ponder: Glasgow Guild & research

On the way to the art school, I occasionally pass this little gem - Glasgow Guild. Its style is reminiscent of the renowned Mackintosh(y) vibe and is a real surprise when you're walking down this random street of mainly rundown housing and art school 70s buildings. It almost glows! 

(stop)

Im still running with the threads of algae - oil - plastic with my research foundation but have recently found that having a 'working title' which sound rather fancy, is quite different from what it is you are actually going to research. A painful process if there ever was one. What is problematic with my areas is what my entry point is for the research as each of the areas are huge and cover vast time spans.....what exactly am I researching? and in a way  what is the 'problem' in a broader sense to be resolved. 

You look around and see other peoples research and think, wow thats so clear and confined - 'why can't mine be like that'! But as a consolation perhaps bringing some 'eclectic madness' to my research has to enable some pain in the process. Something i read today which I found useful in this light: 

"serious research leads one to unite what is ordinarily separated or to distinguish what is ordinarily confused" (i) 

Perhaps another way to look at the threads is the 'words themselves' and going beyond what they actually represent (green stuff in the sea - black stuff extracted from the earth - synthetic material reshaped) and what other tangible or abstract notions they represent which I am interested in - materiality; transformation; ecology; cycle; etc etc as perhaps the answers lie there rather than in the objects of algae/oil/plastic themselves.

So what does this have to do with the Glasgow Guild? Asides 'me', who knows?! But the place caught my eye and recently I did go and see this wonderful show at the William Morris gallery - the arts/crafts movement and Guilds; making; production' traditional crafts are particular interests of mine and I was considering how this could intertwine with the A\O\P routine partly because of the 'tradition' and the old. And the reconsideration of this. But then, I can't forget the 'new'....the digital aesthetic/media///////plastic//////electronic. 

(i) - Sociology, Object, Method by Paul Fauconnet & Marcel Mauss (1901)