ARTISTS TALKING

# 151 [6 February 2012]

I love coming to the studio.  It is starting to feel more and more as though it is my place.  The ongoing process of sorting, moving, unpacking and repacking continues.  I have also started doing some drawings that I hope will lead to some new sculptures.  I’m a bit nervous to ask about how to book time in the plaster workshop– it means that I’ll also have to order materials and that makes me nervous at the moment.  It has been a long time since I worked with new materials!

A few weeks ago I answered an open call for artists interested in collaborative projects.  After a couple of rather curious meeting I have ended up as project coordinator for a group of five (possibly seven) artists.  The project, known as Sandcastles in Greece, is one of several being run by a researcher at the royal college here.  I am not at all sure what I have let myself in for.  The meetings produced really interesting starting points however I feel that it is going to be quite a challenge to realize them in the timeframe and in the light of everyone’s other commitments.  At the moment I’m waiting to hear back from two artists who attended the first meeting but not the second, I need to submit a budget and participant list by the end of the week so I need to know if they want to continue … or not.

My language course runs every morning of the week and I am thinking of skipping a day soon so that I can have a full day in the studio.  It would be lovely to be here early one morning, to have breakfast and coffee … and then get on with the day here.  I know myself well enough to know that I am a morning person and that the afternoon is most productive when I continue what I started in the morning.

Also want some days out!  Ai Weiwei has just opened here, there’s a very interesting sounding show at Tensta Konsthall and it would be good to see the UNESCO World Heritage Woodland Cemetery in the snow …

# 150 [13 January 2012]

Another week of sorting.  The studio is starting to feel like somewhere that I can work - though I have to move a couple of things so that I can set up 'an idea' I have had.

It is interesting being in a new studio in a new country.  I want to take the opportunity to really think about what I do, or perhaps it is more accurate to say how I want to start off.  Being here gives me a juncture.  I do not want to (nor could I) jettison everything that has gone before.  At the same time I am very aware that I want to start doing things that take me forward.  There are many opportunities for me here that were not available in the UK, not least the real possibility of earning a living as an artist.  (Previously I usually earned my money outside the art world and took what little money I had in.)   It feels as though there is the possibility of funding or/and selling here. I still have to work for it, apply for it and compete for it, and nothing is guaranteed.  However knowing that it might be possible has sharpened my senses.  In London I could be fairly certain that I would not receive grants or awards, I was also fairly sure that I would probably never have a commercial gallery.  In many senses this situation gave me a great deal of freedom.  In other senses I felt that as a 40+ artist I was starting to tread water, exhibiting in 'alternative' spaces, working with virtually no budget and fitting my practice around paid employment.  I might be wrong but 40 seems to be about the age when artists in similar positions to me really need a lot of self-motivation to continue, and even then self motivation is not always enough.  I am in a very different situation now, I am living somewhere that still has some state support for artists and where, in my 40s, I can still be called a 'young artist'.  And that gives me hope, a real sense of hope, of hope and possibility.

The scary side of being 'new' is that I have to start presenting myself to people who do not know me and who do not know my work.

Can I admit to myself that sometimes I'm a little scared of 'hope and possibility'?!

One of the first things to appear in the studio, it arrived before my things from London came, was the catalogue from The British Art Show 1990.  I spotted it in a charity shop not far from the studio when I went out to get lunch on the first day here.  1990 was when I graduated from Dartington so the year has a special significance for me.  I tend to look at while having a cup of tea in the afternoon.  It is very interesting to read the artists statements and to see their work - it is so pre-YBA!  The familiarity in the book is a great comfort to me, the concerns of the artists are not so very different to mine (now, if not then when I was a much more intense 'issue-based practitioner').  I have also noticed that the artists' statements are written with little jargon and few philosophical terms, they contain many references to the materials, the processes and what I can actually see in the image of their work.

