Unit 1: Week 19: One-to-One Tutorial with Dr Michele Whiting

I had a very productive one-to-one Tutorial meeting with Michele Whiting on 19 February 2024.

These are my summary notes:

Overall feedback notes from tutorial discussion

With regards to my contextual Essay (1000 word excerpt):

The essay had a sense that you were developing a critical awareness around the spaces that you want to be working in. This interconnectedness seems to be happening both in the writing and the practice.
No need to jump to the outcomes/conclusions/expected outcomes: part of practice-based research is that we don’t know the outcome. There is value in the not-knowing: allow yourself to dwell there, relinquishing control of the outcome.
Need to talk more about the unexpected – that thing that perhaps didn’t quite happen during the practice.
It’s good that you’re not worried to take a risk – risking allows new ideas to surface, and also testing them, and then evaluating them. It’s a good position to be in at this point in time.
Bear in mind that the contextual essay does not need to point to completed research and practice – we are still very much at the beginning of our journey. It’s hard to draw a line in the sand when you’re still in progress, but rather than forcing yourself to try to finish just because of a hand-in deadline, you can point to further future research that shows us what direction you’re wanting to take the work and research in.
It’s important that for assessment you put forward a wide enough range, and pay particular attention to your own evaluation – what’s happened for you in this process. At the heart of it is the research.

Try not to pre-empt your outcomes during your practice.
There’s something around geometry (sacred), which is really fruitful – consider providing some more contextualisation around that.
Important thing to keep it moving – interconnectedness and entanglement is so beneficial for you – keep working with it – you can really go there in terms of your methodology where you go through entanglement in your practice – think about and write about what it means in your practice too.
It would be useful to spend a period of time testing out these ideas and practices – making small testers/prototypes/samples before committing to a big structure. You’re in the process of defining a palette – work with them to see what connections you can make through your testing and experimentation.
When testing – remember to record those test – reflect on them – so important to open up – capture all the detail of the experience, the knowledge, the learning.
Consider testing the use of glazes to unify the works – many disparate parts in the compositions.
Consider experimenting with collage-style works: making and testing on separate canvas, then cutting apart and reassembling. Look at Kerry James Marshall (painted collage), Michael Stubbs (stencils) , Maria Lalic (situated materials-making)