ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [2 May 2011]

We're planning to use this blog as a catalyst for defining our collaborative relationships as artists both using drawing as a working medium, as well as a process to realise and experiment with ideas.

# 2 [11 May 2011]

A little nibble of text from a proposal we're putting together...

THIS IS MEDITATIVE: DRAWING AS A FORUM FOR COLLABORATIVE EXCHANGE

"Two artists can often have a conversation about their work, but working together rarely happens without building a collaborative relationship first. Artists can now give one another video links, profile pages or websites for reference, read statements, CVs or follow a slide show of portfolio images. But is this an actual artistic relationship, a representation of one, or just a by-product of new technologies and how they are re-forming the context of artistic reproduction? Both artists use the medium of drawing as a process to initiate and drive ideas in their work, and it is with this where they began to explore the above question."

(See image to right) Ross: I attended a seminar at Aberdeen University with Prof Tim Ingold. He spoke of his research into line theory. very interesting. Here is a piece he wrote in defense of hand writing. http://www.dur.ac.uk/writingacrossboundaries/writingonwriting/timingold/

# 3 [11 May 2011]

I cleared my space today and looked out my paper. I've been collecting it for a while now. Piece by piece. Some I've had for years and just never used, some I've found in skips and abandoned houses and some i've taken from the backs of books where the bind has left the pages blank. The latter makes my 2nd hand book browsing twice as fun but I like them all. My collection continues to grow. 

So how will I use these? For now I will lay them out on my drawing board and think.

I've been working with diamonds haven't I?

# 4 [12 May 2011]

These are drawings in the form of lozenges stuck to the wall with small circular dark blue round sticky labels. The drawings depict partnerships, people acting out and collaborating in some sort of way, making use of interiors, house plants - certain aspects are deliberately sculptural as well as performative.  

The drawings themselves are here displayed as reliefs, tearing away from the normalised structure of the frame and instead developing and referencing sculptural installation. 

Together with an installation shot of Ross's work showing drawings diaplyed in the lozenge format. And also an idea/sketch for possible installtion realised from the original drawings... ideas for exhibition begin to formulate themselves....

# 5 [16 May 2011]

Richard:

Experimenting more today as putting together images for upcoming submission. collating images for proposals and stripping relevancies down to five or so 'representations' of your work, is an interesting process! Found some good corrollations between images I might never have before realised.

For example, a few times complex drawings end up consolidating previous pieces of film work and performance work. The first image in this post explores collaborative (as well as dominant and submissive) relationships, one character seemingly in charge of another: the 'other' with its face hidden. This reflection on character is then also explored directly through film and projection in 'Ubiquitous action'. This character also being the artist and the documenter too.
 

Continuing also with lozenge idea, diamond presentation of drawings out side of frames: letting the related objects / set-ups frame the idea instead of physical frame itself.

# 6 [16 May 2011]

Ross:

Watching Richard collating his images for proposal has given me food for thought. Although we are not strictly working collaboratively, we have a need to learn from each others work. We must adjust to accommodate. Not only does this force us to consider our practice it also keeps us on our toes. I know that I must keep producing work for Richard to see. I must maintain a standard.

We haven't yet confirmed an exhibition, yet the simple act of sharing our practice spurs us into creating. A pattern begins to emerge through this practice. The diamonds keep appearing. As you can see from the images on the right I started with a triangle. Then it became diamonds. Next it will grow further and larger. This is of course just one piece of work, but how it will affect not only my own future output but Richard's as well is what I find exciting! Why diamonds? I'm not sure but we are both looking for that answer.

# 7 [18 May 2011]

Ross:

Each image I upload on this blog is a clue to my progress for Richard, and vice versa. We occasionally talk online but this blog is fast becoming our normal mode of communication. 

I've began to let my diamonds expand and the drawing is beginning to take shape. As I look at the images that are accumulating on here, I've (we've) noticed that the majority of photos are taken in our homes. Images of lamps, towels, post it notes with shopping lists and all the miscellaneous items beside our work are also being past between us. 

Is this something to consider when we come to instal? We are still forming ideas, but how we see each others work at this moment will influence how we see our work when we come to exhibit. 

So it seems a curatorial model is beginning to set.

# 8 [18 May 2011]

This is now a direct and immediate response to what Ross has just written below:

HOW PARAPHERNALIA APPEARS IN DRAWINGS TOO.

