SB2 - The Illustrated Self WORD MAP

TASK

Commencing the next studio brief of PPP, the production of a word map about myself and my practice enabled me to draw connections between seemingly isolated aspects of my interests. This task encouraged a consideration of the self, creativity, the discipline of illustration and studentship.

Breaking myself down into subheadings, these issues seemed most important:

-PRACTICE - illustrations/ mischievous, playful tone of voice/ children's books/ character design/ conscientiousness/ fulfilment and achievement

-CHILDREN'S CULTURES - picture books, toys, secrets and story telling, fictional languages and characters, playful clothes, fun primary colours

-LITERATURE -importance of reading and language, interpretation of language through image making, tales of past eras

-FOUND OBJECTS - nostalgia, restricted ways of living, mechanical, packaging

-MUSIC - Morrissey, romantic music, melancholia, social criticism, Alex Turner

-FILMS - Wes Anderson, nostalgia, colour palettes, Submarine, youth cultures

-GENTRIFICATION - Working class towns, mining, mills, dying cultures/traditions, brass banding, communities

While these aspects of my interests and practice operate in their own terms, the task of creating a word map helped me to realise the links between these sources. 

CONCLUSIONS

I have always been concerned with working class towns and cultures, probably for their raw and honest ways of living. Run down or even derelict buildings seem to maintain the narratives of past eras and I am particularly intrigued in the idea of restricted ways of living and how this drove working class towns to operate close knit communities and develop social cultures such as brass bands and morris dancing. 

A conversation with Matt helped me to identify how this related to the music I am interested in and more generally, how all these things informed my practice, however subtle. 

Recognising the romantic and idealist narrative in Morrissey's songs, his working class, Manchester background is developed in his story telling and melancholic lyrics. Something which although I had recognised, I had not connected with my interests in gentrification. Matt immediately picked up on Morrissey's story telling as being a realisation of the authenticity and community of working class towns and restricted living. 

I was then able to draw a connection on my interests in children's illustration as I very much value the importance of reading and the book but particularly want to celebrate storytelling in the way it was when books were a child's entertainment. It seems that this celebration of the book channels the nostalgia and primitiveness of working class cultures, further drawing a connection across my practice. 

I also identified that through the crafted approaches I take to image making, my work becomes concerned with authenticity, perhaps a more subtle connection between my practice and wider interests. 

Having completed the word map, I have identified synthesis in my practice and understood connections between things which stood in isolation at the start of the task. I will hopefully be able to draw on the conclusions of this word map in the development of my Illustrated Self response.