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Past Work - Thirty Works 2020 - First 10

I'm participating in 30/30, an exercise under which I have to produce a work of art each day for the whole of April. If I fail to submit something I get kicked out of the exercise.  It's said that more than 1,000 artists are doing it this year.
Each morning I'm given a brief.  Following it is optional, but I enjoy the process of trying to find a way of responding to it.
Here's the briefs and my responses for the first 10 days:

Day 1: Is there a work you're scared to make? Make it anyway!


Automaton

Title: Scared? Me?

My response was this short video:  https://youtu.be/Uttizsp3NOA 

It's an automaton made from a walnut and clothes peg.  Opening the peg causes the mouth to open and the eyes to roll back in their sockets.

Day 2: Can you make a home at home?


Home in a hollow ash tree

Title: Home in a Hollow

Playing with scale.  This is a hollow ash tree in our garden.  The "ladder" is about 450mm high.  Beryl took a photo of me in a chair which I placed in the hollow using Photoshop.

Day 3: What do you need to make your work?


Rodin's Thinker

Title: Thought

I always start projects with an idea so I took an image of part of Rodin's Thinker and gave it a look somewhat akin to Andy Warhol's Marilyn diptych.  Required me to re-learn some Photoshop skills!

Day 4: Try cheating today


Me looking suspicious

Title: Something to hide?
Short video of me looking as though I'm up to no good

Day 5: What does a failure look like to you?


Alan Kurdi, 3

Title:  Alan Kurdi, 3, drowned

I started out thinking of my own failures and then realized I should be focusing on REAL failures, such as allowing the disaster in Syria to result in the drowning of a toddler.   I'm not very happy with this drawing but in some ways it reinforces the point that there's more important issues to focus on.

Day 6: Take an old work and make it more commercial





How to fake Damien Hirst's signature
Title: How to fake Damien Hirst's signature

I'm not really interested in making my work more commercial so I thought it would be funny to fake a famous artist's signature on one of my creations.  Then I discovered this, by Emmanuel Laflamme, and he gave me permission to reproduce it.

Day 7: Are you a hare or a tortoise?


Dashboard with high revs and low MPH

Title: A Hairy Ride for a Tortoise

I wanted to depict a hare-like mind with occasional tortoise like progress - some of my projects take years to complete.  My initial thought was to adapt a rat-in-a-treadmill design I've been working on.  Then I hit on photographing my car dashboard and just changing the position of the needles using Photoshop.  In retrospect, I doubt whether many people will notice the needle positions.

Day 8: Does your work have a legacy?

ice tea pot

Title: Water

This is a time-lapse video of an ice teapot melting:
https://youtu.be/34XIue6HyW0

It comes from my "Teapotty" collection, where I ran the video in reverse so the teapot emerges from a puddle of water.  I thought it was particularly apt because the teapot disappears, raising a question over whether it has a legacy and if so, whether it's this video, the puddle of water or something else.

Day 9: Is there a bit of art-related admin you'd been putting off? (of course there is); maybe do that today?


Inspiration in Short Supply

Title:  Inspiration in Short Supply

To my mind, the briefs to date have been disappointing - they don't get my mojo going - and this one took the biscuit. So I submitted this as a response.

Day 10: Make a list of things that you can remember wanting to make but never got round to doing.

Can you make any today?

Automaton

Title: You're doin' my head in

I didn't bother making a list but I've had a fun day making another automaton, possibly sending another message about the briefs.


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