I’m writing this up in retrospect.  I’ve done a lot of experimenting over the summer, and am only now, at the end of August, bringing things together. But it’s hard to construct a narrative out of all the different threads. The narrative I create here will to some extent be a reconstruction, a rewriting of history to fit the course.

“Abstraction” seems a rather large topic, that’s the problem. All processes of making something (seen, felt or thought, as opposed to a functional artefact) into something else are degrees of abstraction, and I’m having difficulty knowing where to go with the coursebook instructions, which seem to be dipping a toe into historical movements, but only a bit. As I started this, I was also limited to what I had to hand in the way of materials. As the summer progressed and I got more materials, so the experiments related closely to the materials I had. Craft practice then. Then reading, following trains of thought, letting some go for a while, joining some together, forgetting some altogether.

But, to summarise. For the past little while, I’ve been mainly playing with new materials, seeing where those would take me.

I’ve also been somewhat interested in Science- the history of it, the way it has influenced how we think and see, as well as the practical application of basic chemistry in printmaking processes.

Finally, I’d say I’ve interpreted “abstraction” as PROCESS. That’s to say, abstraction as a degree of separation, in time, space, material, which leads one to a concentration on the processes involved in visualising and constructing.