crit

What follows is a selection of writings by Automatic Drawing Project (Service Class) participants:

My Art

Hello

My "faces" are ones that we pull while on calls with customers.

They start out as circles and then I add the eyes, the eyes dictate as to if they smile or not. The hair then sets off the "look"

(Carol McGovern)










A few people have commented saying it looks like 2 handbags so I was thinking of changing the name to "Handbags at Dawn!"

(Paul Harris)



















I was a little apprehensive when attending the screen printing classes. I have never considered myself arty and I was hoping it wouldn’t be too peculiar. I needn't have worried. Our teacher/ tutor/ in house artist dude; was very good. He explained thing very clearly and it seemed the screen printing process was relatively easy. Scott Hudson summed it up when he said "you are as free as wild ponies on the wide steppe, churning the flashing earth beneath you".

Only constrained by my imagination, which of my many doodles I would elevate to art? One such doodle portrayed a large falling piano and, just about to be crushed, a rabbit enjoying a carrot. The whole scene was, I feel, rather too complex and I wished to distil the essence of the piece. I chose the carrot, being the focal point of the piece.

A happy accident of art was the frame around the carrot. The carrot looked good but I felt it needed more. The old style framing of the carrot seems to elevate it from a mere pedestrian carrot to noble celebration of the root vegetable. This noble quality shaped the title "the Good Carrot".

Although I a wanted a feel of avant-garde I also was convinced the carrot must remain orange. What's a carrot which isn't carrot coloured… maybe a parsnip?

How excited I was when the exhibition came to the office. Many people complemented me on my carrot and I wasted no time in telling all my friends and family I was now an exhibited artist. They were surprised.

Thank you to all the people involved with the project I enjoyed it immensely. To think that my "Good Carrot" will be admired for years after I am dead is truly a gift. That gift of immortally.

(Adam Redpath)

Nine Trades in Norway

The bedroom in this film belongs to the super-talented Norwegian artist Kier Cooke Sandvik. His beautiful drawings were featured in the summer 09 issue of our art zine Yuck 'n Yum.

Eagle-eyed viewers will recognise one of my Nine Trades prints at 0:40

DC

I was recently the recipient of some great feedback from the acclaimed American novelist, playwright, poet and all-round groovy character Dennis Cooper. I often post comments on his excellent blog, and this is his response to the recent photos of the project:

** _Black_Acrylic, Hey, man. The photos are good enough to get a real sense of the work, and they/it looks really good. The range of what people did is really interesting too, and the approaches all seem pretty successful, no? Yours is wonderful, of course, and I also really like the look of the ones by Sharma and Harris and, naturally, the Halloween-inflected Cheryl X piece, but they all look real good. Let me ... Everyone, _Black_Acrylic aka Ben Robinson has been letting us here share in the makings of a project called Nine Trades, and the finished works can now be seen. Here's Ben: 'The Nine Trades work has been installed, and I got a got a few not-that-good photos. I need to take some more, but this should give an idea of it: LINK.' Thanks a lot, man, and great work! **

Dennis Cooper Wikipedia page: LINK

unveil

The prints are now installed in the third-floor meeting room at the bank and they've already had a really positive response. I took a few not-very-good photos and there should be more of better quality still to come:


Ashish Sharma - Untitled


Ben Robinson - The Intense Organism


Paul Harris - Untitled


Steven Thomson - Helping Hand


Carol McGovern and Lisa Robertson - Untitled


Cheryl McGuinness - Untitled


Adam Redpath - The Happy Carrot


Carol McGovern - Hello

preview

All being well, tomorrow ought to see the completed Automatic Drawing Project (Service Class) installed on the walls of the bank's third-floor meeting room. Last week we sorted out which prints will make the final cut. This time tomorrow they will hopefully be framed and resplendent in the workplace.

Class six: the end (or is it?)

The last of the Nine Trades classes took place earlier this evening at the DCA print workshops. We welcomed a couple of new starters in addition to the old hands, and the factory was soon in production. The group has really been incredibly prolific, and from the mountain of beautiful prints we will somehow have to select a group of images that will be framed and eventually displayed on the walls of the workplace. For now though everyone involved can congratulate themselves on a job very well done.

Class five

The penultimate session in the print workshops took place earlier this evening. We learned a new part of the process, painting directly onto the screens with masking agent and creating a complex set of grounds for our doodle-artworks. Next week promises much and we are all looking forward to completing this batch of prints. You can see a few photos of our endeavours below.