This weekend I am reading a text translated in to English from Russian for the upcoming Supermarket Art Fair.  I have also been looking at the texts from some of this year's participants.  My task is to make sure that the English clear and understandable.  I have been told not to worry about whether the English is good or not, just to make sure that it is readable.  It is actually quite a hard task!  My 'Swedish for Immigrants' course is making me aware of how complex the act of translation is and how nuanced language is.  I really hope that the minor amendments I have made have not radically altered the intended meaning.  It is hard for me to believe that it is almost a year since I came to Supermarket with Roberto's MOCA project.  I am looking forward to this year's fairs, to catching up with people that I met before, to meeting new people, and being able to say that I am now an artist in Stockholm!

(first blog on new computer)

# 149 [12 December 2011]

I am sitting in my studio surrounded by my things.  This morning I started week two of my “Swedish For Immigrants” (SFI as it is known) course.

After hearing that I could have the studio from the first of December I called the removal firm in the UK to arrange delivery of my stuff – stuff that they have been storing since the end of August.  I asked them to bring it as soon as possible.  I thought with Christmas and New Year, and their busy schedule that it would arrive in January.  I was wrong.  They could (and did) deliver on 7th December.

It is great to come here after my morning lesson and begin unpacking things.  The boxes are mix of things that belong in the studio and things that really belong at home.  I acquired a lot of things in the 10 years that I had my own home.  I have never moved in with someone before and I’m not used to there not being space for my things, or my things duplicating what is already there.  Perhaps I could have packed even less.

I want to unpack my books for two reasons; one, I miss seeing them and having them around, and two, the boxes that they are in are taking up a lot of space in the studio.  The studio is an odd shape - it has an irregular pentagram footprint.  There are two pairs of identical length walls and one odd short wall.  The shortest wall is taken up by the door and small storage area that the artist I’m subletting from is using.  The shorter pair of walls are adjacent to one another and are directly opposite the door.  These walls each have three windows and radiators on them.  The longest pair of walls are opposite each other.  One of these I want to keep clear for working on and in front of, so I will put shelves for book and materials on the other one.

Before I had the studio my mind kept racing away with things I wanted to do and materials I wanted to play with.  Now that I am actually here it is a bit daunting to get going again and I am allowing myself to unpack at a leisurely pace, telling myself that it is important that I get things in the right place before I start making new things.  Perhaps it would be good to spend the rest of the afternoon putting the boxes of books in front of the wall where the shelves will be and then to start unpacking my old art works and materials …

# 148 [26 November 2011]

Wednesday was a particularly (surprisingly) productive day – amazing how much one can achieve here once one has a personal number!

After opening a bank account I had a meeting with Alex (who wants to sublet her studio to me) and Klas (the current subletee).  Alex wanted us all to meet as she will be away in January which is when we had discussed Klas moving out and me moving in.  It turned out to be a very quick meeting as Klas told us that he had just heard that he has a job in the north of Sweden and, if it suits everyone, he can move out at the end of November.  I’m really pleased on two counts first – the sooner I can get back in to a studio the better, and second – I don’t have any bad conscience that I’m making another artist “studioless”.  The timing suits everyone and I feel very good about it.

On my way home from the meeting I decided to call in at the SFI (Swedish for immigrants) office and ask about registering for their Swedish classes.  The receptionist arranged for me to talk with one of the tutor/language assessors and before I really know what was happening I was sitting in front of a computer with headphones on taking a test to determine which level of class I should take.  After exercises in reading listening and writing (the writing took me long time and I really wish I’d prepared for it) the tutor gave me my results.  I’m at level C.  He then looked at a schedule for classes and schools, there’s a school very close to where I live and they have a level C class starting on December 5.  Classes are five mornings a week for about three months, if I pass the end of course test I move on to level D classes.  I wasn’t expecting the course to be so long, I thought it would be like my evening class in London – two hours a week for 10 weeks.  I knew that the classes were free but course literature is free too.  It’s fantastic.  And with that much tuition my Swedish can’t not improve!

