ARTISTS TALKING

# 11 [10 April 2008]

Digswell fellows meeting, was positive. We seem to all agree on the fact that things do need to change quite drastically for the Digswell to survive and for it to gain some kind of reputation within the art world. A lot of what was said was answers to how we could move forward instead of just moaning about how things are now. We have a kind of action plan and conveniently have a Trustees meeting coming up on the 22^nd April where we will put forward our ideas for changes.

It really made me realise that it is actually the fellow's responsibility to be proactive and positive about the trust. We have all been for too long sitting back and expecting to just be part of a group and not building the group. We should have been putting in the time and energy to direct activities that build on the trusts development. I guess better late than never is the key now.

A side from this my work towards the Red Gate Gallery exhibition feels slow. I have been trying to not finalise anything and just continue with my work so when it comes round to the pieces I put in they are fresh and exciting. I don't want to fall comfortably in to doing and not focus on the ideas that I am dealing with. It's a balance between staying focused but not be tempted to conclude things. I need to remain playful with my exploration and allow the questions to keep coming.

I can feel pressure mounting in my head at the moment. I got that awful feeling of dread this morning that I hadn't felt so much recently. Think it's a combination of everything building. I'm never comfortable with stress but shying away from it won't get me anywhere. I'm hoping that a hardening in me will happen or maybe just getting use to it as a way of life.

# 10 [6 April 2008]

Last Sunday the Bargehouse exhibition ended. I spent the day around the show and had some really interesting discussions with visitors on that last day. Specifically memorable was a blind group that Rita had invited to the show. I was around photographing my work as they went round and therefore could discuss what my I was exploring and could get feedback. After they had been round there was a conference organised where they could discuss the show between each other and we were able to sit in and contribute to the discussion. It was a very positive activity and allowed me to really think about how art can be experienced in other ways. I had positive feedback from them and found it so interesting that for a piece that is completely about how we see things, someone with no sight could get an affect from it. It did provoke a long discussion about how we experience things and how it is changed when we don't have a particular sense. How does in restrict the perception of something and how does it heighten it?

Since last week I have started working for the next exhibition, ‘Living Space' at the Red Gate Gallery in Brixton. I made a visit to the gallery on Wednesday. It is just me on my own this time which as well as being daunting is also very exciting, allowing me to have more control over how and what I show.

Also going on at the moment is a feeling of shifting at the Digswell Arts Trust with the fellows. After a round of interviews for the vacant spaces things have been thrown up in the air with a real clash of views between fellows and trustees, which highlights some serious problems. I won't go in to too much detail at such a sensitive time but we have a fellows meeting on Tuesday to gauge how all artists are feeling and what we think needs to be addressed. It comes after a time where we were feeling that things were picking up. I am eager for us to use the momentum of late while it is still with us to push the Digswell forward, as many of us believe it so desperately needs.

Time and energy will tell.....  

# 9 [24 March 2008]

Two weeks into the show and yesterday I spent the day in and around the Bargehouse listening to peoples responses and chatting to people about my work and the show as a whole. It was great to sit by my work as an invigilator and be like an invisible bystander as people approached and honestly responded to what they where seeing. It was nerve wracking, hearing parents explaining to their children, people coming to their own conclusions really quickly, some people barely acknowledging it and some people really excited by what they where seeing, and really taking the time to explore how it works. It was difficult to not start explaining things to soon and not allowing them to experience the piece without being told anything.

I rotated round the gallery, spending a bit of time by other artists work and contemplating how people were finding the rest of the exhibition. Lots of people where really spending time working hard to look and take something from most of the work. It seemed to average out at about 30mins for each person spending in the exhibition. We had about 250 people yesterday and 400 on Good Friday, which feels incredible!

I also got to look at the photos that have been taken of my piece and discuss a little with the Photographer how it was for him taking then. This has been really helpful because the problems with floor and wall not being the same colour is something that has been bothering me but it almost took someone else to mention it for me to acknowledge it. I realise now that I should have worked harder at doing something about this and that a lot is lost by this problem. I am excited more than disappointed by this blunder because I can make sure that when I next construct it I will work harder at the things I know affect the piece. I will be more conscious of the way it's lit and the physicality's of the space. Big lesson learnt!

# 8 [17 March 2008]

A week in to the Bargehouse exhibition.