A drawing, started last night, has been completed today. It now takes first look on my website for current visual projects. It is a pencil drawing of a man (possibly the artist, in fact me) balancing a plinth on its side - shaped like a lozenge - in his right hand and holding a rod like stick in his left hand. On his head he wears a hat made from a fan found in a Christmas cracker. 

This Christmas cracker was pulled at the same party, no less the same table, which Ross too attended at the end of last year. So you would even say that our curatorial model began to set itself even then. And our artistic relationship is in fact interrelated.

The man looks to his right to the other side of the room. There, on another plinth properly set on the ground, is a fish bowl containting a round shape. This round shape being an object that now sits on my book shelf, in my bedroom, on the southern side of the Meadows in Edinburgh. Behind the plinth held by the man, is a plant. This plant is taken from a wedding invitation sent to me by my causin who lives in London, and who works for Loreal as a hospitality manager. He is marrying a women in the canari islands later this year.

In the centre of the picture is a source of light that is controlled by an opposing character set to the forground of the image. This character is quite possibly a cross-dresser, her hairy forearms covered with black gloves.

Another partnership unravels with yet more story, yet the formal aspects of the drawing lend themselves to myself and Ross's collaboration - diamonds really are a transvestite's best friend. And Cilla Slack herself would back that up for me Ross!

In homage to Ross's use of diamond shapes in his drawing process, and the appearance of the lozenge in mine, I show you two versions of the same drawing, one affected by graphic the other left to its own devices. Spot the difference.

# 9 [24 May 2011]

When Ross comes online (we both have googlemail accounts) I jump on him like a beast and fire questions to him about his weekend, what's he been doing, is he surviving the ash cloud so far north of Edinburgh - has he made any work… is he making more than me? Alas he does not answer, his working situation is quite different to mine. He works in an office along with, I am fictionalising perhaps here, along with the rest of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop gang: chin wagging productively. Me on the other hang, my working is subject to the coffee pot that sits next to me on the kitchen table - I am succinct with the editorial work I do, but I do this remotely and often alone with little but the wind and Jazz FM to keep me going!

This past weekend has been a calm enough for me… less actual work replaced by workings out, or thinking, or concept building - Ross seems to be able to map out his drawings and also perhaps his thought process… my process has slightly more give and take, putting down leaving alone, returning and taking away - being synonymous with my eraser as an extension of my reductive goal. My drawings are getting lighter, last Friday I discarded one drawing that I thought might have been complete: I decided it was very much over-worked… too much ado about nothing much at all - it was confused.

What shall happen to this drawing then and is it fit for exhibition? I was thinking of sending this actual piece up to Ross for him to present in an odd little show he's putting together making use of an old abandoned building - addressing its permanence in the environment and the possible longevity of an ever-lasting exhibition. A mini-collection for a ran-shackled house, perhaps reminiscent of some form of domesticity… something like what is depicted by the French animators who put together 2010's The Illusionist maybe. This is all guess work.

But back to this drawing Ross. It is definitely overloaded - but now it contains this history… and perhaps this history is validated by your curatorial goal for the 'house' aforementioned. I will post it up to you. Along with some other things I reckon. Perhaps with some building blocks enclosed too… or some form of related object.

THE DRAWING
The drawing again depicts a form of partnership and also feature my house mate's cheese plant that rests on the window seat of the front room. The partnership is overloaded with the notion of 'fight', there is a struggle and perhaps this is for a common goal - but the fact is there is no evidence of this goal within the actual drawing itself. Perhaps it is just a formal goal - a goal to find form. Not sure.

# 10 [27 May 2011]

Ross:

I haven't posted in the last week or had much contact with Richard. I've been tired and sluggish and not very productive. Perhaps a consequence of my weekend in Dundee perusing the recent degree show and DCA openings. Being where I am (The Aberdeenshire countryside) I don't get the chance to see much art in an exhibition context so Dundee was a welcome change.

Richard says I map out my drawings, which I do. This is a recent development and something I was hard pushed to do before. I would fall out of an idea and not push through. I've since realised that to finish a drawing and then discard it is better than discarding it half way through. 

My drawing has been sitting for a few days now. I look at it and wonder if it worthy of this project. Doubt begins to creep in. I'll get past it but this normally mean that after this drawing, the system I've used recently will be shelved, at least for a while. I'll have to find something new. 

Richard has adopted some of my patterns into the interior of his drawings. This makes me think that a wall drawing might be appropriate. Even a floor drawing. We must create the interior of the exhibition space before we place our work. 

We wait and wonder.