My attempt to enter the Architecture Museum’s annual open gingerbread house competition has failed!  Two evenings this week I made batched of ginger bread pigs and tried to build some kind of structure out of them.  I thought I’d found the answer with an “experimental” spun-sugar technique.  However the next day my component parts had become rather soft and sticky – they have no structural integrity at all!  So this year I will not actually participate, I will go an see the other entrants and next year I will give myself more time …

# 147 [11 November 2011]

Hooray!  I had a letter from the tax office saying that I’m now registered for tax and VAT in Sweden.  Hopefully it’s a useful stage in getting myself “fully” registered here and getting that all-important personal number.  I looked at joining a gym earlier this week and it’s not possible without a personal number!  The personal number is used in place of utility bills and credit checks, once I have one the whole of Sweden seems to open up …

I’m hopeful that I’ll be subletting a studio at wip from either December or at the latest January.  It will be very nice to back as I already know some artists there and the studios are very good.  Things have changed since I did my residency, the residency programme didn’t continue after the second artist (I was the first) and the book-shop has gone too.  Both of these are disappointing but I can see why they’ve happened.
Initially I’ll sub-letting for six months.  After that there’s the possibility to share the studio with the artist who is sub-letting.  Sharing the studio will entitle me to become a “full” member of the studio group which offers various benefits and opportunities.  As a full member I can get involved in the committees that run the gallery and other projects.  And there’s no reason why I can’t propose a new residency programme … .  Nothing like thinking ahead!

This week’s event at Moderna Museet – The Friend’s Sculpture Prize.  This was actually only one event in a busy evening’s schedule.  Sofia Hultén was the recipient of this year’s prize, which is one of the biggest in Sweden (a rather nice 300 000 SEK – almost £30,000).  There was short discussion with her about her practice and at the time I felt as if I understood quite a lot of it (it was in Swedish), it helped that the conversation was about the pieces that were in the show.  Her use of video was particularly interesting to me, she recorded staged (performed?) interactions with objects.  Each interaction was relatively brief and she continued to record the object after the interaction ended.  I liked the amount of control the frame of the camera gave her, I liked the time and duration that was given to each interaction and object, I liked how both process and outcome were visible without any additional fuss or maintenance.  The videos were shown in loops of about eight different interactions/objects.  The pace of them was perfectly judged.  I came away thinking that video or film might be an appropriate media for some of my work, it might be an interesting way to give longevity to something transient …
Other events that evening included a lecture related to the Turner, Monet Twombly show and the opening of Ulf Rollof’s exhibition in the Moment series.  The discussion with Ulf Rollof was far too complex for my Swedish so I had a quick look at the new photography exhibition.  The exhibition has temporarily replaced the permanent collection and is huge – I need to spend at least a day there (the 30 minutes I had before the museum closed were completely insufficient).

Looking forward to hearing a date for getting into the studio, and getting my stuff brought over from the UK …

# 146 [6 November 2011]

The tax office (Swedish) called while I was on my way to the supermarket.  They needed to ask a couple of simple questions to approve my application to register my company.  The first was to clarify the type of artistic activities my company will do – this is because there are different tax bands for different activities.  The second, and more frightening, question was about my estimated ‘turnover’ in the first year.  So there I was on a busy street corner thinking about a figure that would demonstrate my professionalism and seriousness while at the same time not landing me with crippling monthly tax bills.  In the end I think I over estimated what I will be able to earn in my first year here, thankfully I have some savings that should see me through to when any over payments are calculated.  The paperwork should arrive this week.  I hope this gives me sufficient ‘Swedish’ registration to open a bank account – the last thing I want is to have to pay international bank transfer fees on each tax bill!  I’m also hoping that registering my company and starting to pay tax will enable my application for a “full” personal number to proceed.

