UCA Week 4: VISCOM, ‘Going Medieval’ Brief

Cathedral visit + sketches and ink drawings

The project started with a prompt by the course leader, Jack, visiting Canterbury cathedral to find inspiration for a narrative or starting point. The aim was to sketch, create rubbings or photograph anything that we found interesting. I started by making two crude sketches of environments I found appealing, possibly serving as backdrops.

I preferred the second sketch and chose to resketch it with ink, extending the mid-ground into fore and rear, to make the space less real, turning it to a fantasy infinite corridor.

I also sketched some windows, giving them eyes, as I saw them as human-like figures while exploring.

Likewise, I was also initially interested in the graffiti, with carvings dating back hundreds of years, or as recently as 2020.

The symbols also fascinated me. This one, I was told, represented a part of old Christian magic.

But the close attention I was paying to the walls resulted in a different idea, as I kept seeing faces in the stone, ones that would disappear as I got closer.

An exhibit in the cathedral of a dog-like sculpture, as well as a slightly odd-looking floor cleaning machine pushed me towards my first narrative idea, that there is a set of creatures in the stonework, machines and other objects that might wake up at night, or maybe less frequently, emerging from deep sleep.

Stamps

I used time in a stamp workshop to create my first monster, based on the stonework images before. I got both a positive and negative stamp from cutting the foam.

I then made two sheets, using both stamps, and playing with a range of colour combinations.

print scans unavailable

I preferred the images with the positive stamp over those with the negative, as they had more detail and were less prone to registration issues. If I had more time, it would have been interesting to mix colours more directly inspired by the cathedral, recreating the stone colour for example.

Tuesday Research Task: Murder of Thomas Becket

To help with our narratives, we were given the task to research a narrative related to the cathedral or Canterbury, finding 5 images. I chose the murder of Thomas Becket.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, having opposed the reigning king Henry’s constitutions distancing the church from Rome, he fled to France in 1164, protected by the favour of King Louis VII. He was eventually able to return in 1170, but again disobeying the King’s orders, he was killed by four knights on December 29th, who are known to have, regardless of the original text, misinterpreted the King’s order to have him killed. The knights violated the religious space.

The Murder of Thomas á Becket, 1171, British Library, via Julianna Lees

Manuscript Leaf with the Martyrdom of Saint Peter Martyr in an Initial P, from a Gradual, ca 1270-80, Metropolitan Museum of Art

The idea that the Church had such independence is one that doesn’t fit in with the modern image of the Church of England. The idea that knights entering the building would be sacrilege on the level of, for example, police entering a foreign embassy, I found interesting. If the cathedral has one level of independence front the state, maybe there could be another level, of unhappy inhabitants, who see the church as some sort of occupiers. The monsters could be annoyed that their sacred building is being used for other religious purposes.

In looking for images around the murder, I found an account that regularly posts archived medieval imagery, and chose a selection of illuminated letters that included beasts, preparing for the next task. The animals are rarely realistic, not least because of the shapes they conform to, or the strange semi-human faces. This fit the fantasy monster narrative I was pursuing.

Initial 'R', Hours of Charles of Angoulême, France ca. 1475-1500 (BnF, Latin 1173, fol. 5r) via Discarding Images – Twitter

Initial 'R', Hours of Charles of Angoulême, France ca. 1475-1500 (BnF, Latin 1173, fol. 3r) via Discarding Images – Twitter

Initial 'S', Hilary of Poitiers, De Trinitate, France ca. 1093-1132 (Vendôme, BM, ms. 28, fol. 51v) via Discarding Images – Twitter

Illuminated Letter

After the stamps, we were given the task of making an illuminated letter, again relating to our narrative. The course highlighted the often bizarre nature of medieval illuminated letters, so I decided to make another monster, starting with a non-serif ‘T’.

I added and repeated an image of part of the cathedral’s stonework, as well as some generic hands.

