Saturday, June 19, 2021

Seeing things differently

 


On the front page of Rachael Hulme's website she calls herself  "an artist, art educator, and learning experience designer." Despite the welcome presence of the Oxford comma, this may come off as wordy obfuscation and have you expecting something drab and awful.

Pleasant surprise, then, that her work actually turns out to be a lot of fun, especially in her Constructivism project. I don't know the exact age of the pupils she's taught art to, but she's able to bring a childlike perspective to her work. And perhaps hand-in-hand with that is a recognition of untapped possibilities within familiar objects. The potential of a beginner's mind.

2 comments:

susan said...

She definitely has a very unique way of looking at her world through the camera lens and I can understand you using the term 'beginner's mind' in experiencing her vision. I've looked at most of the images posted to her web page and among the archived ones that are the easiest to enlarge (instagram would only allow me to open a few).

Some are amusing like the flamingoes in the bathroom. Some are mysterious like the telescope focused on light dots on a wall rather than out the window. Others are both mysterious and beautiful like the yellow telephone you've posted here and the magnifying glass balanced on the wet pebbles.

I wonder how did she get those matchsticks to stay on the open phone book?

Ben said...

The "beginner's mind" phrase only occurred to me when I was starting the blog post, but it still feels right. She has fun with the "this can be that" aspect of her subjects. Yeah, the more recent stuff all seems to be on Instagram. Maybe that's to save bandwidth.

The recent photo of a cow, moon, and balloon all arranged in front of another phone is very nice too. I have to assume it's a nursery rhyme reference. Also a cotton ball levitating in the moonlight while other cotton balls watch. That's one to grow on.

It would be interesting to see her process and find out about things like that matchsticks. But maybe she doesn't want to give that away.