CoP3 Group Tutorial

Today's group tutorial was interesting and I got some really helpful feedback from it. Turns out Fred is an expert on my topic, and he summed the whole general question up in about 3 minutes flat. It was great.
I've got a lot of broad research now, although it was suggested that I look into the following:

- Patriarchy v matriarchal social structures.
- The way in which Christianity / monotheism shaped the concept of witches in order to influence a move away from matriarchal polytheistic social structures.
- The reappropriation of certain deities, or aspects of the images of certain deities, in a negative light in order to support the transition toward monotheism. E.g. Pan - Greek religion / mythology - God of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds etc. He has the legs and hind of a goat, which was later taken by Christianity and used in the depiction of Satan.

(Margaret Murray's name cropping up again)

My main issue was that my investigation so far is purely historical. I need a contemporary counterpart to the work in order to balance and draw comparisons.
- The depiction of the witch: folklore
- Depiction of witches, demons, the devil etc in contemporary television / films
Considering the images of witches in programmes like charmed, to the more current tv like American Horror Story: Coven. The image has moved away from the idea of an old hag to more attractive younger subjects.

The point of the practical side of my investigation is to experience more of printmaking and develop my skills in a way that I feel is relevant to the subject matter that I'm looking at. I'd talked about exploring other processes but today it was suggested that I could even just stick with lino cutting and aim to become really bloody good at it, trying to identify new techniques within that practice in order to make some really technically sound prints.

I spoke to Mike in the print room who suggested that instead of immediately jumping into etching, I start with dry point. This uses a plastic plate instead of metal and misses out the steps involving acid etc. That way I can get a feel for the methods and see the aesthetic of the outcomes without having to commit to a more complicated process just yet. He reckoned I could see how I go, then decide if I want to go on to test metal etching out.

The practical side will form my primary research - Talking to printmakers / learning through making / experiencing.

I'm feeling positive about CoP and am going to try to research more of these points, plus get some practical research started properly for the next tutorial I have.