And traced the forms after arranging them.

The crown is taken straight from the column, and serifs draw from other, more intricate parts. I chose frog eyes to make the creature seem ‘cuter’ and gave it non-imposing hands.

Artist research

Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen’s work producing children’s illustrations is characterised by his use of muted tones and minimal drawing style.

Common to many of his characters are large, simple eyes that serve to make the characters seem soft or unintimidating. Rounded edges and fluid shapes add to this effect.

Keith Haring

Although his works frequently displayed clear political messages, the limited number of tones and thick line style has the effect of disarming the viewer, giving the images a lively and comic feeling.

The abstract animals that feature throughout his work are regularly expressionless or have strange faces, and are easy to view as cute despite the scenery they find themselves creating, or in the background of.

Sutton Hoo Helmet

While designing my figures, the pathway leader tipped me off to research the figures on the Sutton Hoo Helmet, an Anglo-Saxon artefact from 1613-35 AD, which likely belong to King Rædwald.

In particular, there is a plaque depicting two ‘dancing warriors’ whose headgear and non-human ears give them a monster-like appearance.

Their strange expressions paired with their outfits and movements informed my narrative of strange nighttime appearances by similar monsters.

Adobe express

We were given a short induction to adobe express towards the end of the week, making a small print each. I made two main versions, starting with the following image, using template text graphics and editing them.

source image, from the lens based project

version 1a

version 1b

version 2a

version 2b

version 2c

I started with religious text, but moved on to more ambiguous, cult-style phrases, framing the image as a sort of recruitment advert.

Letter Design

For this project, we were given a random word or phrase, and told to recreate it using collage, designing our own letters in the process.

I combined broken photocopies of order sheets with images of wild animal skin to create the letters P, O and W.

I was unable to finish the phrase, and would have liked to layer the letters more if I had more time.

Losing the line

For the buildup to our final project, we were given a task to create textures using collage as well as other materials and processes, and then use those textures to create collage. I started with images of the cathedral, breaking glass windows down into humanoid figures and placing the arches of the vaulted ceiling into an outdoor scene.

The floating windows are meant to represent some sort of spirits that occupy the cathedral, in line with my inhabitant monsters narrative. I decided to try a less ‘realistic’ sky background, so photocopied fragments of coloured paper onto black card.

I wasn’t sure about this version, but continued to the next step, creating a textured hand as the main background piece.

I didn’t like the lack of detail on the textured background, so chose the original image background and assembled the piece.

Concept Concertina

I ran out of time to complete this, as I had planned it for the last day of catch up week. My basic narrative would have followed the end of a normal day at the Cathedral, and as the lights are turned off, mysterious creatures would emerge. The creatures would not be happy about the situation with their home being occupied, and would be planning some sort of event to get the humans out of the cathedral. There would be some sort of chance meeting between the creatures and a human, and the story would continue from there.

Tutorial Review

My response

I liked the idea of going further with fancy dress photography – separate to the viscom project, and exploring more medieval mythology like the green man iconography. I think I would have followed on those ideas, and continued with my ‘anthropomorphisation’ theme within the viscom project – going beyond windows and into other objects related to or part of the cathedral.

Peer review

Peer review: Thomas Wynne-Baerwald assessed by Sidonie Sausset.

In the first section, “Cathedral Visit”, Thom has shown clear direction with his research

and connected narrative. He has shown further experimentation with specific aspects, for example his landscape sketches, even though he didn’t necessarily plan to investigate these to a greater extent. Thom clearly didn’t stick to one medium or idea during the outing and instead found a variation of creative sources: this ‘open-mindedness’ demonstrates his ability to be versatile while still working with a ‘mainframe’ in mind.

He has, however, given extensive details and references to support his principal idea: his

Humanoid Creatures.

