http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Quarry Fri, 24 May 2013 14:31:48 +0000 a-n rss generator a-n The Artists Information Company and contributors edit@a-n.co.uk technical@a-n.co.uk http://www.a-n.co.uk/img/logo.gif http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 I've had my health and safety induction, I've got my hard hat, I'm almost ready to go... I'm really excited at the prospect of the next 12 months.  My studio - the electricians workshop - is on the edge of the quarry, for obvious reasons, but next to the loading depot where the mountains of stone scalpings ebb and flow as the lorries collect and deposit. They drive close past the windows on their way to the weigh bridge.  The dust is contained through plumes of water being sprayed out and wheels driving through water troughs.  It's the size and scale of the whole process that hits you first. Tomorrow I'm going to watch my first blasting at the quarry. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 The best laid plans etc...No blasting today, it's been rescheduled for tomorrow.  So I stayed all tucked up in the studio just drawing, reading and thinking.   I'm looking forward to spending time in the quarry but as I have to be accompanied it's trying to fit it in with the active working of the quarry itself.  Until I've been out and about I feel as if I'm working in isolation. There's no connection yet.     ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 A friend emailed and said 'the quarry blast must be a terrible and beautiful experience'.   It was.  A sharp crack and then the rock fell away. The earth reverberated beneath our feet.  Dust the colour of dusk light, peachy and rumbling.  An awesome experience when energy releases over 40,000 tons of rock.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Last week was full of research and meetings. Some useful some not.  I still have hopes of an exhibition to mark the end of the residency and talks with a curator look positive.  I like the idea of inviting other artists to respond to the quarry landscape.  All these dreams and ambitions and in the midst ideas start creeping in for new work.  How do you reveal your thought process whilst you're still trying to come to terms with how and why you are creating work?  Any thoughts?  Also is anybody else working in a heavy industry field or has done?... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 I have to admit that I've not been at the quarry apart from to meet the team who work there.  I find these meet and greet things daunting.  One thing that struck me though was that I was some how more accepted or understood because I'm a sculptor rather than a painter.  Maybe it's because I work with my hands.  When I was studying, my grandfather, asked me when I was going to get a proper job.  If you didn't work with your hands, you weren't a worker and by default lazy.  One of the team also wanted to make sure I wasn't doing work just for myself. At the moment, I'm not doing any work - there's no water at the studio yet.  Trying to be polite about not getting in the way of the quarry's work BUT I need to get in and start working with my hands!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 This is the water container from the quarry for the studio...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 I am in France at the moment so away from my quarry. However, where I am staying has its own quarry!  A little down the hill a small hamlet was built to house the quarry workers. Now, disused, the quarry has become a lake. I couldn't resist climbing over to see what lay behind the corrugated gates....... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Thank you Nicola Naismith for the Edward Burtynsky link. I clicked on to see the video you spoke of and found a whole world of, as Burtynsky says, 'places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.'  This dichotomy is what draws me to make work and why I am drawn to a quarry residency.  As Susan Francis has also just commented about wallpapering over rough walls - there is a direct relation between what lies beneath the surface and the veneer we see.   Please check out the Burtynsky website, to see the scale he evokes in his work.   http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 First time back in the studio since getting back from France.  It's good to get back and touch base, all the insecurities you feel as an artist come to the surface if your not working (I'm following all the blogs dealing with issues of identity with real interest). It's a brief time here though as I'm off to Liverpool tomorrow for a few days, calling at Glasplies in Southport to get some latex for a new experiment (though the rubber matting I asked for hasn't appeared).  I do feel that to the quarrymen I'm either something that is an irritant or I terrify the life out of them because I'm a woman.  There is a work in this...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 A good meeting this morning with a Tarmac man.  It is starting to turn towards autumn and I couldn't figure out how to put the heating on in the studio, so the meeting was held with coats still on!! However, everything was positive, little irritations will be ironed out and the bigger ideas such as legacy pieces and exhibitions were agreed in principle.  A further meeting at the end of October to take things forward and the project gains strength. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 A quick call out: A mixed show of contemporary art work from 20 Powys artist.  The Andrew Lamont Gallery Theatr Brycheiniog Canol Wharf Brecon LD3 7DS 10th September - 3rd October 2010 I will be showing three of my residue works.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Admittedly this has almost nothing to do with my residency which has had to be put on a back-burner whilst we lime hemp plaster our living room in a very drafty stone house.  We are against the clock as we can't heat it until the plaster is dry - takes between a week and a month.... But in an attempt to carry on working, I've been putting together a new website in the evenings. My old one had never been right and I've never been able to update it although I had put that as request number one!  The new one isn't great but I can change and update when I want.   So any thoughts please let me know...   www.justinecook.co.uk... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Someone said to me yesterday: "Every time I see a dead crow now I think of you..." I'll see that as a compliment then.