It was interesting to visit the studio being offered through the city’s culture office.  It’s in part of a former prison complex on a small island that is now a boat yard and park.  There were quite a lot of us trying to find our way around, eventually someone worked out that we needed to use the door on the other side of the building.  The studio was a good size with two large windows, a kitchen bench with sink and a toilet just outside.  It’s one of several studios in the building and quite possibly the one with the trickiest access.  We entered via an incredibly tight stone spiral staircase, thankfully it was only one flight up.  Alternative access is through the adjacent studio, you’d have to use this to get in any serious amount of materials or equipment.  I don’t need to worry about this though as I noticed that at least one artist who expressed an interest in renting it has been on the waiting list since 2003.  The studio will be given to the longest waiting artist who expresses an interest in this particular studio.  For the next couple of years I will take the opportunity to see these studios as research.

On Monday evening I went to Birgitta’s “Pumpkin Parade” on Årstafältet  - the field where she also organsises the snow sculpting and other projects.  Children had carved the pumpkins that they planted in spring.  The pumpkins looked great displayed along the footpath that was once the road the south out of Stockholm.  There wee also short speeches by campaigners and supporters trying to stop the field becoming a housing development.  The evening was a great piece of socially engaged artistic activism.  Birgitta’s enthusiasm and commitment is infectious and inspiring.

After the studio visit on Tuesday I went to a talk at Iaspis – an arts organisation that supports and promotes artists.  They are running a series of talks about artist’s initiatives that go beyond the artist run gallery/studio.  The guest this evening was Sean Dockray (USA) speaking about his Public School and AAARG.ORG projects.  It made me think about what an artist is, or can be.  His projects are incredibly ambitious and far-reaching.  He refused to answer a direct question asking if he called himself an artist.

On Wednesday Marlene Dumas gave talk at Moderna Museet.  It was held in a small gallery where there is a temporary show of her work. Her talk was illustrated with images however I have no idea what the images were as the room was already packed by the time I arrived.  I opted for one of the Eames chairs outside of the gallery rather than standing by the doorway and straining to get a glimpse of her.  It was good to hear her speak about the relationship between her influences and her art.

I’m becoming increasingly interested in what I (used to) consider to be an old fashioned idea of the artist …

# 145 [30 October 2011]

On Tuesday I’m going to see one of the Stockholm City’s artists’ studios.  The city has a number of studios that periodically come up for rent.  It’s highly unlikely that I will have a chance of getting this studio as they are offered first to those longest on the waiting list.  I only came across the scheme today and haven’t even filled in my application to join the waiting list!  So I’m just taking the opportunity to have a look and meet the woman who runs the city studio programme.  On the phone she told me that people can be on the list for 10 or 15 years, I’m not surprised - the studio is in a great part of town, has an incredibly reasonable rent and is available for as long the artist wants it.  I like the idea that in my mid/late fifties I could have a good and secure studio for the rest of my life.

Earlier this week I sent in my application for tax registration for ‘foreign entrepreneurs’.  I was advised that setting up my company (the Swedish equivalent of being self-employed) as a foreigner working in Sweden is a simple way for me to establish myself here.  I hope that it’s a way out of an otherwise somewhat complex catch 22 situation to do with my tax and social security status.  Basically the authorities won’t register anyone who cannot demonstrate that they (or someone on their behalf) will start paying tax and social security as soon as they are registered.  This means that someone coming here with confirmed employed is fine, as are those studying however it’s a bit tricky for me.  Everyone at the tax office has been very helpful and I have a personal caseworker who I deal with each time I call or email – she even emailed to check how things are going as she hadn’t heard from me for a couple of weeks!

In the meantime I’m re-acquainting myself with the art scene here and slowly meeting up with some of the artists I met previously.



Thank you for the messages of encouragement.

# 144 [30 August 2011]

Stockholm is my PhD

It’s Tuesday morning and I’m surrounded by packed and half packed boxes, bags of things for the charity shop, a pile of “essential” paperwork, another pile of paperwork that needs to be dealt with – somehow.  In the midst of this I’m having breakfast and starting to read the 20th anniversary edition of Frieze.

