ARTISTS TALKING

# 115 [8 May 2008]

ANOTHER DANDELION

As I thought about dandelions I remembered another dandelion.  This time from my Foundation Show in 2000. I showed  this slide at the University of Brighton talk 2 weeks ago.  Pressed flowers again.  My first pressed flowers were collected when I was five years old.  I can see the book in my mind's eye - a school drawing book, dull blue paper cover, a flower on each page and the name I had identified and written carefully in pencil. The names are pressed in me: red dead nettle, yellow archangel, bistort -  there was a dandelion too.

# 114 [7 May 2008]

OLD DANDELIONS

I looked at Judith's dandelions  and remembered my dandelions.  I made an etching, back in 2003.  Two flowers were pressed onto a soft ground layer on a steel plate, overlapping, intertwining.  This was etched in acid, inked and put through the press to produce this image.  One of a set of flower etchings named Apparitions.  And the dandelions have appeared once more.

# 113 [6 May 2008]

A busy day today with many things to think about - progress with our BMPD Professional Development initiative, planning Eastbourne Festival 2009 as I have recently become a Director of the new Eastbourne Festival company, and, now that we have been given funding  for it, planning the next stage of Breaking Ground.

I'm still puzzling over how to mount and count the dandelion fairies, with little success. I have ordered my greenhouse & marked out its area in the studio. It is small - 144cm x 71cm x 191cm high. Just big enough for one person to stand or sit in. I put my chair in the space to make it mine - My Space.

# 112 [5 May 2008]

I have decided to order a greenhouse - just a little one. The sort that comes with a tubular steel frame - a bit like the frame of the gazebo we used at our Allotmenta Open Day - and a pvc cover - almost a cross between a greenhouse and a polytunnel.

As a child, my Uncle had a market garden & the memory of the smell of warm, moist soil and ripening tomatoes is still strong in my mind. Greenhouses are places of potential, productivity; places where natural processes are rapid and rampant. Things happen there. Exciting things, unexpected things.

# 111 [4 May 2008]

Last week I cut all the 45 dandelion flower and seed heads that have grown on my doorstep dandelion in the last couple of weeks. I have pressed them in one of the wallpaper books which I was using on the allotment as a sort of experimental sketchbook.

I have selected 7 dandelion seed heads which appear to be completely intact so that I can mount & count the seeds. However, the "fairies" are almost impossible to see when mounted on paper, so I have been trying other ways of mounting them and discovered that it seems to work to mount them on glass. I have ordered some microscope slides.

Also been experimenting with drawing seeds & have gone back to our "School For Artists" starting point, using a technique which has been productive for Roz, but not for me - until now perhaps.

# 110 [1 May 2008]

BIRD BOX AND A GRANT

Two presents this week:

the first was a bird box made by my daughter - a home for the stuffed thrush.

The second was the award of an Arts Council Grant for the Arts for Stage 2 of Breaking Ground - Hooray. 

Now we have to get cracking with arranging the Project Room development work and Platform Evenings.  How will we fit it all in - exciting.

# 109 [30 April 2008]

DANDELION CLOCKS 

You tell the time:  puff as hard as you can to blow the seeds off  -  ONE O'CLOCK  -  blow again  -  TWO O'CLOCK  -  blow again  - THREE O'CLOCK  blow until all the fairies have blown away  - ELEVEN O'CLOCK.

Catch a fairy and make a wish.  Let it go again.

Dandelions - piss en lit - wet the bed - it is diuretic.

You can eat the leaves in a salad.

Coffee can be made from the roasted tap root. 

# 108 [28 April 2008]

COUNTING SEEDS

I think I might have developed a new obsession.

It started in a small way, counting the number of seed pods on an onion seed head & carefully mounting them in my workbook.

Then I started "deconstructing" an artichoke seed head, numbering & mounting every stamen & carefully putting away the seeds to follow suit with them when time allows.

Last week, I noticed the dandelion growing outside my front door & wondered how many seeds were on each "clock". And how many "clocks" might it produce over the summer?

I'm horrified to report that during my counting activities this week, I've discovered that it has already produced 45 "clocks" so far since it sprang up a week or two ago! Today, I'm going to start mounting and numbering the seeds. Maybe then I'll draw them.

Note to Roz: why are they called clocks? And did you used to call them fairies when you saw them blowing in the wind?

# 107 [24 April 2008]

WE DID ANOTHER TALK TODAY

We did another talk (or two talks) today at the University of Brighton Printmaking Department. This was part of our Residency.  In addition to using the screenprinting facilities we have given student tutorials and this presentation. 

We focussed on How to create an Life in Art after University.  Each of us showed slides and talked for half an hour about how we had made an art life - the different mix of activities from applying to funding, creating residencies, getting awards, further study, leading workshops, making work and working in other jobs for money. 

There were lots of questions after and as always you learn so much from putting together a talk and presenting your experience to others.  You find a path through the muddle which clears the way to go forward. 

# 106 [23 April 2008]

TALK ABOUT THE WORK - CLAREMONT STUDIO, HASTINGS

We talked about Collaboration at the TATW last night.  We had planned our talks separately without consultation for the first time.  Each of us presented our view of working together and asked for comments and responses from the artists who had come.  

We wanted to notice what we had gained, and what we had lost from working together on Breaking Ground.  To consider how we work alongside each other.  To wonder whether we could adapt, improve, do it better for Stage 2 of the project.

We had some interesting and challenging feedback.  One person saw the working pattern as 'very female', 'no conflict'.  Someone suggested swapping a piece of work and the other person responding, making something with that piece.

For me it clarified the way I want to explore relationships and the avenues I do not wish to go down.

Annabel Tilley who organises TATW took some photos of the evening.  Esther Appleyard introduced and managed the evening.