ARTISTS TALKING

# 13 [12 May 2008]

The short film of the exhibition is now finished. I have drawn a line under this body of work and with time and distance and the help of numerous mind maps, I have a clear idea of where I want to be next with my work. More site specific, more sound based and with the recent opportunity of working alongside another artist, more collaborative. The importance to me of my research has come to the fore and has to be evident in new ways in future projects.

I have a clarity about what I am hoping to achive next, but for the first time in a long time no clear idea of the process or product and that is scarey but very exciting.

The Herbert project has reminded me of my ability to focus, research and visualise and I am giddy at the thought of breaking from the familiar and what is expected from my work, by myself, colleagues and contacts by playing with and pushing projects more. 

www.jaynewilson.co.uk is under construction and will include the film and sound and idetails of forthcoming ideas and commissions

# 12 [10 March 2008]

January and February saw my time in Coventry step up. With the usual monthly installment to the exhibition plus more workshops and more nights in the Brittania Hotel.

The workshops were challenging with three outreach days with people from the Polish Community.  Elders and Mothers and Toddlers ...all awakened to the fun and frustrations of monoprinting.

My final trip to the Midlands was a high with a couple of days there filming the exhibition and voiceovers for  the DVD and a half term workshop with adults and children that filled the room withpaper and scissors and lots of cardboard constructions of buildings.

The exhibition was taken down last week and returned to my Brighton studio.

We had hoped the gallery would be able to keep some of the work for its permanent collection, but unfortunately being secured so well to the card meant that the work is perishable and so it was all sent back to me intact.

The 5 huge boxes and the multitude  of additions filled the studio and I have no choice but to dismantle the whole thing.

I started to cut up the boxes. The feeling of 'destroying' (in some sense) the work is alien to me but refreshing. In losing myself in a world of concentration and focus on what I was doing...be careful not to hack a chunk out of a print. I found myself reaching for a sketchbook to note new ideas for displaying this work in other ways. Half collapsed boxes provided new photo opportunities and ideas for more three dimensional explorations and strong feelings of putting to rest, evaluate and move on to the next project.

Its been a few days since I left that in the studio and have been gathering the sound and photographs for the film. Due to be completed ina couple of weeks.

The value of the film has been emphasized now that the work has gone. The gallery have started their evaluation and I'm about to start mine.

Its a lot to think about.

# 11 [17 December 2007]

The installation went to plan and I've rapidly come to terms with working under scrutinization of technicians and public. With only two more installments of work I've had to.

The public contributions are strangely leading to private roads into memories. Not of the Herbert but more sentimental thoughts prompted by names 'I was at school with a Christopher Herbert'

Money has been found for filming the installation. Match funding as a result of sponsorship. A reault. And I've been planning with a filmaker how to document the whole project. Exciting. Three short films on one DVD planned to show different areas of ideas and background. The filmimg is planned for February.

# 10 [21 November 2007]

You get a commission. You finish the work. You decide, with the gallery, how to best hang the work in the space. You have a private view and then you wind down while it all sinks in.

I haven't had much time for a wind down. I am now essentially working in the open instead of the privacy of my studio. I'm juggling alternatives, wondering how I add the next phase of the installation all in full view of visitors and gallery technicians.

I am trying to remember that basically it is a work in progress.

Today's hiccup? Only having handy access to a new photocopier whose ink doesn't dissolve with the solvent I'm using to transfer texts. I was saved from complete stress by listening to a musical on the radio. I think this could further change my practice.

# 9 [14 November 2007]

Stop. Take stock. I've thought about what I'm doing with the work here, obviously I have- and sort of where I'm going with it. This week I wrote it down, to reflect. My practice, working process, audiences, workshops.

I wasn't a fan of the digital camera before now, but working on the additional installations, I have worked on, collaged and drawn on the pictures. I couldn't have continually visualised the angles and the changing space so easily without it. The movie mode has allowed me to walk round the exhibition long after I've left the gallery. It has become a natural way of working and producing interesting working drawings and models in themselves. I realise documenting this exhibition has to be different to other projects because of the three dimensions, space and the sound.

Sound is a direction I have to explore more. The future project will now be 70% sound and 30% drawing, to give me time to concentrate on a small series of drawings instead of this frenzy of production for Recollect and push the sound and editing ideas that just aren't relevant for this work.