It is only in the last three of four years that I’ve appreciated and looked forward to opening to each new Frieze.  I particularly like the editorial and regular columns.  This month’s contribution by Jörg Heiser and Jennifer Higgie is a wonderfully succinct piece reflecting on 20 years of contemporary art and (what I think are probably peculiarly) British attitudes towards it.  I found myself agreeing with their counter-claims; that contemporary practice is deeper than the headline grabbing spectacles of certain household name artists, that good writing is widely available, that art is more diverse than before, and finally (and most importantly as far as I’m concerned) that good art will out.

I love it when what I read confirms that my own thoughts are in line with those of who make a living from their opinions.  What occurred to me this morning is that I too understand what and where (British) contemporary practice is.  And perhaps this understanding is an aspect of my re-location to Stockholm.  I might not be a ‘successful’ artist in terms of recognition, sales, position in the art world and the like but in terms of ‘understanding’ I am very successful.  I understand a great deal of the British contemporary art scene.  I am someone who loves learning, I love learning for it’s own sake.  I am about to move somewhere with an art scene that I don’t understand.  I know that I need to do the next thing in/for my practice, a PhD might be one way to do it, moving to Stockholm is another way.  Stockholm will be about learning a new way to be an artist.

I’ve just realised that when I’ve moved (any great distance) in the past it was to go to college – re-locating has been bound up with learning, so even if I’m not enrolled with an academy I will say I am continuing with this …

# 143 [29 July 2011]

My mind is all over the place.  I’m thinking about packing – it’s hard to think of one’s life in cubic meters as I have had to do to book a moving firm.  It’s also interesting to realise that I have more artworks, art materials and art books than anything else.  Last night I started to pack the books, it turns out that a box full of books is far heavier than I expected.  I am pleased to be packing in meters rather than kilos.  However I might have to get smaller boxes for the books so that I can get them downstairs.

On Monday I install a version of Go-Go at the 4xm2 Gallery Pavilion.  Last week I helped out on the last day of its construction.  It’s a fantastic ‘pop-up’ gallery that has popped up in the parade ground at Chelsea School of Art.  So it has very grand neighbours!  It is a shame that I won’t be able to use solar power, time constraints mean that I haven’t been able to get a ‘silent’ power adapter made and tested.  All the off-the-shelf invertors have alarms that alert you to low battery power, I can see the point of these alarms but it’s rather frustrating when you want to drain the battery for conceptual reasons without risking prosecution for nuisance noise.
I’m very excited to see if the light splatter will reach Tate Britain.  The 4xm2 Gallery show – Quadruple Energy – opens as part of First Friday along with Tate and other galleries.  Unfortunately I can’t be there.  I will be in Stockholm.  The trip was arranged long before Chelsea gave the go ahead for the pavilion and I can’t cancel as I’m attending the christening of my god-daughter’s brother.

I have arranged to meet up with some of the artists at the studio where I did the residency while I’m in Stockholm.  Hopefully I will hear that there is a studio for me.  I’m desperate to get on after what feels like far too long concentrating on other things.  Talking with a friend this week it occurred to me that I’m much more focussed on finding a studio than I am on thinking about where I’ll actually be living.  (Maybe that’s because I have a couple of options for somewhere to sleep!)

Cycling passed rows of south London Victorian house this morning I smiled to myself and thought that I won’t be seeing that kind of architecture for much longer.  I had similar thoughts when I cycled through Dulwich Park earlier this week.  English architecture and landscaping are quite unique, quite wonderful.

# 142 [18 July 2011]

I’ve accepted an offer on my flat.


I should be in Stockholm in September.  My life is about change in a big way.  I’m incredibly excited.  I can’t quite believe that I’m really doing it.  Moving to Stockholm is truly a bitter-sweet thing.  I am taking a giant step towards an unknown future, (is the future ever known?) I am also moving away from very good and dear friends.  There is, of course, also the reason that I found myself in Stockholm in the first place – John.  I’m leaving the place where we had each other, and going to the place where he had his past and I will have my future.