Louise Fraser - Questions & Answers
Click on each question below to view Louise's response.
1. Have you worked with museum objects before? more »Not specifically, however in my art practice drawing is a large part of my process and I tend to draw whatever interests me, so on occasions these might be museum objects or buildings.
2. How did you go about choosing the objects to work with? more »My first initial attraction in the gallery was to the space itself, to the strange interconnections and separations that were there. The idea of connection is one that I felt was important to my work in Kirkcaldy. With this thought in the
background I looked to select objects to work with for the duration of the project. Choosing an object was difficult because of the size of the Kirkcaldy collection, so I went on gut instinct and fascination. Once I had selected objects I started to draw them. Through this process I began really seeing what was interesting me. This turned out to be a carved coal chair, an object that became the pivotal point of the whole work.
3. What attracted you to the objects you chose? more »I think it was the oddity of the object that attracted me first, and then the connection back to Kirkcaldy using a material that had links to past industry. Through the process of drawing and redrawing this object I came to realise that it was the surface of the chair that attracted me to it, being unmarked. Seats generally collect a history of use, through wear from being sat on, the marks of an owner. This object seemed to lack such a history.
4. How did you research the objects further? more »I did Internet research and contacted the Scottish Mining Museum but there was not a huge amount of information to be found and I became more interested in the object as an entity.
5. Did you think about who originally made/used the object? more »I did think about who the object was originally made by, but after much searching came to a dead end. I knew where the object had originated from but it was its context in the gallery / museum that was important to me.
6. How did you decide what to make? more »I took the coal chair as my starting point and from there explored chairs that I found throughout the building and documented them by drawing. The idea of taking something from all parts of the gallery became an important concept. I wanted to take elements from the art gallery (the picture frames), museum (the coal chair) and the building (collections of chairs) so reconnecting the spaces.
7. How did you make it? more »There are a few elements to the work each having their own process:
The drawings I started on a basic cartridge paper, then tried lots of different types of paper but came back to basic cartridge paper in pure white. With each drawing I tend to use about 6 or more different graphite pencils.
The frames were created through a process of casting, then painted using German bone black linseed pigment paste, finally a special wax varnish to give them a sheen reflecting the coal used for the carved chair. As with the drawing, I explored different pigments and varnishes to achieve the effect.
8. What do you plan / want to do next? more »This has been a great project and really helped me focus and understand the way that I work, research and process space, then turn that into art. I will be interested to see how this experience filters through into my other works. The mentoring scheme has been interesting and reaffirmed my belief that education work is an important element of my practice, giving me new insight into art and inspiration.
