Honey Williams – Artist Talk

Who Is Honey Williams

Her website: www.thehoneyeffect.wordpress.com/

Honey Williams is a very diversified artist within a lot of mediums. Illustration, painting, singing, songwriting, djing and mural making these are all of her talents. while growing up within Nottingham Saint Anns she was surrounded by a black dominating community. Within her Jamaican family she went to church a lot and got involved within many choirs.

Where Her Love For Art Came From

On her first day at school they where told to draw so she did, thinking it was stupid she didn’t want people seeing her work. yet the teacher did, she was amazed by the work and congratulated honey. This made honey thrilled and her love of are grew.

Education

Through out Honey’s education she was bullied and miss understood, by student and teacher. Due to think bullying the teacher kicked honey out of the art glass within GCSE, to get her away from the bullies. later in life she realized the teacher was in the wrong for doing that. She then went on to study art and design, media and pop music in collage, within this period she applied to universities with her teachers telling her that no student from her collage has ever got into the university of Central Saint Martins London. she got into the university. Below is a link to the university and its courses.

https://www.arts.ac.uk/colleges/central-saint-martins

Her strong contextual meaning behind her work really started while she was in university when she left misunderstood by the teacher for not understanding her anit-racial driven work. the work, Hair Politics (2004), that was focused towards the texture and shape of natural black hair, within this she wrote words that have been used to describe the hair, these words acting as the hair of the model within the painting.

As a black women herself Honey felt her message to the world was very important. At first this was just about the stigma around natural black hair and how wearing it natural lead to being fired from jobs or sent out of school. She used her art to make people understand but no one did, this lead to her mainly focusing in music within her university years (she worked with lots of people within the industry), even thought she did come out with a degree within graphic design. This lead to her not doing art for around 8 years.

One day she wanted to start doing art again but this really gained her flow back when everyday she would do art within her diary, this at first was random art but soon became a personal thing to her where it would be able what she did that day, this lead to art becoming a massive part of her life again.

websites and commission

Once Honey had left a university, she set up a website dedicate to appreciating natural black beauty, at first being called Contemporary Natural Hair then later on the website name changed to The pickyheads.

https://thehoneyeffect.wordpress.com/tag/the-pickyheads/

In the photos above are some of the works she has been commissioned to make, ranging from winning in a competition so she got to paint a mural in Jamaica to helping teacher people to appreciate black women more this became her main context within her works. One commission she was asked to make was a collaboration, photos of black coal miners where cut up and collages by a group of people who all suffer with different disabilities, then she painted a coil miner on top of the collage.

The Rest Of My Notes About Honey

StudionAme – visiting a practicing studio

StudionAme – visiting a practicing studio

professional study

Who Are Studio Name

StudionAme is a studio with practicing artists of all ages and skills. Located at 2 Brougham Street (1st floor) Leicestershire England LE1 2BA. Within this community there are around 28 artists, some using the space as a place for hobby and other using it for a living.

Steve SadlerPhil HackettTim Fowler Emmer PeersWillow StaceyHannah Pillai
Tazim HamedIndrė RimšelytėTom Van HerrewewgeJack CaseyLoz AtkinsonBeth Bell
Lucy StevensLorna GreyAdam KhalifaMatt MackenBeccy BenedictChristopher Samuel
Emma – Jane RuleGraeme HawesJoe MoranNic Evans Mark BootSteven Allbutt
Yuka NamekawaNorthside BikesSusan Knox
these are the artists

Within the studio are several different sized studio spaces, the sized of the space you are given is dependent on how much rent you pay, bigger size= more rent. They have a common room area but also an exhibition room the artist can use for free when wanted. This gives them great opportunity to hold exhibitions and to see how their work look together.

studioname.co

Business Cards And Exhibition Leaflets From The Studio:

My Visit To StudionAme

After a volunteering session I was invited to see the studio by practicing artist Emmer Peers, on the Sunday after I went to visit the studio. This was a great experience as we got to look around each of the artists areas, their works and thoughts. While looking around the studios I was able to see work in progress, finished works and even machines that help the artists.

These are photos I took through the studio, this was great inspiration both professionally and contextually. Looking around the studio it gave great example of how they live and help each others art.

Artists We Spoke To

While at the studio I talked to 3 artists being Emmer Peers, Jack Casey and another I can not remember the name of. Once we had looked around we where able to talk to them about any recommendation they have for us to be able to become artist. Jack Casey was really helpful within a professional light, due to explaining to us his journey from becoming part time artist with a job, into a full time artist.