The idea itself is unique, playful and completely related to the outing. Thom has not relied on the religious aspects of the cathedral to influence his ideas, which I personally find very constructive and refreshing. Not only did he manage to find multiple sources of inspiration, but his research also allows the potential for all of these to collide and exist within the same universe. Perhaps the carvings could relate to the creatures in his narrative.

I do believe further research in the Christian symbols he photographed could be relevant or

even useful but not necessarily needed (how has the Christian faith been recorded in contemporary art? References to Paganism etc.)

For our stamp making workshop, Thom has recorded his process effectively, with clear explanations, and his final stamp piece is well executed. His artist research is thorough and clear; it even relates to his current narrative as-well as the future illuminated letter task.

His illuminated letter has excellent use of his Cathedral inspiration; however, on a personal aesthetic level, I believe his final illuminated letter could have been refined. The bold filling of the original letter does not coincide with his added drawings, which is why I believe colouring could improve the piece, as well as having finer lining on the drawings to make it more familiar with the letter itself.

Given that we were only given a small amount of time to experiment within the Adobe

Express workshop, Thom managed to create multiple pieces, differentiating in colours, fonts and design. This prolific openness to ideas is why I deem them successful.

For the letter design, we were instructed to use any medium we wanted. My interpretation of this was to use possibly impractical techniques and tools. I think Thom could have experimented further with mediums other than collage but, as an artistic choice, this is completely understandable due to the lack of time we had on this workshop.

During the last workshop of our visual communication week, Thom persevered with his

Humanoid Creature narrative and used different techniques he had learnt throughout the week to create his collage piece.

Although his second attempt with black paper blends in well with his spirit cut-outs, I found the starry night background more effective: the colour palette reminded me of the end scene to A24’s “The Witch”, where multiple women are seen elevated above the ground surrounding a bonfire, similar to this piece.

His Concertina concept appears to be derived from his Humanoid Creature narrative once again and reminds me of the forest spirits from the Ghibli film, Princess Mononoke. This also has reference to certain Celtic and Pagan themes, like The Green Man that he previously mentioned; Thom could be inspired further in his work with research in that field.

Overall, Thom’s visual communication week showed structure and creativity. He pursued his original idea wherever he could without restricting himself which, I believe, is a constructive artistic ideology to have at this stage in his work.

My response:

I agree with Sidonie on the letter, which I would have enjoyed refining, and possibly making a series of other letters on the same theme. I disagree to an extent with my Sidonie’s approval of my choice of the starry sky — I definitely preferred it over the other image, but would still have liked a better matched background. I find the idea to involve more mythological references, including pagan figures, inspiring, encouraged by the fact this was also suggested in the tutorial review. I’m pleased Sidonie supports the narrative I was aiming for.

Week review

I have never studied viscom before, and wasn’t sure whether I would enjoy this week or not. At the end of it I know that I thoroughly enjoyed most elements – direct message communication, narratives and character design, all elements I have never really explored in my work. To get the opportunity to design and develop entirely new creatures, inspired by real life exploration of the cathedral, and to follow the theme of finding faces everywhere – an experience I’ve always found fascinating, was much less tiring and more free than I thought it would be. I struggled a bit with the narrative development, and think I would have liked to spend more time on this – not just from a visual perspective. The directness of viscom – from spelling things out to using common ideas to try to communicate your own, like when choosing colours for a piece, or working with collage to develop compositions quickly, focusing on the end message instead of producing more intricate work – is something I will definitely carry forward in my pathway. I also really liked the historical approach that the projects this week took – focusing on old themes and developed artists to build ground understanding of ideas within viscom.

On the other side, I thought that the time we were given wasn’t enough to develop all elements of the project properly, and contributed to my failure to develop a result (although that’s also related to my general (lack of) time management skills throughout the carousel – something else positive I’ve developed). I would have liked to spend more like 2 weeks in viscom, and to have been able to focus more on the narrative part of the project.

Even though I’m probably not going to take viscom for my pathway, I’m glad to have been able to explore this type of work.