Setting up thankfully went without too much of a hitch. By the time the opening came round though it was difficult to relax and feel one way or another about the piece. Having been building up to it and thinking about it so much for a good few months I found myself thrown into an abstract feeling of relief and dread. ‘I love the piece' was said to me a few times and my paranoid voice silently replied ‘No you don't/ It's rubbish' I draw this thought back in and smiled to say ‘thanks'

I did have good feedback that I genuinely believed but what I enjoyed most was moments when people said how they felt about it and refered to the piece specifically. There was much encouraging responses when I could fight back my paranoid self.

I did manage to see Yara from the Red Gate Gallery where I plan to exhibit in May. It was very helpful to discuss this piece and how it might be constructed at her gallery. I feel like looking forward to the next is the most comfortable feeling for me now.

Next week I am invigilating at the Bargehouse and am looking forward to some thinking time around my piece and the others in the show.

I have a friend coming to take photos of it this week as well so I'm also really excited about seeing someone else's approach towards it.       

# 7 [4 March 2008]

This is the last week before the Bargehouse exhibition. I set up my piece in my studio last Friday so that I could set back and contemplate it, consider what might not work and really to help me answer a question screaming at me constantly...Is this any good? And more importantly is it interesting? I have become so involved, so consumed by it, spending most of my time building, nurturing and bringing it in to being, that judging it is like judging my whole worth as an artist, and extremely melodramatically, my life.  

However, amongst all this worry and anxiety I am actually hugely excited. It's a welling up inside of me that have built up since I have been working towards this piece. It's an unexplainable buzz- what a selfish act it is to be an artist, it feels so self indulgent. I pay out constantly for everything, materials, transport, time etc but somehow the financial side of it worries me the least of all at the moment. I sometimes stop and think, should I be worrying more about practical things in life? Pensions, mortgages, savings etc, but nothing has a point to it unless you create one. I see a point in me doing this, any other way and I would be unhappy and I believe exploring this way is a valid process. It is so unpredictable and allows continual amazement. It keeps me unsteady in my thoughts and my views and this is where I feel most comfortable.

I enjoy looking at my work and thinking what it makes me feel/think. It has made me think about how we represent something. How an environment can be drawn, and why it should be? How complex the experience of looking and response is, how it is so reliant on us being us, our experiences being similar to the others. It's this personal, yet not, that is intriguing. We seem isolated by our personal backgrounds yet linked by them. Recognising something seems so programmed, so scientific, so categorised, so beyond our own ability to be truly aware of the reality of the experience. It's like being blinded by our own humanness. The image can never be separated from the person.

# 6 [26 February 2008]

I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather this week. The times going faster and faster and I feel I still have so much to do. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I organise and plan, I still feel anxious. I can’t be in the studio today as I’m at work, so feel frustrated wanting to just be getting on. I’m sitting here listening to a discussion on the radio about anti-depressants. Everyone is so sad.  

I’m finding it hard at the moment to focus my ideas. I am trying to write an updated artist statement, I have so many old ones but things are always changing in my head. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to think about everything at once. What is my work really about?  I sat on my bed last night writing random thoughts in between having dinner and going down to continue with my website. Something like this…. 

Object-without meaningMeaning-without objectSignals. sculpture without surfaceSolid object/solid personDying object/dying personVoid filled/void emptiedVulnerability containing powerObjects?   Thought it might help. Once written down it might make sense… it didn’t. 

Previously that evening I had been talking with my boyfriend about the Children’s home in Jersey and what now that building had become. Was what had happened in there been left in there. I don’t mean in the ghost sense but more in the space and what it remembers through what people now know. If two time frames could be pushed together how would the space exist? Overlapped? 

Previous to this we were telling old ghost stories that I use to go round school as kid. They sounded so stupid coming out of my 25 year old mouth, but something still exists in them that conjure up the original fear and excitement

( www.christinabryant.co.uk )

# 5 [19 February 2008]

I have been continuing with the drawing part of my installation, transfering the image from the studio wall on to the boards that will be installed at the Bargehouse.The weeks seem to be flying by...

# 4 [11 February 2008]

Bargehouse Visit: 7^th February 2008

I met Rita at the Bargehouse at about 12pm. We walked round and she talked through her initial plans for how she thinks it will all go together and where she will be placing the different art works. We had a few ideas for me but there are a lot of obstacles with all the spaces. She left me to go round on my own, take some photos and think through how my piece might translate into the various different spaces.

