#irismorgan

[irisdrawsbirds]

Practice Log #1

The first log note. A bit daunting. 

This is a blog, as you can tell. Its primary function right now is two fold. Firstly, It is to help me to practise writing (painfully slogging through a BA & MA has now given me a SMALL enjoyment out of writing) and expressing my ideas, which without, they would just be swirling around in my head, unpinned and forgotten and without forming into more understandable and tangible ideas (see picture below). I think it will, secondly, serve as a time capsule, anchor point and lighthouse for my practice. So much of what I was interested in and the ideas I have had in the last few years have been forgotten as they were not written down, A bad habit I have. So hopefully this will be useful to me to see in the future, what ideas are sticking with me and are important. 

This blog is for me and done so for me, i'm going to post them on my website so that if anyone does want to read them they can, I enjoy reading people's ramblings and maybe someone will enjoy mine. I am writing this off the cuff and in a more personal style I enjoy, I do not understand grammar to be honest. So fullstops, colons, semi colons etc will be sprinkled in wherever it feels right to me. Same with timing, I'll post when I have things to post. And refraining from trying to do a schedule! (think my malcolm comics)

A current project that is taking up a sizable portion of my head is making a pseudo archive. 

Before my masters, one of my wants was to start making fake artefacts and pottery as if they were real. Making up my own superstitions, traditions etc and making work to make it look like they were real. This, while i never really acted on this idea during my masters save for the two projects i made (union scenting pot and second spring). These projects, particularly second spring, lit a want in me to make a collection of artefacts that I would archive into an exhibition. All of these pieces would be fake, never actually used in real life. But displayed as if they were, and most importantly. Relating to queer, and prominently TRANS existence. Throughout my research on the MA and talking to my secret husband, Jua Okane, it is sad to know that so much of trans history has been intentionally wiped as it doesn't fit the cis-heteronormative viewpoint of western culture. This project to me feels like it could be a really bittersweet one. While it is saddening to know that these things are fake, because we don't know how trans people lived before us. This project is a way for me to adorn and synthesise my own cultural history as a Trans person. Using my modern british context of life as a queer woman to create pseudo historical trans artefacts. An example of what I mean would be a series of Georgian era packers, ranging in how ornate they were, maybe one is for the poorer people in society and is just a crudely shaped wooden block. And slowly progresses into an ornately embroidered packer for georgian nobility. 

Writing this I am 10 months into unemployment. I do not have the funds to do anything of any eminence, I would like to one day be able to commission other queer artists to make parts of this project for me (I can't sew). So for now, I am ruminating, I am thinking, I am slowly fermenting the ideas and pieces in my head (and now here) so that when the time comes, I can act on this.

Iris