Overview. / Introducing the Platform
The FREE PLAN resource has been compiled using an ideas-led methodology. Fuelled by ideas, suggestions, tactics, strategies, plans and conversation, the resource aims to embed a fluid and relational approach to brief-writing, curriculum planning, tasks, problem-solving, raising questions and making work.
This is paralleled by an interdisciplinary thinking approach to content versus discipline-specific narratives. There are examples, tasks, case studies and contexts that clearly operate within the conventions of design, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture; however, our intention has been to use these fields to co-create an expanded field of contributions. Keeping the conversation active and current in contemporary practice often requires a threading together of influence and a linking of methodologies that are not necessarily always exclusive to the dominant discipline focus. Utilising a stance that belongs to another field can help you out in ways that are not predetermined and can also insert risk and lateral interpretations in interesting ways.
If we consider conversation as a method and a starter for making, then the first thing to work on is how to start talking; this, we suggest, means making!
FREE PLAN ePublication
FREE PLAN aims to provide a plethora of content/concepts/ contexts supported by methods/ strategies/tactics that build and expand upon visual arts and design approaches to curriculum and practice. We want to contribute actively and practically to teachers’ existing resources and programmes, and to incite interdisciplinarity through lateral, experimental and critically relevant making!
People. / The Alla Prima Group
The Alla Prima Group consists of artists, designers and educators with a common interest in creative practices and education:
Kirsty Grieve, Monique Redmond, Fiona Grieve and Kyra Clarke. Kirsty has a curriculum and research focus on photography and printmaking. Monique is an artist working in related fields of sculpture, installation, and event-based participatory and social art practices. Fiona has an interest in print and publication as a research platform and works at Threaded with Kyra Clarke who is the Design Director for FREE PLAN. All four are actively involved in the design and visual arts education sector as both practitioners and consultants: specifically, the ongoing development of curriculum, assessment, professional development and studio-based learning environments.
Fiona Grieve
Founder, Director and Writer
Fiona Grieve is Creative Director at Threaded Studio and Editor of international design magazine, Threaded. Her experience in the tertiary sector encompasses: educational management, pedagogical frameworks for design and visual arts, and studio-based practices that embed professional development and collaboration at the core of enterprise.
Threaded
Monique Redmond
Founder, Editor and Writer
Monique Redmond is an Associate Professor and Visual Arts Postgraduate Strand Leader in Art & Design at AUT University, Auckland New Zealand. Her art practice is formed primarily through collaborative and installation processes with a focus on the event as a durational space for everyday gestures of exchange, conversation and reciprocity.
Public Share/ PS
Suburban Floral Association/ SFA
Northside Civil Encounters/ NCE
Artist website
Kirsty Grieve
Project Manager and Writer
Kirsty Grieve is Head of Visual Arts and Art History at New Plymouth Girls’ High School, New Zealand. Her expertise lies within educational leadership, pedagogy and assessment to support secondary sector learners and practitioners with specialist fields in Photography, Printmaking, History of Art, and Theory.
New Plymouth Girls' High School
Kyra Clarke
Design Director
Kyra Clarke is the Founder and Design Director of Threaded. Threaded is an award-winning design studio, which was established in 2007 and is led by both Kyra Clarke and Fiona Grieve. It is a studio of two halves with a focus on client-based projects, from print, digital, branding and identity design to our ongoing international design project, Threaded magazine.
Threaded
Image Courtesy of Paul Petch
Our Community. / Writers
Mark Braunias
Writer
Mark Braunias is a part-time lecturer in the School of Media Arts at Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) in Hamilton, New Zealand. His art practice is often installation based and includes aspects of drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, animation and the applied arts. He has a vast exhibition profile spanning three decades including numerous artist in residencies in New Zealand and internationally.
