ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [27 February 2007]

Roz Cran and I met as students on the BA Hons Fine Art (Printmaking) course at the University of Brighton, both graduating in 2003. After graduating, we each followed separate paths, with Roz eventually taking up a place at the RCA, while I embarked on an independent, mainly studio based practice. Our resulting experiences of the past three and a half years have been very different. Roz has been able to take full advantage of her MA studies within a prestigious institution with all of its associated networks and benefits. I have begun to build a professional infrastructure for myself, including the founding of a shared artists’ workspace, Blue Monkey Studio in Eastbourne, along with 3 other graduates.

Roz recently took up a workspace at Blue Monkey Studio and we have been able to renew our working relationship. We are keen to take this opportunity to spend some time developing our practices collaboratively, seeing it as a chance to introduce fresh elements to our work and to test out collaborative ideas, exploring the possibilities for developing new work in a speculative, stimulating and creative environment. We are both very open to experimentation and see our practices as investigative and exploratory. We are going to develop ideas for a residency on an allotment where we can set experimental processes in motion in what we both consider to be a productive environment.

# 2 [28 February 2007]

Yesterday I visited my allotment which we will use for our residency. I found polaroid photographs scattered over the overgrown flowerbed. They show antique furniture: a desk, table, chests of drawers. How did they get there? Who took the photos and for what purpose? Perhaps they were a record to use in case of theft. Perhaps they themselves have been stolen and abandoned. I took some digital photographs to record the event. www.rozcran.co.uk

# 3 [1 March 2007]

Here is a photo of the allotment we plan to use for our residency.  It is covered in patches of carpet (now banned) to hold back the winter growth of weeds.  This gives an idea of the space available for our projects.  The allotment sits on top of the Tenantry Down opposite Brighton Race Course and the garden centre.
The views over Brighton are spectacular.  On a clear day the Isle of Wight is visible.  Kestrels hover for minutes then rocket down.  The daffs are opening and the rosemary has grey flowers.
Soon I will dig it over and plan the planting.  A last strim of the grass and then leave it for the cowslips and polyanthus.
A space for growth, reflection, questions, wonder.                       
www.rozcran.co.uk     www.judithalder-live.co.uk

# 4 [2 March 2007]

Roz's photgraph of the allotment (see yesterday's post) whets my appetite for a "site visit". I haven't yet been to the allotment and I'm looking forward to my first visit. It will be exciting to get a feel for the place, to explore and to begin to develop our plans for the time when we're "In Residence".

I always have a great sense of anticipation when I'm starting a new project - that feeling that anything can happen.

www.rozcran.co.uk           www.judithalder-live.co.uk

# 5 [4 March 2007]

As part of our research on collaboration I went to see Lone Twin in their show Nine Years at the Gardner Centre, University of Sussex.

Gregg and Gary have spent the last nine years making work together. They have travelled half way across the world, given performances in the places they visited. They cycled round cities, walked over bridges, talked to the people they met.

They dressed as blindfolded cowboys and danced in a local hall. People were invited to join in and dance too. One person whispered as she left, "you are very special".

This celebratory Lone Twin show played against video of past performances including footage of people waving back as they travelled home.

At times I laughed, sometimes sighed. The show was wry, poignant, hopeful. I loved it.

I watched the way Gregg and Gary worked together as a team. How they played to their individual strengths. Gary carried more of the humour, Gregg more of the straight man.

Helpful research.

http://www.lonetwin.com

# 6 [7 March 2007]

We went to Alice Maher's exhibition, "Natural Artifice", at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery on Saturday. Alice gave a talk there in January which sadly we missed, but this weekend we went to a gallery talk by Gill Perry, Head of Art History at the Open University, about the exhibition and about Alice's work in general.

The exhibition includes work in a variety of media. A series of photographs explore Alice's relationship with nature as she wears a hood of moss, a helmet of snail shells and a collar of hearts; large scale charcoal drawings are inspired by Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delight"; a human sized "ice bed" and a miniature house of thorns play with ideas of comfort and discomfort and subvert the familiar.

