Master Of Plasticine

During my research and practice as an artist over the last few years I have developed a habit of looking back at my own life and creative experiences during difficult periods during a project, or to find an old idea, or simply for inspiration and motivation (reminding myself sometimes that I have actually done a bit of work over the last ten years or so) during this time spent in my personal archives (now a physical place) I have come across a lot of findings that have reminded me and helped me understand why I think the way I do.

You ever sniffed plasticine? - try it,

start your own thought experiment,

see where it takes you..

One of the main things that keeps on cropping up is how much I played with plasticine as a kid, or more specifically the way I played with plasticine, and I've gone over this in multiple posts you can find on this site, and will definitely most probably talk about my plasticine habits again, but stay tuned, there's always something to be learned from plasticine..

See, I've come to a bit of a realisation recently with my own practice and the way I work and would like to continue to work and play in the future.. The 'play' part being very important, as I discovered in my 'Thought Experiment' over the last few months, but I'll come back to this..

My creative 'career' has taken me all over the place, metaphorically speaking of course, I've hardly left Wales otherwise.. But creatively I've spent time in the dark lonely caves of stop motion animation, and I've wandered the cold streets of early stage film directing (where you mostly make coffee for other film directors, by the way) even dabbled in rap and lyricism before making my way to the wonderful world of sculpture which lead me down a path back to the moving image but in a more personal way with the creation of the 'Sculpt Factory' which has really opened up the doors to where I am now, moving on from my bachelors Degree in Sculpture onto a Masters Degree in Moving Image, though the course I'm taking at Swansea College of Art has a very multi-disciplinary approach and welcomes a different kind of thinking, and encouraging you to look outside your own practice, so I've entered the course knowing that I will most probably not be focusing on the 'moving image', yet it was a thought out decision knowing that in almost anything I do, there will be an element of the moving image to enhance, display or showcase the work, whatever that may be.

This is my old wooden serving tray, in which many worlds were built over time.. Now my daughter uses it to create

her worlds, this one was made just before my daughter

was born by my little sister in law..

But even knowing this before starting this course, I didn't realise how much freedom I could actually give myself as an artist until after I started the course and underwent the thought experiment.

But actually it goes back a bit further, as when I first enrolled on the course I got a job on a short film as the production designer, which ended up me building the set too, I did briefly mention this project in an earlier post.

But this is was an important job to take on, mostly because I'd just moved house and was completely broke and needed the money, but it also made a huge difference long term..

So in context I've always had this pipe dream of being able to do whatever I want when I want... a childish dream maybe in this culture of 'pick one thing and get good at it, and work until you retire' kind of attitude in our society I feel like I've always been looking for a way to do it, but have always fallen into the trap of getting excited about one thing, and trying to stick with it for as long as I can, and maybe it's the pressures of society that have made me feel a bit shit about myself in the past when I've jumped from one 'career' path to the next.. (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) But the main thing I got from this short film was that I GOT PAID (actually money and not experience) TO PISS ABOUT IN MY SHED for like over a week.. I'm 26 by the way, this shouldn't be a new thing, but it is, for something I enjoy doing..

But anyway.. the point is I 'stopped' making films a long time ago, I was bored of the endless meetings that just lead to another meeting, and the long arse pre-production stages that would only lead to loosing funding for a project or whatever, there's always problems, I wanted to do something that just felt much more creative, I spent more time sat in meetings than creating things, and getting my own projects off the ground meant that I basically had to be a CEO, which meant I wasn't being creative either. I've done a few jobs here and there and they've been fun, but on this particular film I had the opportunity to build an actual fricking set! Which really allowed me to showcase my creative thinking, getting over problems etc, it felt like I was hired onto the project as an artist, and not like I was just working on another film. This really was the catalyst of a great shift in my own mind, even thought I've always wanted to be able to jump form one thing to the next, I never really have as I've spend time on one thing, then go onto another over longer periods of time, and each time telling myself that THIS is what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life... This is the mistake I was making..

And this is where plasticine comes back in.. Over this recent period of looking back over my own creative journey I've found that plasticine was a massive part of my creative 'training' as a kid, training my brain to think creatively through play, construction and destruction. I picked up a handy skill-based practice of sculpting, but that was just an added bonus compared to the gift I gave myself of a creative brain, being able to think of ideas and develop them through creative play.

So here's the physical story, Plasticine took me to some wild places in my imagination as a kid in that old serving tray.. but a very simple observation that plasticine is what they used to make Wallace and Gromit send me on a path in search of a career in stop motion animation, which lead me to the Creative Media Production course in Coleg Sir Gar's Graig campus in 2012, where my interest in animation quickly developed into a passion for filmmaking, and after quitting my job looked at my skill base and found that the only thing I was ever really good at was playing with plasticine, which lead me to the Sculpture Degree, which again helped me make my way to the Moving Image Masters I'm currently studying.

So, what I've never really realised (maybe because I've always been moving too fast trying to find a way to make a living out of all these things individually) was that the thing all these disciplines have in common are a creative thought process, it's the same throughout animation, film, music, sculpture, everything. What building that set did in the middle of other projects was remind me that I've always worked in the same way, I am an artist, and I do jump form one thing to another, and that's OK.

So I've called this post 'Master Of Plasticine' I don't mean it in a way that I've mastered the material or that I'm a great sculptor, I'm not. What I've realised is that plasticine was the starting point for my whole creative life, it taught me how to think creatively and it also sent me on a journey of discovery that has lead me to sit a Masters Degree, which is actually ridiculous that I can even get on level 2 college diploma, let alone a degree, and especially a Masters Degree. Plasticine is life, for me at least, and more than anything else in my life is held accountable for me sitting a Masters Degree, also, I joked with friends whilst sitting my sculpture degree that I was sitting a degree in plasticine, and if I was to ever get a Masters, I'd be a Master Of Plasticine..

So here it goes, the next module on the course that I'm titling 'Master Of Plasticine'.. I'm starting here at this realisation that I, as an artist can swap and change, jump ship whenever I feel the need, I have always done, and will always do the same thing, work creatively to create something or solve a problem, whatever means that takes, I'm still doing the same thing I've always done..