Drawing Project - Working process

I edited together footage recorded during the recent drawing day on Cheung Chau and edited 2 short videos outlining the construction of two drawings.

These drawings are the latest in an ongoing project that investigates the collaboration between a human (me) and nature and as active participant. Together we create an image through dialogue. As with all conversations, sometimes one party dominates, when they have a lot to say, while the other listens, sometimes it is a balanced two-way interaction. 

I will post more updates from this project in future, hopefully recording the progress of the investigation.

Here are the two drawings made on 7th May 2017.

The first drawing

The recording can also be viewed on my youtube.com channel here: https://youtu.be/ZZLeJxAsITg

 The second drawing

The recording can also be viewed on my youtube.com channel here: https://youtu.be/g8OmGnUXbss

This project was referred to in the blog of Garry Barker, artist and educator in Leeds, UK. Garry goes into detail about the use of frottage in art, in great detail and great eloquence here.

No holiday

I have edited a recorded version of my performance 'No holiday' that formed part of my preparation for participation in two performance art festivals, the Duration and Dialogue II Festival in Toronto, Canada and the Inverse Performance Art Festival in North-west Arkansas, USA.

This 33 minute version was recorded on Cheung Chau Island in Hong Kong.

Currently in the planning stage are further episodes of the 'No holiday' performance, including locations in the UK and Venice in Italy. News of these developments will be written up later in the year, as they happen.

'No holiday' - Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong - 28th January 2017

The recording can also be viewed on my youtube.com channel here: https://youtu.be/R4V5faOIX1w

Drawing Project - Work in progress

On Sunday 7th May I gathered my prepared materials and walked down to Nam Tam Wan to take a close look at which rocks could be suitable for the next stage of my drawing project.

The small tests I had conducted previously showed promise and I had intended to build upon those results, I just didn't foresee that it would take so long to move the project along. A conference paper, Dada collage, a digital print and various other things came onto the agenda and pushed the drawing project back. However, putting that delay aside I could now turn my attention to drawing the rocks down at the little bay near my home.

I began with a roll of Chinese calligraphy paper, which I have found to be particularly good at picking up the texture of surfaces when creating frottage images. Sometimes the paper may tear, especially when enthusiasm urges me to work faster and so these tears will need to be repaired later at some point.

Several stones picked up on the beach helped to keep the paper in place and prevented the wind from blowing my work away. I used sticks of willow charcoal to transfer the rocks' texture and as I worked I snapped the charcoal into shorts sticks of approximately 2 inches so that I could slide them across the surface of the paper to create soft swathes of texture on the paper.

When the first drawing seemed to be resolved I took a look at it and thought that it didn't require any further working back home, although I will look again another day to see if my opinion on that has changed.

The second attempt was with a larger piece of paper. This paper was thicker, smoother and had a waterproof covering on the reverse side. This had advantages and disadvantages. The advantages were that the paper was more durable, was easier to pin down using the rocks and was easier to push the paper further into crevasses to pick up the texture. The disadvantages were that the smooth surface texture of the paper meant that it was more difficult to create an organic surface of marks, the waterproof covering on the reverse side formed a barrier, making it more difficult to 'feel' the rocks' texture and the pure white colour of the paper was much 'colder'. I was pleased with the results of this second attempt too, although I will certainly need to work again on this one later. It was satisfying to work on a larger scale, it felt as though I was beginning to get somewhere!

Although it was quite a hot day, the wind that threatened to blow away my paper, also cooled me down and stopped me from over-heating.

The first drawing

The second drawing

This project was referred to in the blog of Garry Barker, artist and educator in Leeds, UK. Garry goes

into detail about the use of frottage in art, in great detail and great eloquence here.

Inverse Performance Art Festival 2017 - Part 2

At the risk of  being called an April fool I undertook to perform a new version of my piece 'No holiday' on Cheung Chau.

This time the piece was being live-streamed to the Inverse Performance Art Festival in North-west Arkansas, USA. 

I began walking with my red suitcase, map and selfie-stick at 5:00am, before dawn (4:00pm Arkansas time) and walked for 2 hours. I was the first performer on the schedule of events listed for the 21C Bentonville Hotel venue and therefore my piece was the event that started off the evening. 

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Due to the starting time I needed to choose a route that was not as remote as the version I conducted in January so that there would be a little more ambient lighting. This also meant that there would be more interactions with people, small vehicles etc. and the light would change dramatically as daybreak illuminated the island. During the performance I explored some of the local backstreets, visited the ferry pier and saw the dawn at the Tung Wan beach. I was passed by some small delivery vehicles, restaurants were preparing for the breakfast customers and I even encountered a mobile metal rack full of roasted suckling pig ready to be delivered. 