Mark Braunias
Anna Miles
Writer
Anna Miles is an Auckland art dealer and part-time lecturer in Visual Arts at AUT University. She has a background as an art critic and curator and has taught at Elam School of Fine Arts, Unitec and AUT. Anna has a special interest in teaching research skills for studio-focused students. She has curated exhibitions for Artspace, Objectspace and James Wallace Arts Trust including Bespoke: The Pervasiveness of the Handmade (Objectspace, 2006), A Lace Life: The Alwynne Crowsen Collection (Objectspace, 2008) and Vanished Delft: Handmade Material Culture at the Pah Homestead (2017).
Anna Miles Gallery
Richard Fahey
Founder and Writer
Richard Fahey is a senior lecturer in Design and Visual Arts at Unitec, Auckland, where he has taught since 1992. Richard has advised the Ministry of Education and NZQA on Visual Arts content, curricula and assessment. He is a past judge of the Wallace Arts Trust Award, Waiheke Art Award and Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award.
Susan Shaw
Professional Proofreader
Susan Shaw has been working as a proofreader, with a broad range of Kiwi and international clients, for two decades; in 2004, she founded her Auckland-based company, All About Words.
Her experience spans a wide variety of published material from promotional publications and business/corporate reports to magazines, books and professional journals. She has been very pleased to be involved with Threaded magazine since 2004.
All About Words
Our Community. / Contributors
WRITERS
Abby Cunnane
Author. Saying What You See: How to talk and write about art. Gallery Director and Curator ST PAUL Street Gallery
Alison Annals
Author. Saying What You See: How to talk and write about art. Senior Tutor at The University of Waikato, New Zealand
Sam Cunnane
Author. Saying What You See: How to talk and write about art. Head of School of Media Arts - Te Kura Pāpāho,
Wintec, New Zealand
ARTISTS/GALLERIES
Ann Hamilton
Anna Crichton
BLU
Bianca Hester
Courtesy ST PAUL St Gallery, AUT, Auckland
Birgit Megerle
Courtesy Galerie Emanuel Layr
Callum Innes
Courtesy Sean Kelly, New York
Cecily Brown
Courtesy Gagosian
Claudia Jowitt
Courtesy Melanie Roger Gallery
“Coco Mademoiselle”
- Inside Chanel Chapter 5,
Coco - Inside CHANEL
Cy Twombly
Dave Muller
Courtesy Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo
Elena Kulikova
Emma Spertus
Fiona Amundsen
Gerhard Richter
Howard Hodgkin
Janet Lilo
Jessica Stockholder
John Reynolds
Courtesy Starkwhite Gallery
Jonathan Monk
Courtesy Lisson Gallery
Joseph Kosuth
Kody Chamberlain
Len Lye
Courtesy Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
Leon Golub
Make Savvy
Mandy Thomsett-Taylor
Courtesy The Vivian Gallery
Monique Jansen
Nancy Vu
Patrick Chamberlain
Paul Morrison
Courtesy MARUANI MERCIER
Peter Saul
Pia Fries
Rachel Lachowicz
Courtesy Shoshana Wayne Gallery
Richard Serra
Video published by Gagosian
Robert Gober
Robert Therrien
Courtesy Gagosian
Ross Bleckner
Courtesy MARUANI MERCIER Gallery
Saul Steinberg
Simon McIntyre
Courtesy Tim Melville Gallery
Sol LeWitt
Sophie Calle
Susan Jowsey
Courtesy Threaded magazine
Terry Winters
Chapters. / FREE PLAN
Chapter 1.0 /
NUTS AND BOLTS
How to Get a Concept.
Method, Process and Formal can be Concepts Too!
Expanding a Conversation to Develop a Question or Proposition.
How to Have a Conversation ‘About Ideas’ to Generate Ideas.
Turning Subject Matter into Ideas.
What is NOT an Idea?
What is a Good Proposition.
How to Structure a Proposition.
Chapter 2.0 /
WAYS TO BEGIN FRAMING CONTENT
Topics that Belong to the Field of Visual Arts: Design, Painting, Printmaking, Photography and Sculpture.
What Contexts Can you Draw Ideas From?
Context Example: The Everyday.
