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arts council of wales

Earth to Earth 4 – Time Lapse

October 14, 2011










For the past two months I have been working on the Earth to Earth project. This is part of my Arts Council of Wales research grant. This time I decided to document the weathering of the Jar using Time Lapse Photography. At first I thought this would be straight forward but the more I thought about it the more involved the project became. Firstly I needed a way to house the camera that was weather proof. I ended up modifying an electrical junction box. I knew from the experience of past attempts that the Jar would last anything from a few days to two weeks so I needed to power the camera for a long period. I used a 12v battery and a DC to DC power converter. Just getting this far took a lot of research and technical knowledge for which I am very grateful to Colin Gregory.















The Jar will be photographed day and night every 33 seconds until it has weathered away. Each shot will become a single frame in a film with 25 frames per second. The camera will take 109 pictures and hour which will translate to just over 4 seconds of film. For this I had to work out all the best camera settings, the interval between shots, the aperture, the shutter speed, the ISO and so on. More technical research and long conversations with my brother Greg. As a teenager I had a manual SLR camera and that foundation in understanding cameras really paid off.










Last week I did a trial run, at first I thought it wouldn’t be, but I soon realised despite all my research I still had a lot to get right. The results however from the trial are very encouraging and exciting. The changing weather, the stars at night, moon light, sun rise, rain all captured on camera.













This project has been a journey in its self and I have been contemplating for a long time how best to illustrate it. I am hopeful that this will be an interesting depiction. I have never exhibited this project in any capacity and just recently I have had interest in it from a number of places. Most excitingly I have been asked to be part of a major exhibition at Ruthin Craft Centre in January and they are particularly interested in exhibiting this piece. Lets hope it goes well.
















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Arts Council of Wales Research Grant

February 17, 2011











I am very excited that I have been awarded a Research Grant by the Arts Council of Wales. It means that I can go to the top of hills to think about my understanding of landscape and how my work fits into it.

Here is what I proposed:

Continuing with the pure jar form that has become my canvas and my study of the human experience of landscape, I wish to explore more deeply my local landscape and how we experience it, in two ways.

Firstly, using the rich geology of Pembrokeshire as a resource for raw materials to be used in the development of new glazes and surfaces for my work.

Secondly, I wish to carry out a series of land art projects using local clays, and resources as pieces of artwork in their own right.  By doing time-dependant site-specific projects within the landscape, which demand regular documentation, I have a reason to go out into the surroundings and look in a meaningful way. This discipline is about adding meaning to the themes that underpin my work and drawing on that experience to inspire a new aesthetic.

In researching these two aspects of the landscape, as a physical resource and as a philosophical inspiration I hope to come to a new and more considered body of work with a clear message about my inspirations.





















I will be posting much of what I get up to here so do have a look from time to time. I hope it goes well.

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