I was fortunate that with the imminent Ching Ming Festival here on the island, a fairy large bamboo structure had been built in what is usually a basketball area. This unusual temporary building was covered in tin sheet and illuminated from within. As I walked towards this theatre for Cantonese Opera, it shone out from the darkness and became something for me to explore.

When I approached what is effectively the main square on the island and turned towards Tung Wan beach, the sky was breaking to reveal the dawn and as the beach (in Cantonese Tung Wan means East Bay) was perfectly located for a view of the dawn above Hong Kong Island, the setting was very dramatic. I only hope that this was effectively conveyed to the audience watching over in the USA. 

The performance was completed at 7:00am as the broadcast ended. I suggested to the organisers that I should continue walking until they ended the broadcast, leaving the image of me walking in the minds of the audience. This could suggest that I may in fact continue walking and the broadcast was a brief glimpse of the overall activity. It would also not break the meditative atmosphere set up during the previous 2 hours.

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More details of the performance and my approach can be found on the festival website, along with information about the other amazing performances to be experienced in Arkansas: 

http://www.inverseperformanceartfestival.org/2017-artists/w4shn00lj2y4jlct8t6b0fovj12eo3

...and the schedule of events can be viewed here: 

http://www.inverseperformanceartfestival.org/2017-schedule-of-events/

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I was so happy to be able to nurture a new version of 'No holiday' and I am very grateful to Cynthia Post Hunt for allowing me the opportunity to share my work with the audience of the Inverse Performance Art Festival.

Sea view from Nam Tam Wan 1/4/2017

Selfie taken at Nam Tam Wan 1/4/2017

Nam Tam Wan 2016 - Book Publication

Referring back to a previous post about the photographic project I am undertaking at Nam Tam Wan on Cheung Chau Island - Hong Kong, I have now finally arrived at a satisfactory format for the book of images I would like to publish.
I do not intend to print up multiple copies, instead I will present, exhibit and promote the book myself and I will only print copies upon request. This means the book is therefore not being produced commercially and the price cannot be reduced by large unit numbers.

Below I have attached low-resolution captures of the introduction and two pages of images.

If you are interested in purchasing copies of the book, please contact me using my email address: patricksford@live.com

The book is 8" x 10" 20 x 25cm, portrait format, 64 pages, 60 images, colour photos taken by phone camera, 1 image per page, title page, introduction page, blank page at the back, the hard-back cover is black with white lettering on the spine, spine text reads: Nam Tam Wan 2016 Patrick S. Ford

A review of the book as well as an interview I conducted with the 'Local Idea' section of the 'Lik Ink' website and blog can be found here: https://www.likink.com/patrick-s-ford/

Inverse Performance Art Festival 2017 - Part 1

I received another piece of great news informing me that my work was to be included in the Inverse Performance Art Festival in Arkansas, USA at the end of March 2017.
The festival will be held in several locations in Bentonville and Fayetteville in Northwest Arkansas between 30 March and 1st April 2017.

My live-streamed performance, No holiday, will be broadcast to the 21c Bentonville Museum Hotel venue on Friday 31 March 5:00 - 6:00pm (Saturday 1 April 7:00 - 8:00am Hong Kong time).

The walking route of this second installment of the No holiday performance is still being determined but will explore another part of the small island of Cheung Chau in the territory of Hong Kong. I will again take my red suitcase, map and selfie-stick in another attempt to explore the choreography of the holiday experience.

The festival website can be found here:  http://www.inverseperformanceartfestival.org/

, the festival artist listing page:
http://www.inverseperformanceartfestival.org/2017-artists-1/

, and the festival schedule of events:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/inverse-21c-bentonville-tickets-32241453054

Digital Print for exhibition

I had decided to participate in a mini-print exhibition after a brief gap, during which I had been developing a series of performance pieces, and began preliminary work on an image in several sketchbooks. As I worked, the image gradually increased in detail and it became clear to me that my original intended medium (linocut) would be unsuitable.
At this stage I moved onto my Mac and started anew on an image generated with Adobe Illustrator. This seemed to improve the development of the image and appeared to be the correct choice.

The image has now reached a kind of equilibrium and, as time is running out, I will find a digital printer to produce an inkjet edition for me. The initial quotes were surprisingly expensive so I may have to modify my expectations (a familiar process for me).

Unfortunately the print was not selected for exhibition this time. However, the process of working on it has opened up a new thread of investigation and the value of this for my work overall far outweighs participation in the mini-print exhibition.