My initial idea for the action research project came directly as a result of my previous practice, which had taken the form of an isolated working environment, and a general creation of ideas that stemmed mainly from within my own existence. I had experimented within the genres of the nude, abstraction and landscape, not without success, but all based around my own interaction with these subjects. The result of this was a much narrower, concealed practice that affected both my work and my relation to other artists. My aims were to portray the relationship of the figure to their surroundings, telling a personal ‘story’. However, this was only feasible by creating work from imagination, from my own thoughts. The action research project led me to investigate how to broaden this idea and so I went back to an earlier degree project called ‘Urban Poetry’, but based the theme on my local community, linking in the story theme. Old factories, streets, windows, canals, people’s memories, all made up the idea to get the traces left by people and places into artworks.

Up to the point of the project, I worked only with drawing and painting. I wanted to broaden this by adding photography and the written word into the package of working methods. I did, however, want to re-visit sketching on site, something I had not done for a long time. I felt that the project might suffer in content by only working with a narrow set of media and I would not be stretched in regards to my own abilities. Physically going out into the environment would also bring a true sense of place, a feeling of the reality of being there into the finished work, something I had been missing up till now. Going out would open my eyes in terms of searching for the hidden places, the small details of what remained of people and places, bringing the past into contrast to the present. This was again something I had done many times, but had forgotten over the years, and was a process I thought I may struggle to get back with. In terms of people, this required an actual interview and this was entirely out of my comfort zone. The entire research was also much more concentrated and in-depth, again a barrier I had to overcome, something new to just working on a single, one-off painting.

The initial method was to walk around the area, look for anything that would be suitable for the idea and spend time out sketching; this to be done throughout the entire length of time spent on the project. Whilst doing this, I would look for a more specific place where I could go back and make a photographic record. I would make reference to myself earlier on and bring my own story into the project, to give the idea of it being my environment. This I eventually ignored. A folio of images would be built up, words written to go with some; and then talks with local people to write and illustrate stories would give the final bulk to the material. I had ideas on experimenting with the photographs digitally and also overlapping word and image. I found, however, that the sketching was still within my skill yet it began to have less importance to the project because I found it was still too broad, it didn’t tie down the ‘story’ enough. I found I stopped this part of the idea after just a few sessions. I also felt that digitally experimenting with photographs took away the personal and so I kept to a more direct, basic image that had no need for change. One photograph I had taken gave me the idea of making a detailed drawing with a story to it, to be framed as one piece. This I tried and I produced four very detailed drawings that I felt ‘soaked up’ the moment, using hard pencil that gave a ghostly, old photo album feel to them. Concentrating on the detail made me feel that I was really getting into the whole life of the subject, just what I had been missing in my work. Finally, one person showed me an old community newspaper that gave me the idea for the final form of my stories – to re-create one that contained my drawings, photographs and stories. This was something I could give out to the community, an answer to my question of how I could benefit the public realm with my project.

The research project has fed in to my practice by showing me that working more directly within the public realm can have unexpected moments that can generate ideas that I may well have never engaged with. It also broadens the working methods and gives added depth of meaning to the finished artwork itself. As I have said, it makes the work ‘real’. It has also removed me from the isolated practice and helped me to engage with other artists and relevant organisations.