Sophie Ashdown

For my end of year show, I am intending to make multiple different pieces that form a cohesive collection that has a recurring theme and artistic elements.

For one of these pieces, I am making nine different small square canvases representing specific things that are relevant to the overall intention for the show.

For these, I am using words as data, and am using a similar method to this piece that I created last year:

This was an A3 size piece made for a local show in Chiswick because I knew that local people would be attending. Sure enough, it sold on the first night and I wished I had made more! I hadn’t really realised at the time that I had actually made a piece of data art, if you imagine that the descriptive words are all elements of data about Chiswick.

So for the first trial run for the EOY pieces, I’ve chosen a piece that is all about the word “coffee.”

I looked online to try and find as many words as I could that are related to coffee, and used a free software tool to arrange the words in a spiral.

I tried to write the words clearly in a spiral on the canvas while it was still on the frame but this did not go well! I struggled to write clearly and cleanly directly onto the frame, so I removed the canvas from the frame and it worked much better the second time. I was able to turn the canvas as I wrote and keep to the lines I had measured out.

There are a few areas of the writing that are thicker or thinner than others so I am trying a different pen for the next one.

Here is this one back on the canvas frame:

This was a useful exercise and I have a better idea now for how I will create the nine small canvases that will go together to make one of my pieces for the end of year show. There is a lot to do!!