Friday With Alice and Sarahs.

The last Friday seminar/lecture session of 2022 was a presentation and experiment in food tastes by Sarah and Sarah, invited by Alice to discuss their practices which sometimes use photography as an integral component.

Sarah and Sarah gave us a talk titled “Your (Critical) Best Friend”

Sarah Byrne and Sarah Zacharek both attended Uni of Wolverhampton to gain degrees in Art and came back to work as graduate interns and academic coaches because they loved the place so damned much.

Both spoke about how their art lives have been wound tightly together so that they combine like a Tarantino movie into one powerhouse of an artist studio. They explained too that they thought also about setting up their own art school but decided not to follow that particular path, they do however run a Community Interest Company (a CIC) that creates art and gives others the opportunity to experience art and learn more of the outlook of the Sarahs.

Sarah

Sarah Byrne spoke about how she struggled initially at school and college to get her head around the fact that art isn’t necessarily about making realistic and beautiful paintings but learnt in university that it is so much more. She has been through some difficult times and after finding a box of photos taken by her late-father she has found ways to work them into her practice. A recent residency at Walsall Art Gallery saw her create thread from it’s constituent parts and then spin it into a usable yarn that was used to make crocheted products. Part way through the creation of these works she realised the colour scheme was based around the muted colours and earthy tones from her father’s photographs and they remind her of her early years and the memories captured by her dad. Sarah’s website can be seen here with links to all of her work and some really lovely images.

Sarah

Sarah Zacharek also helped us to understand some of her practice and a fascinating piece of work she delved into was also related to finding a load of her late-father’s photographs of their home in Poland before they moved to the UK. Sarah went to a lot of trouble walking the pavements in the locations painstakingly discovered through google street view sessions and then putting up posters to find some of the people in the images that must have been important but had no further info on.

She told us about how she was invited to put on an exhibition in the town and from this, coverage in a national newspaper saw a TV show specialising in family reunions get involved and they were all brought together which I found to be a very emotional story. This story and work involved as well as her other works can be seen on Sarah’s website here.

Sarah also said that she’d had an epiphany talking to Dr Dean Kelland, her former lecturer and colleague when discussing about photographing “Pretty Scenes” and he helped her understand that a photograph doesn’t need to show something “Pretty”. This is something I find fascinating as I’m often mocked for taking photographs of items that are not considered worthy of being photographed but when I look at them they make perfect sense to me. Some her work features text also and one of her pieces when doing her time at uni was a landscape image that had been overlaid with big chonky text and the image was masked apart from where each of the letters were placed. This goes further into her work where she overlays images onto street maps indexes etc.

Photographic Legacies

It tells me that the photographs taken at the time, thrown into a storage box and left for years contain more information than was at first thought. How they became part of a detective story in both cases and led the eventual finders into adventures that wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for these little bits of chemical coloured paper. The power of photography as a recording medium is extraordinary but then I was reflecting on this and thought about the 149 thousand digital photos on my computer (and backups) and how only a small number of them have ever been printed. If solar flare activity went nuts and destroyed digital equipment then most of my photos might be lost forever. If some of them were printed out and stored in a box somewhere maybe there would be a legacy such as the catalysts that kicked off the Adventures of the Sarahs.

If solar flare activity went nuts and destroyed digital equipment then most of my photos might be lost forever.

Bob Griffiths

As we progressed through the discussions it became clear how essential teach Sarah is to the other and hence the title of “Critical Best Friend” It’s good to have someone who isn’t a “Yes Man” and will give you an honest opinion about a direction or piece of work. Having a checkpoint or quality gate can save time and resources and also prevent a mad dash down a rabbit hole of doom.

They spent a lot of time reiterating how important food and eating is, especially in social contexts such as the Coaches Kitchen events of a year or two ago, to putting on food at exhibitions which they are now considering (rightfully) as art in itself. After all it’s an inclusive piece of work that is created and enjoyed by the visitrs to the gallery or art space.

Throughout the talk occasional slides would pop up with questions like “Salsa or Guacamole?”, “Deep Crust or Thin Crust?”, “Tomato Ketchup or Brown Sauce?” trying to keep engagement with this small bunch of students. It prompted some healthy discussion and some controversy and I get why they see food as a bond. Honestly though for me, food isn’t all that. I’ve remarked previously about how I’d be happy to have a tablet in the morning to replace all of my meals, thus preventing the hassle of planning, shopping, preparing, cooking, presenting,eating,cleaning up. TO me it feels like time being wasted when I could be doing something I enjoy instead. I know just how weird that sounds, especially as someone who is above my ideal weight, due to eating convenience and junk foods. It just doesn’t float my boat, and I know I’m in a tiny minority but there are others out there too..

