Art and the Environment | Samantha Humphreys

I have started an art journal so I can keep in one place all the art I am making in the name of looking after my own physical and mental wellbeing. I walk a lot and I don’t know about you but my phone is full of photographs of interesting things I noticed my walks such as a bindweed that I didn’t know could be pink and white striped, or a dandelion that looks different to yesterday’s dandelion that you also took a picture of. I have also been making art while preparing for and teaching art for wellbeing and have botanical drawings and Zentangle inspired pieces. As I have produced these works, I have placed them in my sketchbook along with flowers that are pressing nicely in the back pages. By keeping the pieces together in a sketchbook, naturally, a journal develops.

My art journal will contain art, not backgrounds for art (even though the art may be used as a background), preparation for art, not writings about art, not evaluations or process records or photographs of art…just my art.

oh, and it will never be considered finished, always a work in progress.

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March 27, 2021

A Big Fat Metaphor

Inspired by a recent mini task on the course I teach on where the students had to bring along a photograph and an object that holds meaning and has impact on their art practice.

The first image is a print I made a few years back, it is my Nans block of flats. At the time of making this piece, my Nan still lived there, and I was starting to think that one day, I would never visit there again. Over lockdown, my nan has become unable to live there alone and has moved into a care home.

As this is all happening over 200 miles away, she has turned 90 over lockdown with only socially distanced visits from family living nearby (thankfully most of the family live nearby) and filmed efforts and cards from the rest of us. It is now very unlikely that I will visit the flat again, however-as long as I can visit her eventually, what does that matter? I look forward to that day.

The second image is my object, it is a paperweight.

When my Grandad was alive, he was the caretaker of these flats and he had a workshop downstairs which was filled with things he was repairing and other paraphernalia. I loved visiting him down in this workshop and I can still remember the smell of it. I have had this paperweight for as long as I can remember, initially it was just special as my grandad gave it to me, for a long time I didn’t even know it was a paperweight it was just a fascinating colourful object-it had been thrown away by someone and he rescued it.

Later on, when I was older, I learned that the pattern I was so fascinated with had been created using a technique called Millefiori, which I taught myself with clay when I used to create dolls house food. The way it works is that you work carefully with a short fat cylinder, making it a long thin cylinder which you finally slice and somewhere inside, there is the perfect slice of orange, kiwi or hot cross bun. Thats how it works with clay anyway, I have less of an idea of how it is created with glass as in my paperweight.

I keep this paperweight on my desk, I see it every day while I’m working from home. I think of this technique as a metaphor for how art practice develops and therefore it helps me both in my art practice and my teaching practice.

As an artist, when you are developing ideas, you have all your thoughts, sketches and ideas rolled up within your fat cylinder of clay, then you carefully and thoughtfully work your way through all these ideas and sketches, teasing out the ideas but carefully preserving the whole idea which will eventually narrow down to one you will use. When you have your long thin piece, you slice away at it with care, then eventually, after much thought, somewhere inside that cylinder, you find your perfect slice of final piece which makes all the hard work worth it.

The point is, there is going to be lots of what could be considered waste at either end of the cylinder, but the final outcome would not be possible without the discarded bits that help you get there.

But also, it’s important to remember that no art is a waste and should not be discarded!

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Image | October 27, 2020

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Aspiring to Matsutake (2020 An element of the second year Developing Ideas in Art and the Environment module on the course I teach on began this semester with an extract from the book The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. As we (we, as in all of […]

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July 21, 2020

Daily Drawing Challenge

I Miss Wearing my Glitter DM’s (2020)

So, once it was clear that the threat was real and we all very quickly realised that this pandemic was here to stay for some considerable time it was time to take action. What should we do? People were working from home, not working from home, just staying at home, furloughed, teaching their children at home, not going out, going out for essentials, going out for exercise, shielding, isolating and washing their hands!

We should face it by making art of course, so #WrittleArtDailyDraw was born. I was and still am of course, working from home. The staff and students at Writtle University College have very quickly had to learn a new way of doing things without diminishing quality or experience ,so in addition to the lectures, seminars and tutorials that were happening remotely, I wanted to think of something that would keep the studio experience alive.

I first started it on our course Facebook page before it was suggested to me that opening it up to the public would be a much better idea. The idea is loosely based on the drawing sessions we have on our university course on a Monday morning, short tasks that mean we can stop and be creative for a few minutes each day. The challenge would be set, and participants can translate the rules to suit them, using their own choice of medium and surface and we would rather participation happened than have the rules be a barrier to anyone wanting to take part.

The first challenge on the 25 March was to draw food, a meal or snack you are eating, food seemed to be on everyone’s mind, the shops were running out of some items and it was quite a worry for some. Some were stockpiling out of sheer worry about feeding their families, others were condemning those stockpilers for being selfish. The situation was creating a community spirit for some and bringing out the worst in others-a small minority in my experience though, I just found that people were kinder, more caring and more considerate. Food became a source of comfort, something that remained consistent -it was a shared experience in normal times, so it was a good place to start.

The first challenge when we moved to Writtle Art, which later became challenge number 1, was to draw footwear. It had occurred to me that I hadn’t worn any for the past week or so as I was staying and working at home and while fully dressed (I just can’t work in my pyjamas), was only wearing slippers. These challenges were going to be about the commonality we all had right now, and I guessed I wasn’t the only one missing my shoes (a position I never thought I would be in)!

From then on there was a variety of challenges, something worth going to the shops for, something you have achieved Something that belongs indoors drawn on an outdoor surface, step outside, take 20 steps, what do you see? something purple, be inspired by a British garden bird and draw a banana to name a few.