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 A series of blastings and filming them.  Not all good 'blasts', not all worth filming but somewhere in the middle... The quarry manager calls them 'shot blasts'. Stood waiting for a blast, the siren blaring, I ask what the holes surrounding us are. 'They're the shot blast holes' - at this point I realise I can't see where everyone else is and for a tiny moment I panic - the walkie talkie crackles - 'yes, ready to blast'.  We watch the side of an artificial cliff opposite collapse. They are next Monday's holes ready for profiling.  The mounds remind me of pale eastern spices or salt.  Next Monday they will be gone and I will have filmed it.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 After posting I went on to read Jane Boyer's latest entry and indirectly she made me remember an incident this week.  At a meeting with my arts officer, she kept refering to my work as 'conceptual'.  Do you know, I work so much in isolation that it hadn't really occurred to me as being that obvious. She also refered to how I translate work and present it in a different way - that much I'd realised.  My Brechtian belief in alienation wasn't for nothing...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Process The way in which we create work has come into focus for me at the moment.  Because I am in the 'spotlight' so to speak by my hosts, I feel that I should have work to show them. They have nothing tangible to see for this collaboration so far.  So it has made me think about how I create work.  I find that a huge amount of preparation goes on, especially in my head.  Then comes the gathering stage, where all the components are created.  Then and only then does it start to come together.  Usually in the last few days or even hours.  I think a theatre background is the reason why.  All elements only coming together for the performance, the installation. Creating a blog is also hard as part of the creation process is to remain invisible, maybe so as to not spoil the illusion when it appears!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Water and a sink - the studio can function...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 It seems appropriate to post about explosions on bonfire night.   As part of my exploration of how the stones in the quarry fracture, I've created a small work of fractured stones held together by the shot blast wire.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 I'm finding photographs as well as film are becoming important.  I'm using them more and more to make connections, or just to ask questions.  The boulder just outside the studio window is intriguing me.  Why is it there? Why hasn't it been crushed?  It looks defiant. It looks so small. It echos Nash's wooden boulder - what's it's journey?   I hope it's still there everytime I go into the studio.    ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Nobody told me they were blasting yesterday, they forgot.  To see a blast firing in the snow... So today I climbed up the hill and over the security fence to photograph the quarry in the snow.  A landscape devoid of scale, hills looking like mountains.  The only colour was the yellow of the diggers and the blast shelter. The character of the quarry has changed since they started on the new phase.  Before we had shelves mimicking an amphitheatre, now it's a mountain range of promontories and landslides, all very ordered but primitive, earthy.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240   On Sunday I was allowed into the quarry on my own for the first time.  It was a gloriously sunny day with crisp white snow underfoot. Magical.  I got to wander around and just look and think for an hour and a half. The stillness was only broken by stones running off and bird calls.  I found tracks of animals scaling quite high mounds of stones. The landscape had a sense of otherness.  A world apart. I got to do want I'd wanted to do from the beginning.  I walked into and stood in the heart of the hill. Figures appeared out of the rocks like carvings on Chartres Cathedral; opened up by quarrying, stone was seeing light for the first time.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 The day after my last post I was taken ill with pneumonia and hospitalised.  I thought only old or compromised people got pneumonia not fit healthy people!  Anyway, it's taken a while to get back on top of things and all I've managed this month is a couple of meetings. I've no more funding for the project but I'm still commited to it. Sound familiar? I'm still really excited about the project and trying to convince Tarmac that letting other artists experience this environment would be amazing. I walked along the footpath by my studio yesterday and found a crow's skull - crow's are sort of a motif for the project.  The only carving I created so far is of a crow's head. I'm looking forward to getting back into the studio.  I'm now allowed back into dusty places (with masks), so onwards and upwards....... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Equinox Yesterday was the first day of Spring.   I have placed two stone pieces outside my studio in full sun.  My intention is to leave them there from the Spring Equinox to the Autumn Equinox and trace the daylight by the shadow it creates on the stones over that period. The quarry residency work is becoming more about light and the passage of time.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 Too long away...... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240 OPEN STUDIO 'Letting the Light in...' Justine Cook has been artist in residence at Gore Quarry over the last 12 months. It is possibly the first residency of it's kind and Justine will be opening her studio as it comes to an end.   She will be showing studio works, experiments, comments and thoughts on her response to the working quarry.   By opening her studio Justine will share her reactions to the harsh environment, her understanding of the process and her exploration of 'letting the light in'.  She is now working on a film which will form the culmination of her residency.She will be creating an online exhibition of the work created during the residency in the near future. The project has been supported by Tarmac and Arts Council Wales. The studio will be open everyday 11am-5pm, 10th-18th September as part of H-art.  Look for the pink signs just off the A44. Hope to see you there!... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/649240