ASU2. SNU. Judas & Jesus. You'll note that i've introduced the label/tag "Social Contract" this is one of the connecting points between my two projects but not just my two projects. The social contract is what binds society together, it is laws, it is government but it is deeper than the law or government of any country or institution. It is basic tenets of grace and respect that are seated within the body, a union of body, mind and heart, that commands the government of an individual within society. A society that might be any institution made up of more than one living being, from a brief encounter to a global civilisation. There is a lot to go into here and i'm not sure where to begin. 
Here at this moment in time humanity as a species stands at a crossroad Covid19 is running the show. The relationship between us as a species and the virus is that the virus has the upper hand and its a bit of a shock. What is happening to us as result of becoming subject to this virus is that we are meeting ourselves with all our clothes off. It is not comfortable our rights and wrongs are being exposed, that which is good and that which is bad about who we are as individuals, and within small groups and culture too is being revealed by our impotence.  
The element of being stripped naked is part of the stations of the cross, Jesus at the foot of the cross station 10 "Jesus is stripped of his clothes", and so it could be said that we as a species are there with him at the moment, but i am skipping ahead of myself because the work i am giving you now is related to Jesus' last night. 
Jesus went with his disciples to the Gardens of Gethsemane. He and three of his disciples/followers went to the Mount of Olives to pray. The followers fell asleep. Judas came and planted a kiss on Jesus' cheek. The guards took him. Simon Peter cut the guard's ear off. Jesus chastised him. But also he chastised those he had taken with him to pray for sleeping. Maybe they were tired but he in that moment raged that had failed to keep him company on his last night of freedom, his last night alive. In the morning he was taken before Pontius Pilate and sentenced to death by crucifixion. 
I am in a muddle here with how i take this blog/journal forward because my work here was a criss crossing of  thought streams but it may be that this thing, the social contract, is the hub of it. Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss thereby breaking the contract. But Jesus had publicly admonished him when he took issue with Mary washing Jesus' feet. To publicly humiliate another is to break the contract. The disciples had fallen asleep and so broken the terms that Jesus had thought they were under. But also maybe Jesus had asked of them something they were unable to do also breaking contract. And so on and so on. Because this is the thing and it is why the social contract runs deeper than state laws or government. It is about common decency but each person's life and their fore-fathers/mothers lives creates the essence of that contract and its about survival, physical, social and emotional survival. The social contract asks that we step into someone else's shoes and respond with understanding and compassion and that they do the same for us.
I say that it is the hub of my projects but its also the hub of the universe, the contract we make with our surroundings, not just human intercourse but our intercourse with the world we live in. In the UEA/NUA collaborative project we looked at those who were homeless and how those who were not homeless related to homeless people. When questioned few gave money and most of those who did were in "low skilled" jobs and had lower levels of education. The sentiment expressed was that the government ought to be helping. There was discomfort with seeing the homeless which made people turn away. We know when we witness suffering that we should help, but are stopped, often by fear, sometimes by revulsion, sometimes by denial, a refusal to see. To help us to not see we make that which we don't want to see other, not us. To ask what is home allows us to meet the absence of home in ourselves. To ask what is love allows us to meet the unloved. To feel homeless or unloved with the other helps us to understand and feel compassion and thereby meet the others needs as well as we meet our own.
At this time i was also applying for various exhibitions, the Raveningham Sculpture Trail, The Bishop's Prize, an MA student-curator's exhibition called Self Love (more on that later) as well as finishing a postcard for the charity auction at Mandell's Gallery. I'm not sure why i mention this now except maybe because it was yet more divergent paths i was treading. When writing a proposal for a piece of work for an exhibition I have to take myself some part of the way down the road of making it in order to know it is possible, to be made it needs to be conceived and given time and body space to grow. Art does not appear out of thin air, click it is made, there is a process behind it. The curator writing to accept or reject an artist's proposal is respecting that process and the work being offered. It makes it worth the time and effort it takes to make the work. The formal acceptance is part of the exhibition framework for me, it feels right, makes me feel valued and supported as an artist. 

ASU2. I was making these prints of Jon and Southwold and thinking about how to work with the seagull images but as I was due for a tutorial with my Fine Art tutor i figured i needed to give some time and attention to that module. Remember i've got two story threads going. ASU2 is about Jesus, the stations of the cross and his life leading up to that. 
My brain is on fire trying to carry and work with these two pretty intense emotional journeys. For ASU2 I am thinking about the last supper. Looking at Leonardo Da Vinci's last supper, thinking about last suppers, thinking about Judas, thinking about the garden of gethsemane, thinking about jesus at the temple, just before his crucifixion and jesus at the temple as a young boy, thinking about all the people who have relationships with jesus, his disciples, his mother mary and mary magdalen, also his father, thinking about the politics of his time, thinking of politics now, thinking about Corbyn & Tom Watson, about betrayal and denial, the cock crowing three times. Thinking about how the life of one may impact on another. This links to my SNU story thread but the link is a filament thread, a thought thread. I am also looking at Michelangelo's Pieta in Rome and Bill Viola's Pieta video. 
As well as this a collaborative project that was begun last term needs attention. This project is with four young business students from the UEA we need to put together a presentation for St Martin's Housing Trust in about four weeks. No work has been done since we were initially introduced by our universities, NUA & UEA last autumn. I had not realised i was signing up for a collaborative project when i went to the first meeting which was described as an opportunity to learn about branding and story telling. Story telling is one of the things i want to learn. That is an aside. In fact the theme of the project feeds into the ASU2 theme in some ways. We are looking at homelessness and how the homeless are witnessed by society. 
Work made for the first tutorial is just ideas, the christmas sketchbook which i don't think i showed, and also some working thoughts in my Playbook of Jesus in the garden of gethsemane and also the last supper, the empty table after the party has left to go to the garden. I think that Mary Magdalen is there unseen, left behind while the men go off. I think of all the people thinking their separate thoughts no one quite knowing what the others are thinking. I think about Judas and his thirty pieces of silver and Cornelia Parker's piece with that name. I think about him hanging himself. The betrayed and the betrayer both damned to hard deaths. Who is the victim in the story ? I am looking at all the points of view. My mind is a little fried. 
I am also thinking about the colour palette i want to use for my stations project and how the pencils, paints and inks i want to use act on the paper in the book i was thinking to work in. The colour palette i'm thinking of is not the brights in my Playbook but more sombre, darks with blues and reds and maybe golds i am thinking about medieval paintings and also the italian masters, of paints made from gem stones, burned and raw earth, lamp black and real gold.  

Bibliography
Goldscheider, L. (1950) Michaelangelo Sculptures Complete Edition. 2nd edition. London: Phaeton Press.
Parker, C (2000) Cornelia Parker Catalogue for exhibition. 2nd edition. Boston: ICA.
Walsh, J. (ed) (2003) Bill Viola:The Passions. Los Angeles, California: Getty Publications.