I rarely missed a day, perhaps one or two when I had student presentations or an early meeting which distracted me away from thoughts of drawing and I also had help from Writtle Alumni and skills tutor Sonya who steps in often to set something brilliant such as illustrate your daily walk as a treasure map which was set as a whole weekend challenge. It is interesting to see how others are reacting to the challenges while facing the same restrictions and sets of rules as everyone else and it was good to see people’s responses. Not everyone is posting them to Facebook, it turned out that Instagram was a good place to post so we made the hashtag #WrittleArtDailyDraw and also asked that participants used @writtleart when posting their drawings. It also turns out that some are taking part but not sharing, which is also great as it means the challenges are inclusive for those not comfortable with using social media as a place to share creations.

I myself have found them challenging, I have had no time to consider how I would respond each day (you would think I would think what I want to draw first) before posting the task, as I just haven’t had that luxury of time to consider it, so I am seeing the challenges in the same way as everyone else. I love it, it is becoming part of my daily routine, like cleaning door handles and walking around the garden to make sure I hit my step target.

I plan to continue with the challenges as a way to engage the public with the Art and the Environment degree at Writtle University College. Participants can post their drawings where they like, email them to me or simply keep them to themselves… perhaps we can eventually have more input from students, staff, industry and alumni on a regular basis. As well as posting my responses to each challenge on the post itself, I have documented them on my Flickr page page and they are slowly becoming not just art for the pandemic, but for a new and interesting future.

Do You Fancy A Coffee? (2020)

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February 20, 2020

Playtime@London Art Fair

Smartphone Social Media Performance series (2020)

Thank you to all those who contributed to this project, some were on the wall, some were part of the performance.

Harry Humphreys
Louise Wells
Tamsin Bartlett
Josephine McGuinness
Rebecca McGuinness
Pryle Behrman
Michael Spakowski
Bradley Tearle
Bethany H
Alex McGuinness
Sonya Bones
Cristian Frias
Gabriele Höhne
Stanislava Andreeva
Sophie Clark
Ana Bruque

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February 5, 2020

Eternal Musings (working title)

Last week I took part in a drawing session at the university I teach at. The session is student led and this particular workshop involved choosing a print out from a list of well known, course relevant and extremely well chosen texts that we had to annotate in any way we pleased in a creative way.

I chose The Time Machine by H.G. Wells Pg 48-49, not a book I have read interestingly enough but the text spoke of hope for the future, new growth and a hint that humanity has not yet destroyed the earth. This, coupled with my interests in mental health, wellbeing and my desire to, indeed, save the planet. I found that I started developing Mandalas on the page.

This piece here is not my first attempt in the drawing session, the idea of the session is that you think as you draw, there is a time limit and I soon realised that I did not have the right tools with me to properly develop so I saw this as a preparation for a more developed piece.

The Mandala has many meanings culturally and in a variety of religions. My interests lay in the circular design of the Mandala, symbolising the concept that everything is connected. I am drawn to the idea of a personal design that holds meaning to the creator and can be instrumental to wellbeing. The use of the Mandala in the time machine piece speaks of both healing our environment and our mental wellbeing which has become increasingly fragile.

Once you get past the mathematical accuracy needed to create a successful Mandala (which I have not yet mastered) the process focuses the mind completely, there is no need for checking emails, social media or any other contemporary distractions that cause our brains to fill to capacity and inevitably, break down.

What if? is a question that has come up in my work before, but what if we could gather all the experts in the fields of : Sustainability, Climate crisis, Mental health and wellbeing to name a few….and using knowledge and science, go back to where we made our biggest mistakes and change it? Un-invent single use plastics and disposeable nappies and anything else clogging up the earth in landfill? Change the laws allowing young people to use social media? Not have social media at all? These are just my initial thoughts, but can you imagine? The time travel thing is just a bit of fun, what I find strange though is that despite watching a lifetime of Doctor Who and having watched time travel stories over the years-it was only when I placed the Mandalas over the text of a book I haven’t read, that I saw a connection between the mental state of humanity and the fragile state of the planet. A friend looked at the piece and she described it as eternal musings, which I think is a good description of what the piece represents.

I will be doing more research and developing this idea….

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January 3, 2020

Playtime

I love my job, both of them, and actually I don’t feel like I am working a lot of the time particularly in my job as a practising artist. Because I enjoy my work, of course do, I’m an artist and like most artists I have often been asked to undertake work for free on the basis that I shouldn’t mind or expect payment because this is basically what I do for fun and besides, it will be good for my cv (great for early career artists or an opportunity for a huge amount of great quality exposure maybe, but it should be the artists choice and never expected) but no other profession has this problem that I am aware of.

In these times of constant connection, it’s easy to blur the line between work time and ‘play’ time whether on purpose or simply because it is possible to do so. I myself am guilty of sending work emails at ridiculous times of day and night, I do this only because I would rather act on an idea or response as it pops into my head rather than risk forgetting, I do not expect a colleague to answer or respond until a reasonable time during working hours! I feel incredibly guilty though if I then receive a response at an ungodly hour or on a non working day.

These are mainly fairly conscious decisions though, but how does our free time turn into a work situation for someone else though? Well, we use our phones all the time, we switch on location and advertise where we are with each smiling hash tagged selfie.

Advertise, that’s what we do, with each post we make. Of course this isn’t a new thing, this has simply replaced advertising on plastic bags when we used to shop anywhere! We would walk away with a lovely clean crisp plastic bag with our goodies in, advertising to everyone where we had made our purchase. We only do that now if we forget our re-useable bag!

The image below is a reproduction on a wooden device of a screenshot provided by Writtle University College, Art and the Environment student Bradley Tearle.