Tutorial with Jonathan Monday 28th April 2025

This is a reflection after the tutorial I had with Jonathan.

I dint take nots but Jonathn kindly shared his nootes with me wich I will add here

2025-04-28

obsessed with etching at the moment 

5 plates finished 

might make a book 

aiming for 10 plates 

— back to Thames

hosting film on b/w 

— can’t see colour any more after etching so much 

— paper dipped into Thames as well

poss print on huge 10m long photo

- quote: ‘but I felt I'm doing something naughty and that felt great. I felt like playing, and it felt natural and fun.’

end of this post - https://siladan010.wixsite.com/siladancsm/post/another-etched-print

- Paul Dewis - loved this one: https://siladan010.wixsite.com/siladancsm/post/etching-plate-5

given up control now 

DON’T know why I am making these 

but comfortable with the unknown now

- lot’s of different elements 

drawings 

lead to etchings

know this will go back to photography (maybe too soon?)

— but there is a connection - creating with chemicals 

- underneath — this is fun and playful - not following rules

this goes in etching, screen printing, photography etc

theme connections - might emerge later

— current phased return to work 

3 days a week 

Mon & Fri - next 3 weeks — do some etching 

- maybe I’m learning to let go??

focus on the etchings - you could do a show in this week with these if you had to

keep the 10m roll for a future project

Over the past few weeks, things have felt intense and a bit chaotic, and I've been trying to keep everything going work is putting lots of pressure on me.

Im straugling with anxietiy and low mood. I have ongoing therapy to help with that. It helps. I was also givem by my theraist anotheor 4 weeks of 3 days work week as part opf my phased return. The HR agreed that I can use this time to make progress with my MA as I found that working with art making is therapeutic.

I am mostly stressed about the final degree show and the UNIT 3 submission. I realise now that using the Wix platform for my blog was not the best decision. It is clunky and hard to manage image size, and that leads to running out of space quickly., especially when using my mobile phone, which leads to not keeping track as I go of my owkr for the MA course. Discussing this with Jonathan, I realised that he was right at the beginning of the course when he advised tagging keywords for the posts. I was advised it would be beneficial for me to go through all old posts and add the tags and keywords as I will be understanding better my progress and journey.

One of the major things that's come up in our tutorial is my obsession for etching. I've finished five plates, one of which is even editioned, and I'm aiming for a minimum of ten, but nut time is getting tight. There's something incredibly liberating about this process. It reminds me a lot of darkroom photography but a higher level of unpredictability, the layering, the element of chance – wich is part of my practice. I paint with acid on the zink plate the way I might dodge and burn with light in the darkroom. Both spaces, the printing studio and the darkroom, are intuitive and absorbing. I could spend hours or even days detached from anything else while in there.

Using the print studio at CSM is great. The space, the way is natural;y lit, Paul, the students, all the presses, the ink, the cleaning products, the tables. The mood. Its brilliant. Inspiring. Calming. But it will come to an end soon, and this is de[resing. So I was telling JOntah that I've been in touch with someone selling an etching press second-hand. It's affordable and large enough with a bed of 61x122cm, but is very heavy and far away. I'm trying to work out logistics as after the tutorial I made the purchase. I feel strongly that I need my own setup because studio access is difficult where I live. The idea is to work independently and, when possible, connect with other studios to learn more it will be the plan for going forward. I hope to be accepted on some residencies too.

Alongside etching, I've returned to photographing the Thames something I started before the course but have come back to now with a different aproch. I used the 5x4 Ebony camera I have using black-and-white film. Slow exposures photographig the stones emerging as the tide goes out. Im inspired by Jogn Blackmore techniques. As I reverse engineered hos work I bleive he used long expuuse divided in short expusres. On Sunday I found this stine surrounding by this big heavy change that was emerging as the tide was going down. There's something symbolic about this chains for me. I rember speaking woth Jonatan in one of our first tutorial we spoke about this in an earlier tutorial. It might be nothing, lets see when I process the film. I've been photographing slowly and intentionally, trying to capture that sense of emergence and transformation. I hope to translate some of these images into photo-etchings.

What's interesting is how the different media I've been working with photography, etching, charcoal drawing book making are starting to bleed into each other. My charcoal drawings, f, ar used as foundation to the etching plates. It's not that I planned it it just evolved naturally. Even my brief experiment with screen printing helped push this forward, though I didn't connect as strongly with that medium (especially since it's often about colour, which I'm not interested in at the moment).

My take from the tutorial is that I'm learning to allow myself to let go of control, of fixed meanings, of needing to know the "why" behind everything. I now think is more important to question "What?" and not "Why?" What is that links my work rogeter? What is that make me obssed with making these etchings? What is that drives my obsessive behavior?

This has been echoed in my therapy as well. I'm not worried anymore about not having a clear explanation for what I'm making. I'm working through instinct, play, and emotion, and there's value in that. I'm finding freedom in the process. I need to embed that so it dopent get lost.

There is still pressure, of course the degree show is nearly here, the 5 minutes videso, the final couration of the blog.

I'm trying to resist the urge to over-resolve things for the sake of the show. Jonathan reminded me that five strong etchings could be more than enough. What matters is that they reflect my development, how I've grown and change through this course its what maters to my future me and not neceraly what and how I show work for the final degree show. I need to accept that it's not about one perfect outcome but about showing the work's evolution.

We also discussed the upcoming assessment video. I was worried what I will show, but it's actually just about me telling my story in my voice, my process, my journey. A key work in Jonathan notes is "telling yourself the story of your time ". I need to learn to do that. To tell my self. That will be hardest thing I believ as we are so used to tell others.

Reflecting back, Im looking to see the links that connect my work made on the Thames, my chemigrams book, my grandphaders acrived photos, my etching, and my growing confonmrt of the fact that not-knowing is. I hope is not not a closed circle or loop but I want to belive is an pwards spiral. I'm revisiting the river Thames, but from a different perspective. I hope to find the meaning.