Context Example: The Political.
Context Example: The Biological.
Context Example: Art Satire.
Context Example: Art Artifice.
Context Example: Edible Materiality.
Context Example: Text as Image.
Context Example: Graphic Attitude.
Chapter 3.0 /
GENERATING MATERIAL
Using Materials to Generate Material.
Using Brainstorming Strategies to Generate Material.
Using Mapping and Collation Strategies to Generate Material.
Using Lists and Diagrams to Generate Material.
Using Categorisation and Organisation to Generate Material.
Using Metaphor and Symbols to Generate Material.
Reconfiguring Media to Generate Material.
Chapter 4.0 /
APPROACHES TO MAKING
Ways of Thinking Through Ideas Through Making.
A Conceptual Approach.
A Formal Approach.
Process as an Approach.
Strategy as an Approach.
Materiality as an Approach.
Humour as an Approach.
Chapter 5.0 /
NEGOTIATING A DIFFERENT METHODOLOGY
Considerations to Prompt Action.
Experimental Approaches.
The Backstory as Context.
Using Format to Create New Contexts.
Activating Your Imagination as a Tool.
Using Intuition as a Method.
Keeping Your Investigation Active.
Using Multiple Elements.
Chapter 6.0 /
RESEARCH THROUGH PRACTICE
Practice is Research.
Research Around Practice.
How to Locate Your Cultural Neighbourhood.
Getting to Know Your Practice.
Chapter 7.0 /
DRAWING
What is Drawing?
Traditional Drawing Media versus Unconventional Media.
Drawing in 2D and 3D Space.
Layering as a Drawing Device.
QuickFire Compositional Solutions.
The Camera as a Quick Drawing Strategy.
The Archive as a Drawing Tool.
The Inventory as a Drawing Tactic.
Chapter 8.0 /
DRAWING IN THE EXPANDED FIELD
Drawing with Colour.
Collage and Montage as Drawing Processes.
The Grid as a Drawing Structure.
Sequence as a Drawing Device.
The Interface between 2D and 3D.
Drawing on Installation.
Performative Drawing Practices.
Chapter 9.0 /
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS IN CONTEMPORARY PRACTICE
The Readymade.
Text and Image.
Text and Object.
Intuitive Practices.
Materiality.
Representation.
Scale.
Temporary Practices.
Participation and Performance.
Socially Engaged Art.
Community Art Practices.
Chapter 10.0 /
PRACTICE IS MAKING
Material Making.
Format as a Making Tool.
Surface as a Site.
Regeneration as a Game-changer.
The Role of the Maker.
Using Emerging Technologies.
Staging Interventions.
Invention and Risk-taking.
Iteration and Serial Processes.
Chapter 11.0 /
SKILLS MEET CONCEPTS
Crafting a Visual Language.
Exploiting the Technical.
Generating by Hand.
Exploiting Low-fi Technologies.
Employing Digital Conventions.
Incorporating Industrial Processes.
Chapter 12.0 /
EXPANDED PRACTICE
Extending the Platform of Enquiry.
Experimental Play.
Alternative Surfaces.
Craft Processes.
Guerilla Practices.
Devices from Other Disciplines.
Chapter 13.0 /
COLOUR
Knowing the Basics of Colour.
Dark or Light Colours.
Tertiary Colours.
Complementary Colours.
Application of Colour.
Chapter 14.0 /
CRITIQUE
Analysis and Reflection.
Strategies Moving Forward.
From Saying What You See: How to talk and write about art.
Looking Critically.
Listening Critically.
Reading Critically.
How to Write in a Visual Diary.
How to Talk Critically.
Chapter 15.0 /
DOCUMENTATION OF PRACTICE
Thinking About Composition.
Documenting Your Work in Context.
Practical Tips.
Documentation as Evidence of Process and Learning.
Documentation as a Conceptual Strategy.
Titling Work.
Chapter 16.0 /
AFFIRMATIONS
Pros and Cons.
Good Advice.
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