Exploratory Project first Session

I had a tutorial with Angela I am going to look at 'To Do Lists' I often use this approach when I feel overwhelmed with all the things I have to achieve, sometimes a list of jobs that I need to do and set down in a physical form can help me to feel less overwhelmed and to be more organised. 

When I was depressed and really struggling to cope I used create lists each day to help motivate me into doing the everyday things that had to be done.

I would write things like: Get up, shower and get dressed. Get Emma up for school. Take Emma to school. The list would go on and after each job was achieved I would cross it off the list.
In fact at times when things are becoming overwhelming I do resort to this method and it helps coordinate my life into more of a structured format.

So when I can back from Barnsley I started a list because I had so much to do and I continued this for a few days. Each day I created the lists.

Each list was then washed over with water apart from the jobs that I had not achieved.

My original idea was to create a book very detailed and complex that would be handmade and intricate.

However after talking to Angela and discussing the research that I had done when looking at the artist Franko B, When I researched this artist I attempted to step into the artist's shoes by being painted and photographed by my daughter as shown in the photograph below.

Therefore I am going to attempt work that once again uses my body and to incorporate the idea of the 'To do List' I started off using a just a pen and drew onto my leg just as a starting point.

By extracted the colour from the images the writing stands out better.

  

Saturday 25th Feb 2012

Here are some examples of the jobs that I need to always do usually.. As with all of us we always need to keep on top of the everyday jobs, doing this list does keeps me going and functioning, however I do feel embarrassed that people will see my lists and how I have to function at times when I am depressed or when I am stressed. 

However this MA and this particular module is about exploring and pushing myself beyond what I have done before which is worrying because how far can I be pushed.. and will I cope.

To Do List Page 1

Get up have shower

Get Emma up and both of us to get ready for school and work

Unload dishwasher and load dishwasher

Clean surfaces of kitchen

Put cutlery away

Get lunchboxes ready

Clear kitchen table and replace tablecloth

Take paperwork upstairs

Clean sink

Hoover kitchen floor and wash the floor

Take out recycling and empty rubbish bin

Hoover lounge rug and floor and then was lounge floor

Sort out and tidy sofas

Polish the lounge

Empty lounge bin and take to dustbin

Hoover downstairs hallway

Brush stairs and then hoover stairs

Hoover upstairs hallway

Clean bathroom sink and bath

Bleach toilet

To Do List Page 2

Empty bathroom bin take out to dustbin

Tidy bathroom cupboard

Hoover bathroom floor and wash the floor

Hoover my bedroom floor

Polish computer desk

Polish furniture in bedroom

Change bedding in my bedroom and in Emma's bedroom

Organise paperwork

Clean shower room

Get Emma to attempt to tidy bedroom

Dirty washing in washing bin from each bedroom

Walk George

Cook tea

Feed George

Do washing and ironing

Put clothes away

Get ironing from Mandy and do her ironing

Spend time with Mandy

Contact friends for instance Martin and John

Cook extra tea for Monday

This evening I continued to expand on the images that I created the other day and so this evening I attempt positions for more photographs and my daughter has helped and she has been wonderful and she helped to paint me and has taken photographs of me

These photographs of the painting session, Emma and I sent a long evening attempting to use my body as a canvas for my 'To Do Lists',

This has been a long and difficult evening and has it was a Friday night I did have wine and smoked and this is also captured in the images.

These images are very interesting because what I see and what I am reflecting on is the writing, it looks basic and normal written work, what I feel is that this writing works in these images because they reflect a sense of reality, however I do want to start researching henna designs.

The reason Emma and I decided to add the breast examination is because my Grandmother and my Mum have both struggled from breast cancer and so the likelihood is that I will also get breast cancer, so this was an important issue to add to this session.

This session was long and when I felt that enough images had been taken and I wanted to go for a shower Emma suggested that I should be photographed whilst having a shower.

Then reason Emma suggested this idea is because she felt that in doing this it reflected the work I created doing the Franko B research but took this in a different way to those images. So I agreed and the photographs are shown below.

What I see in these images I am shocked that at what is reflected back, which for me is the brutality of my aging, flabby body because I decided that by keeping the images in colour makes the photographs very stark. I think that this is what makes these images work based on the reality of life.

Emma was really pleased about what she had taken of me during this session because she reflected my life and reality within these images.