Talking to Emma I found out that there are grants artist can apply for to help them produce their work, from looking i have found one that could be useful within my future projects. The link below is a website from the Leicester Art And Museum Gallery, where they have information about how to get grants and about different grants that are possible to get.

https://www.leicestermuseums.org/arts/funding-grants/#:~:text=Cultural%20Ambition%20Fund%20%28CAF%29%20We%20have%20a%20small,our%20Cultural%20Ambition%20Fund%20page%20for%20more%20information.

To be able to talk professionally to the artists was a really important step, this gave me a really strong insight to understand the next moves I will need to make after I leave DMU. Where if I do not have a studio at home I should look for one. I am fortunate enough to be able to create a studio at home ( I am currently in progress of this). I feel this has been one of the most beneficial experiences I have had this year.

Valie Export – Artist Research

Valie Exoport born in 1940 is an austrian artist who works in several different mediums, he most famous works are her provocative public performances.

Context behind her works

As a feminist it was only natural for her art to show this, behind her art was a meaningful message about women’s bodies and the attitude people had towards women. her art would flip what we would see as something sexualizing women into the women’s body sexualizing’s that object. she did this through many different ways, including pain and damage to her body.

Body Sign Action (1970)

Within 1970, artist Valie Export did a had a live performance , Body Sign Action, where she was tattooed on the top of her thigh. The tattoos was a image of a garter and the top of a stocking. Although the tattoo maybe seem meaningless to some, this is a massively empowering tattoo, I have found a website explaining the context below the photo. it is suggested that this is the first time a tattoo has been used within fine art.

Body Art – Important Art | TheArtStory

By showing a physical meaning to how she feels, objectified and sexlized by men she has taken a stand in one of the most permanent ways possible. This then makes it an em-powering movement and taking control of her own body. within the text is a quote from herself.

This shows how even though she wants to fight the sense that women are repressed both within a sexual way but also sexulized for being a women.

This videos explains her works, but also about ‘Body Sign Action and what it is and the meaning behind it and her works. within this videos is also a deeper exploration of feminism at the time and how much of an impact Export brought to art as she was the only female in the movement at the time.

Within this video Export talks about the reasoning behind why she choose her name, that export was a way for her to push everything away and be who she is with no one else name. creating her own identity and image, this would soon become her own brand. within her art use uses herself and her name is herself there for her art and herself became one.

Valie Export’s works

Contextually my art and hers does not have much in common, expect both wanting to change common social issues that are around us. But i still find inspiration within her work, and how she has completed it. As i have used my body for my art and in order to get it to where i want to be i have brought physical harm to myself in order to fight these issues.

Another contextual matter that it develops on from my own, is the right to be fighting for everyone to be equal no matter who, what or where you have come from. just as she is fighting for women to be equal and not objectified.

George Segal – Artist Research

George Segal is an artist that lived between 1924-2000, although at first he was a painter, he soon found interest within sculpture. He was mainly related to the pop art movement and was mostly known for his, human sized, sculptures.

method

The method Segal uses to create these casts are, to have a model within the position he wishes then with some Modroc strips (Modroc is a bandage like materials that is impregnated with plaster so when dampened it hardens while drying). He covers his model with the Modroc straps in different sections of the body and waits for the to dry, once dry he takes them off. from this he has the shape of the body. he then uses more strips to put the pieces together again.

example of the method used

This will be similar to the technique that Segal uses, expect at first Segal did not paint his sculptures.

Feeling Of His Work/ Where It Is Placed

As Modroc dries white this lead to his sculptures having a ghostly feel to them. this made an uneasy feeling around the works but also a reinsuring one as they are something we know, humans. His works where presented within public and urban places (e.g streets).

The Context Of The Work

Within this website is a timeline of Segals works, this goes through the sculptures and talks about their meanings and looks. I found this so interesting to read as it gave me a better understanding that his works at first was investigating how humans are venerable creatures, but also the position of his work is as though it is waiting for something that will never happen.

Another topic he looked at was human rights issues, were one of his sculptors was a monument towards gay rights. Although he was straight he created the four figures two males standing together and two females sitting together within a public park. These where taking in good ways and bad, as some thought it was inappropriate for him as a straight man to be making this art.

Other than gay rights, he spoke out about many different issue within the world through his art.

George Segal Sculptures, Bio, Ideas | TheArtStory

George Segal sculptures

Contextually this work relates to mine and I feel it is a very strong way to show it. as within my project i am trying to speak out on issues within society and movements that are being held back. Even thought i could face the same criticism as Segal as a straight women, who supports gay rights.

Though i have been experimenting with string, using Modroc would be a great development due to the quicker time it would take to complete the works. string takes about a week to make a full body, yet Modroc would take around 2-3 days. the ending result would be changed dreamily but possibly for the best due to it being quicker and stronger.