I had the pleasure of being able to facilitate a 'TOUCH' senses workshop with Naked Eye last year and they have been very kind to ask me back to complete the series.
Being on email and mostly on Facebook has meant we could swap images and background thoughts before and after the workshop.
Facilitating a group of very keen and talented students is a real privilege and I think I learned as much if not more from the process of doing it and from the students themselves than they did. All of them take a very different approach and are willing to try new things which is what keeps their interest alive and is in turn inspiring. I'm really looking forward to TASTE which is next week.
The idea behind the Ish concept is that we are looking at how we approach our creative process, what do we bring to it before we make a mark or decide what materials to use? Just as other artists, text or music might influence our ideas or mark making - our own physical state of awareness is something we can draw upon to be part of the whole. Sensing our way rather than over thinking. Just being ourselves and becoming aware of how we feel or respond to certain external or internal influences can reassure us in our conscious choices further down the line and give integrity and depth to our work and experience.
Focusing on each sense gives us the chance to see where strengths and weaknesses lie and in some cases may help students break free of a rut but trying something new or seeing something from a new perspective.
In HEAR students were first asked to create a sound scape with their voices and secondly to make marks on paper to visualise a list of everyday sounds they had no warning and no time to think - they had to move around the table to a new paper every new sound so they didn't get too limited by their own previous marks.
They then tried making a system or code for the letter sounds of their name or a chosen phrase. In the second part of the workshop they listened to music they had brought in and visualised it using 3d lo fi materials as a relief - as this is not an exercise in making 'finished' or aesthetically pleasing pieces of work it can be a frustrating and very difficult thing to do as each student is battling with their need to fulfill a need to succeed or do it 'right'. Left brain against right brain. However Ish is about getting a sense of something, its not exact and there should be a strong sense of freedom to do or try anything in any material in order to explore possibility and progress ideas conscious or unconscious.
apologies for lack of photos here I have them saved as a Facebook album and am struggling to access them. For the full album go to https://www.facebook.com/felicity.truscott.9/media_set?set=a.755085321221076.1073741826.100001588467591&type=3
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