The talk brought up issues which we've been thinking about within our own practices; questions about working broadly with an assortment of materials and processes on a range of themes which sometimes appear to be unrelated. It was reassuring to see the links in Alice's work which have appeared over a considerable length of time. Something for us to think about more when we write about each other's work.

# 7 [9 March 2007]

We have been invited to give a short presentation at the next a-n AIR Open Dialogue at Fabrica in Brighton on Thursday 29 March. Judith and I will speak about our new collaboration and key issues for our practice now and in the future. Two other artists will present, followed by discussion and a glass of wine. AIR stands for Artists' Interaction and Representation. This event is for AIR members only.

# 8 [11 March 2007]

As part of our research into the collaborative process, we’ve begun to build up quite a list of collaborative partnerships whose work we’d like to look at, some of whom, if possible, we’d like to meet and talk to.

Recently we came across Jen Hamilton and Jen Southern during their exhibition “Running Stitch” at Fabrica (http://www.theportable.tv/runningstitch/index.html) and Roz went to see “Lone Twin” (see 4th March post) at The Gardner Centre. We’ve both encountered the work of Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie and, now that we’re looking, we’re beginning to come across more and more partnerships whose work we want to find out more about.

We’ll definitely be researching Anne Eggebert & Polly Gould’s work, including their projects “Transplantation” and “Nature and Nation”. Today Roz has discovered a project called “Kitchen Antics and Appliances” by three-way partnership Barbara Dean, Ann Rapstoff and Hilary Kneale and we’re hoping to make contact with these artists soon. (http://www.kitchenanticsandappliances.com/)

Roz already has experience of collaboration with Isabel Albiol which resulted in a piece of work entitled “Rabbit Hole”, shown at the Hockney Gallery, RCA in 2005. (http://www.roz2.co.uk/rab01.html) I have less experience of collaboration, having only dipped my toe into collaborative working on a casual and experimental basis.

As I’m beginning to research these and other projects, questions about the nature and variety of collaboration are raised. Some collaborations are specific – partners come together because they have something they can offer each other – specific skills or attributes. Others are speculative – an opportunity to pool resources and see what happens.

FAMOUS COLLABORATIONS

Gilbert and George

Warhol and Basquiat

Elton John and Kiki Dee

Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin

# 9 [16 March 2007]

I went to London today to visit The Princes Drawing School during it's Open Day. Also went to the Jerwood Space where I saw the work of
Williams-Suggitt, another collaborative duo who are new to me. In their video piece, "Perched", currently showing in the Jerwood Cafe, Williams and Suggitt, dressed in colourful bird costumes, spend time "perched" on stools in the cafe, exploring ideas around identity as they experiment with how it is to be "other". Made me think of Roz's exploration of similar issues. http://www.myspace.com/williamssuggitt

Roz and I have also talked briefly this week about spending a one-off pilot day at the allotment, just to see what we might want to do together over a longer period of a residency. I'm very keen to visit the allotment anyway, and Roz wants me to film her burying her typewriter there. The weather has been glorious and Roz was busy at the allotment last weekend actually cultivating it.

# 10 [22 March 2007]

Arrived home from the studio to a lovely surprise: a parcel from my friend Val Murrary – a copy of Low Tide – Writings on Artists’ Collaborations written by Jeni Walwin. Last week Val and I met in London to see some exhibitions and each other. I talked to her about this new collaboration with Judith.

Val is part of TEA, a collaborative group of artists who have worked together since 1987. She was full of praise for the benefits and pleasures of collaborative practice. Low Tide includes a chapter on TEA. Although published in 1997, this book offers much of interest to a pair of new collaborators.

In the Foreword, Paula Brown speaks of the collaborative art documented: “This is cunningly mercurial work where art forms merge or collide or metamorphose into something else altogether; where artists experiment with new partners, practices and identities. This is work which offers spectators new ways not just of seeing but of participating.”

www.teaweb.org