ARTISTS TALKING

# 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.

# 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.

# 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