Constantly walking round this work instead of judging it from one spot in two dimensions is feeding into life. Everything suddenly seems more three dimensional. I am looking from more angles and am more aware of tactile qualities I'm sure.

 haven't talked about my work in a critically with an exhibition since working with PhD students 5 years ago.  Practical workshops have been integral to my practice for a long time. On reflection I need to change the emphasis to help me clarify ideas and challenge my practice.

And the audience for my work? Am I changing that? I'm still considering that.

# 8 [22 October 2007]

So far there have been two anecdotes contributed from the cards in the gallery. There have been no responses by e-mail. I have started gathering some memories from different sources now and have three more interviews with keepers and gallery folk. Researching the material for the new boxes is interesting and having the five themes to put them under will make for varied but coherent sections to the installation. I wasn't expecting to spend so much time sourcing tales! Its only two weeks until the next installment.

The five separate 'pieces' in the exhibition are taking on their own physical identities after much modelmaking. I have decided to suspend boxes and use the walls space more than anticipated. It will make the space much more interesting.

# 7 [25 October 2007]

It has been a hectic and heavily timetabled life. I lost August and September to strict days of printing and running between the studio and the hire room where the large boxes were installed ready to be worked on. Evenings on sound editing and e-mail and the education programmes. And little enthusiasm to keep up a blog. Just another thing on the end of the list.

Now I'm emerging and the work is almost ready for installing in the gallery.

So far its the most intense project I've worked on. The strict timings of it all juggling journeys to Coventry, studio work on the boxes, sound work and childcare have meant that I have been so much more focussed and worked with a different clarity to previous projects. Its been necessary to take a step back and more often.

Someone descibed it as being in the theatre you got to see the final peformance and the whole of the rehearsals and behind the scenes too. I hadn't thought of it like that.

There has been little organic growth or room for experimenting with the drawing. This is my first commission of this type , in that the work almost, and was expected to, directly reflect the original proposal. The next phase is not planned or predicted perhaps I will find time to push ideas here.

The sound element has taken almost three hours of recorded interviews and whittled them down to 5 minutes of capturing the site and some of the workers memories.

I wanted to experiment more but again time is a hinderance. I need to remind myself that this the first sound of this nature that I've explored and its appropriate. Next time can push those boundaries even further.

# 6 [30 July 2007]

Annoyed with myself for not having really considered the sound in the installation. I realised this week that I couldn't have. I hadn't gathered enough material. With Paul agreeing to talk I have got the confidence and ideas to go and pick the sounds. The crane slewing bell, that repeated mobile phone ring I keep hearing, J&M Morrison's lyrics (boom shakka lakka) in my head these are all starting to link together. Tomorrow I talk to the media guy at the Herbert for his advice on the recording and editing. 

With only 8 weeks before the opening the studio is now plastered with wet prints and the box dimensions have been delivered to Rob who is building my boxes. My first 'employee' and a good reminder that I can't do all of the work for these projects on my own now with family committments, much less time and with out all the neccessary skills. Admin is taking up time too, writing interpretative text sorting out another CRB check. So it feels good to have the prints underway, but difficult to envisage them together in three dimensions in my studio- which is a fraction of the size of the gallery. Next job to book a space to set them out and view from a far.

# 5 [24 July 2007]

Flood warnings in the Midlands didn't instill hopes for a successful day on site this week. The rainwater slowed down the site, but sparked great conversations with people sheltering under the cabin stairs. Paul agreed to be my first interviewee for the soundtrack, and offered me his biscuits in case of flood on the train line home. Compensation for a damp sketchbook. The Dutch have gone,leaving Rachel to wallow in her love of white precast concrete (the only woman on site) the Germans have moved in to put on the roof. The electricians, still singing, were keen to establish which ones of them have been drawn. They all noticed that I'd drawn some of them without hats ...something I've been asked not to do ..against health and safety.None of them noticed my rucksack bulging with their old cable reels or seemed to read the conversations noted on page corners.

Tomorrow back in the studio I finish off the two prints for the boxes, The handmade paper arrived and the dimensions figured out.  

# 4 [11 July 2007]

The tall Dutch builders (seemingly the only ones on site) informed me they were there to do a 'little job'...putting the concrete slabs in place.(the supports and walls of the whole new building!) A quietly active site to draw in the morning. In the afternoon this week, Beryl in the Coventry Archives kept me supplied with blueprints of the original build and programmes for the opening. Details of workers in Coventry in 1936-37 and more about Alfred Herbert fed my intrigue and will provide great images for the installation. Elements are slowly coming together. Its frustrating that there is not enough time to explore the avenues that are opening up. The Polish links, Herbert's links with industrial paternalism and social clubs and the connections with the workers on site.