With its four floors ranging from white washed brick, up to dark, dingy spaces with boarded up windows and fire damaged ceilings you feel a million miles away from the corporate and business developments of the area within which it stands and are thrown back to the past and the sites history. It has layers of it housed within the walls, with its vast empty spaces and eerie silence. The higher up you get the further away from a typical gallery space it is.  I find it such an exciting location that is just crying out to be utilised. There is so much to discover and explore. At 2pm a few other artists arrived to meet Rita and look round the building. It was the first time some of them had even been to the space so think it was a bit of a shock. I think the size of the building is the first thing that hits you, then its roughness. We all feel very excited about this opportunity to use this building and can’t wait to get our teeth in to the project!

I came to a decision with Rita to where I will be constructing my installation so went home feeling much happier, knowing that I had a real mission. It is in one of the more gallery type spaces with white walls, so have decided that using my own walls shouldn’t interrupt with the feel of the space and instead I am confident it will incorporate within it.

Having the actual dimensions and nature of the space, I feel I can storm ahead making decisions and get on with the next stage of constructing the piece with a new confidence and excitement. Now is the time to get the practical planning right and try to predict obstacles that may arise with the construction.

Rita sent me through a copy of the invites and posters today to proof read. They are looking good and I think they present the show very well. It’s all starting to get really exciting to see it all emerging.

# 3 [4 February 2008]

This week’s activity:  

I’ve been continuing to construct my installation drawing piece.  I’m pleased with how it’s coming along in my studio space but still anxious about how it’s going to work in the Barge House space. It feels almost impossible to envisage. Wednesday I’m going down to visit the space and discuss with Rita where the best place for it might be. Then I will have more of an idea of what will work and what might need working on more. I expect the space to affect the space but the uncertainty is always slightly unnerving.  

So far, the response from fellow Digswell artists has been encouraging and interested. I feel doing this piece has really focused my ideas in the representation of space through drawing and the simplicity of line, altering our vision and referring to somewhere else. I have found out a lot about perspective and how all the lines relate to each other, I has not been possible to just make it by judgement of the eye like when you draw space on a manageable sheet of paper. I have had to apply certain technical rules all the way through to keep it visually working…measuring, re-measuring, standing back, altering and so on. It's a very different drawing experience, it’s all stop-start and no flow. It builds up very slowly and quite often I don’t spot a mistake until I have done a good few lines from the wrong one and then discover the last days work needs correcting.

It is an illusion but does not hide what it really is and this seems to be what builds up the tension of the image. The permanent static drawn line which you expect to be solid is the thing that bends and distorts the piece. It makes the viewer aware of the feel of real space and illusion of space represented.

Photographing it then does another strange thing because it all becomes less clear what’s happening, as it all becomes 2d again. One space is laid upon another and flattened. The photographic progress changes the experience of the piece completely. It almost makes the drawn space more real.  

I am also going to build it up as more of an environment by extending it both within the wall and further into the actual physical space. As I’m working on it and seeing it emerge, lots of other ideas keep occurring in my head of things that I want to try next. I feel like I come away from the studio with nothing else on my mind but where is this going next? The questions keep surfacing.

# 2 [28 January 2008]

My week consists of three days at my part-time job, which helps pay the bills and Wednesday, Thursday and Friday working in the art studio at the Digswell Arts Trust.  

Last week the value of the trust really highlighted itself to me. Wednesday I got chatting to one of the other fellow’s who has been there for 5 years and is leaving in March due to the length of his time with the Trust being up. He earns his money making canvases for other local artists in his studio space alongside making his own work. After March when he looses this space he will have to find another place to continue making canvases and his artwork.  

We are all aware that this support is temporary and that it should be treated as a platform for us to then go on to become self-sufficient, but it still feels like a blow when someone goes and you see the struggles they face.  

Last week I have been continuing working on my piece for the barge house exhibition. I have been working on a perspective 3d/2d drawing. It has given me a few technical problems that I couldn’t see past for looking. Luckily, I could go to another fellow and get advice and discuss. It feels so much like a supporting network between us all. It isn’t exactly all happy families but we definitely can identify with each others exasperations sometimes.  I do feel like if I start going down that route of…what am I doing this for? I’m getting no where. Everything is crap! I can usually have a conversation with someone who can give me a bit of perspective (quite literally) and help me focus on the issue.   

Another fellow who is leaving because of not using the space due to illness also came in to collect her things. She said she will be working at her home now, but I feel for her because I do feel that isolation is the biggest hurdle for an artist.   

This week’s focus is working on this perspective piece and looking at different alternatives for ways to present it in the space.