Food And Exercise

That’s why I struggled for the last part of the exercise when the Sarahs asked us all to complete our ideal menu so they could then pair us up with someone else with contrasting or complimentary tastes as a way of selecting a Critical Best Friend.

My Menu

You can see in the picture above my responses to the questions, all a bit basic if I’m honest. Even these are more varied than I’d normally bother with. A slice of Watermelon is my starter usually if I have to have a starter at a wedding or black tie do etc, but I usually decline starters.

My main course selection is meat and vegetables as it’s something that can be made quickly and easily with little fuss. I’d go for chips over roast or boiled potatoes any day, I wouldn’t normally eat roasties but would have boiled if out at a wedding etc. My staple form of potato usually is mashed potato with butter and milk but it’s quick and easy to make and eat.

I’d class it as being similar to how I choose my clothes, if I find something that fits and is warm/cool and just right, I might buy a few of them. Not being a fashion conscious person frees me from the headaches I see other people struggle with on a daily basis when it comes to decisions. I’m a bit like Ben Affleck’s character The Accountant in that regard although in the film his character is on the autistic spectrum. Maybe these are pointers to a little bit of spectrum type behaviour in my personality but I’m not gonna worry about that..

Ben Affleck as The Accountant (Amusingly in a Jigsaw image)

For the dessert I chose Arctic Roll, but I don’t know why in particular. I’d normally eat something basic like ice cream, angel delight or a sundae if we’re out for a meal. I’m not a big proponent of sticky toffee pudding, gateaux or chocolate fudge cake all a little too fussy to me. This also goes into coffee drinking for me too, I prefer to have a nescafe instant coffee with full fat milk and hate having to pay £4 for an Americano if we’re out and about. Honestly I hate seeing how much people pay, and I don’t consider myself as tight or stingy, for a cup of coffee with loads of syrups, shits of coffee etc to walk along the street carrying it awkwardly and struggle to sip it through the ridiculous designed cups. Ooh, soap box alert, sorry.

Emma’s Menu

Ooh Photogwaphy Fwend

I was paired by the Sarahs with Emma on my course as Critical Best Friends, possibly because they saw some synergy in the style of meals we suggested. Emma’s response is obviously more refined and considered than mine, as were most other people in the room. In terms of being a critical friend, I think we’ve already done some of this throughout the first part of the year. Semester 1 for Emma is the third semester at Wolves for me as I am studying part time, so I’m trying to keep a little low key and help if asked rather than trying to help everyone without being asked.

Emma has asked for opinions from me, as I have also done with her and others in the group. It’s a strong group for being supportive and also offering some really good considerations when it comes to perceptions and suggestions for improvements. I haven’t seen any coursemate take the hump from suggestions given by anyone else and all seem to be taking them as intended, me included.
I’ve received some valuable critique and support from my classmates this year and will continue to look for ideas as we go into Semester 2.

Exhibition

On the way out after the seminar/talk I stopped in the ground floor to look around the exhibition that was opening, an intermediate exhibition of the Level 6 work and found some of it fascinating. There were some stand out pieces that I enjoyed, one being the photo of the Golden Arches on Redscaled film that really caught my eye as though it were from the scene in Terminator 2 when the nuclear events begin on Judgement Day.

Photograph by Level 6 Photography Student – I’ll try and find out who it is for the credit.

Another triptych of canvases with bright and bold colour and patterns also tickled my fancy and I stopped to take a couple of iPhone photos of it. The subtle shading made it look like a material surface rippling in a breeze from a distance and it felt fluid to look at.

Triptych by Level 6 Student. (unknown for now)

The third was a colour-limited painting of a figure on mixed media that was as haunting as it was beautiful. The strokes of the brush or sponge or whatever tool was used look harsh to my non-expert eyes but the outcome is the very definition of subtlety. The grey wash that is on there reminds me of someone looking out of a window, and I found the picture enthralling.

Level 6 Art Student Work in the exhibition. (Artist unknown at present)

Time for Christmas and some work to get done and we’ll see what the new year 2023 brings.

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