I submitted

2 items to the CIACLA online program.

Pack, unpack and Suck/Blow

I did not get an email acknowledgment of submitting. Let’s wait and see. It’s unpaid but I can’t really talk as I am asking people to collaborate with me on my drawing project. This is the info that I am sending out to people:

Digital Graffitti- a collaborative drawing project by Rachel Macmanus

I am asking you to please collaborate on a project with me. I’m producing a digital graffiti project based on the body, my own specifically. 

Please find attached an image of me.  I am asking that you digitally draw/make marks on it. A digital interaction.

How to: You can just screenshot the image on your phone or computer screen, and then draw on the screenshot. Or if you want to print the image out and draw on it etc, then photograph the result and send it to me. Or use a drawing package on your laptop. Whatever you want to do, I would not want you to spend too much time at it- ideally you would make a quite quick response to the image, and just send it back before thinking about it too much.

You can send it back via any platform you like- my email is rackmack@gmail.com or you can use facebook/whatsapp/Instagram messaging services if you are linked to me through social media.

I am collecting different responses to the image that people are sending. Like online graffiti made by a variety of people.

Concept: When developing the project I was inspired by a mural I saw of a family, here on a wall in the town I live in. Someone had come along and drawn beards onto all the painted figures in the mural -and I liked it so much more with the added beards!

Using a body as the subject to draw on/around/over sets out a trajectory from the start. The body has so many social and cultural connotations.

The photo provided is untouched and of me now at 45 years of age. I am using my body as I use it in all my work, it is a tool that has served me well. I am interested in how it, as the body of a 45 year old female, no longer young but not yet old, might be responded to. I have a working relationship with my body- I feel very differently towards it than I did 20 years ago. Also bodies can be held sacred and also be reviled. It’s important to add that if you feel offended or unhappy by being asked to contribute to this project then of course please do not hesitate to tell me.

How to use the image: You can draw whatever you want onto the image. You can be serious, silly, political, and you can write on it, doodle, collage it, whatever. I am hoping you might send me a couple of lines of your thoughts on the process too if you don’t mind. Your thoughts are very important to me.

Long term I hope to collect a lot of these responses and display the collective imagery in some form. 

I am thanking you in advance for the time you give to the project. I cannot afford to pay you for your time but everyone who contributes to the project (and who wishes to be) will be acknowledged.

here are what I’ve done messing around so far

all very sedate and sophisticated :)

here are some Paula did for me:

I am so liking these as exactly what Id hoped has happened has- my mate Paula is oozing from these stylistically. and interestingly the gallery has shown the one I like best as the largest.

Ive asked around 10 people to collaborate so far. I am going to ask more. Fuck it! They can only say no. In other news the arts council have another funding stream coming. Stephanie was telling me. 3rd time lucky? I don’t know if I have the motivation to make that laborious application again which takes so much time. Didn’t I say last time that my time would be better spent working on self initiated funding streams like patreon or portraiture/drawing projects? Ive been rejected twice this year- the definition of stupidity is continuing to do the same thing over and over again without success. I could ask for help on the application but its the spinning you have to do about these socially orientated projects you are proposing that you will make that are going to impact your community in a positive way bull that I have the issue with. Im shit at this. I will think about it. Closing date is 30th July so I will see. I would need to read over my old ones and find out what ‘track record’ means……

one other thing Ive been doing is a pastel version of the insta heads- heres where I’m at- its very relaxing and a nice distraction from reality- its also challenging to get a likeness with pastels which have no capacity for fine lines which I’m used to- so I am finding myself blocking in shapes and colours- I think it might be good training for actual painting which I really want to try