbook project

I am currently waiting for the delivery of my sketchbook, to get cracking. Check it out www.thesketchbookproject.com a great concept and I love how these guys have grown their ideas of a gallery space.

I am being full of adventure and participating, are you?

image credit: My Love for you is a Stampede of Horses

Via Katie Armstrong i discovered Lauren DiCioccio.

A marvel in creating with stitch that which is disposable.

Lauren's artist statement
' My work investigates the physical/tangible beauty of commonplace mass-produced media-objects, most recently: the newspaper, magazines, office papers and writing pads, plastic bags, 35 mm slides. These media are becoming obsolete, replaced by the invisible efficiency of various technologies. In some cases, this transition is a good thing- faster transmission and distribution of information, streamlined systems, openness to user input, less waste. But a hole is left behind by the disappearance of these everyday objects. What will happen when we no longer touch information? When newsprint does not rub off onto our fingertips? When we no longer write longhand?
The tedious handiwork and obsessive care I employ to create my work aims to remind the viewer of these simple but intimate pieces of everyday life and to provoke a pang of nostalgia for the familiar physicality of these objects'

somehow an angel

Image: piccadilly line taken with my digital harezumi

somehow this image that I took on my journey on the tube reminded me of an angel about to take flight. Recently I have been tired, anxious I have had a few meltdowns. Generally just exhausted from life and my fight for a good one. So I need to see angels occasionally.

Bad things have happened again to good people in my life that has added to my understanding of how I have built my life, it has allowed me to embrace the good bits. And be kinder to myself about my life. For me there has been a shift, I am starting to embrace who I am, where I am and the role I am good at playing.

SX-70 obsession

Oh my new to me but old SX70 vintage polaroid camera (purchased via the Impossible Project) is a love of mine. Still working out how it all works and exposure etc but this is my workings from last night. A good distraction from my current career crisis, creating images.

visual image of a brain fade

I am sure this is what it would look like when I have one of the brain freeze and reboot moments.

gapingvoid gallery

this pretty much sums up my life challenge, I love Gaping Void!
gapingvoid gallery

over my head - check out Katie Armstrong

I am over my head this week with stuff, finishing my animation, preparing for the end of the course and tutorial with course co-ordinator, work being frantic. and so for inspiration i visited Katie Armstrong's website and animations - well worthwhile take a look!

one of her masterpieces below and check her website out.

Goodbye Sorrow from Katie Armstrong on Vimeo.

Summer Sunday

On our one day of the week together the boy and I made the most of the British Summer Sunday in London.

drawing into the third dimension

thanks to of paper and things blog (wonderful by the way for art inspired and me with paper) I discovered Birgit Knoechl. She is just up my street, clear crisp definition of shape and form, pushing drawing into three dimensions.

described on her website
" The desire to find ways of making drawings outgrow the limits of the two
dimensional surface is the driving force of Birgit Knoechl’s practice. She draws
ever-new forms and patterns based on the shapes and structures of all manner of
vegetative life forms –- and then cuts these forms out and arranges the cut_outs
as sculptural objects in different spatial scenarios, or animates them by filming
them in close-up. Trying out these different scenarios for staging the cut_outs in
installations, Knoechl continuously explores how these drawings cut into space
and what the space would do to them, how their staging in the space could bring
them to life, and how the space could be brought to life through the drawings.
Knoechl thus shows installation and video to be media that can open up a space
(a real space as well as an imaginary one) around a drawing –- or more precisely,
that in space and video the immanent potential spatiality of drawings can be
unfolded. "

very inspiring, a worthy use of your time.

sketch crawl

image from Elizabeth Graeber and the Sketch Crawl supported by Worn Magazine


I stumbled on a 'sketch crawl', I didn't even know what it was. I was delighted and suprised and I wish I was in Washington DC on July 17th. I am inspired and maybe I can organise a few over the summer here in London town. Shout out to the inspiring and amazing Elizabeth Graber and the Sketch Crawl.

the moment of decision

the moment of decision captured
to remind myself
not to turn back
and how good it felt

interesting thoughts

'Blue-sky thinking, finding the inner you; if you look up ‘creativity’ on the internet you’ll be bombarded with sites to help you get in contact with your creative potential. I blame Joseph Beuys, that modern art guru of fat and felt, who claimed “everyone is an artist”. Now we all feel we have something to say. But do we? Of course Beuys didn’t mean everyone has the potential to be a Picasso. Motivated by utopian beliefs, culled from Romantic writers such as Novalis and the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, he believed in the power of universal human creativity to bring about revolutionary change. '

from Sue Hubbard on Creativity - full article here

I really found Sue Hubbard's article on creativity interesting in the Observer Magazine yesterday. That creativity can often be an outouring from a life that doesn't smell like roses. It also reminded me about how great the concept of the School of Life is. The School of Life is a new social enterprise offering good ideas for everyday living. Check it out - www.schooloflife.com

lost in the abyss

At the moment I am lost in the abyss of not knowing what to do (which I also realise is a defence mechanism). I made a decision while in Glasgow to make a turn towards something I love and although desperate to do, I am finding it painful and super challenging.

I will show you photos of time of decision, I knew it was momentous, and I needed to stay committed to the clarity in that moment so took polaroids. I will post tonight.

In the meantime I am getting lost in completing my animation project ( which I must admit the boy is being incredibly helpful with).

straight from the sketchbook

As part of my CLFA at City Lit, today I spent 6hrs sketching in the Natural History Museum a stibrite - chief source of the mineral antimony - spray of bright lustrous crystals.


I felt wonderfully exhausted at the end, a day of arm soreness, concentration and frustration and then a sense of satisfaction and contentment.

hours animating

busy working away at my animation project, due to work I am going to miss one class so I need to make up for lost time. Wow don't the hours disappear when you are working in After Effects. Fingers crossed there will be something at the end that I will love to share. My fascination with the tube is getting another outlet. I am loving putting together a little cut out animation.

Sneak peek of one of the drawn images.

joy of my dark secrets

i am not shared my dark secret here, it is noisy, costly and somewhat ridiculous

I am in love with polaroid cameras. Yes that is right I am in love with outdated technology. Expensive as no one makes the film anymore well except the IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT who are still struggling to brings together a great new film to use with the good old polaroid cameras.

The cameras have started taking shelf space because there are so peculiar in shape they look like old artefacts. I am madly in love and they camera brings me much joy.

Evidence of their worth was this evening, I was working far too late in the office for a Friday night and so on leaving the light was good and I happen to have my big chunky OneStep with me and some PX 600 Silvershade. I captured two images of my unexplainable fascination of people and tubes and stations.

5 mins that brought me the most joy I have had all day, the camera wirred people stared and I quickly snuck the photo away not to over develop. When I got home, 2 sepia treasures in my journal.

ps. more photos at flickr photostream

pps. now you know where my last b&w came from, so I guess no real secret.

too many lemons

life is throwing a lot of lemons so I certainly need this awesome stand to make the lemonade!

courtesy of the great blog sfgirrlbybay
photo by jasfitz