ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [1 February 2008]

So Re-Connections then... Sounds good! Its that getting started thing, the blank canvas. But now its a blank screen with an even more unknown audience.

This blog has come about as a result of putting together a proposal to the Arts Council G4A to develop my practice... with particular reference to a residency I have developed with the National Trust in West Penwith: The Bosigran Project.

On one level this blog is about the development of the Bosigran Project, on another and perhaps more fundamentally it is about the development of my practice.

Firstly a bit about the Bosigran Project, then I can put it to one side and focus on my practice (if it is possible to make such a divide...).

Bosigran is an area of land sitting on a shelf above the sea under the harsh granite shrewn moorlands of West Penwith, dominated by Carn Galva (protector in Cornish). So if you take a trip west down the A30 as far as you can go without getting your feet wet, well you'll be close by. It is a magical landscape with layers of history going back to Early Neolithic times c. 3800BC when Galva was probably an ancient Tor Enclosure, the most westerly of a chain of Tor Enclosures covering Cornwall that acted as a central point of exchange for the area.

The residency involves developing context specific work - working in the space of conversation, becoming as deeply embedded in the layers of socio-cultural history/contemporaenity as possible; a process of research and engagement that will result in a fortnight of site specific work in September based in and around Bosigran. Aware of the possibilities to extend this into a much wider project involving other artists and creating a real sense of critical dialogue around the project, we are looking for funding to commission a small group of other artists to work on the project leading to an ALIAS Seminar at the end of the fortnight... and have set up Bosigran Arts an artist-led group to this end.

So that is it for the project management bit,  the over view etc ... now to put the focus clearly back on that part of Re-Connections that is around the development of my own practice. I am absolutely determined that what ever the pulls of funding applications etc, I am going to use this funded(!!) time to take my work somewhere its not been before, and this blog is going to be a process alongside mentoring that will help keep that on track. So you'll not hear much more about Bosigran Arts, about funding or any of that side of the project but you will hear about my own practice and the role that working collaboratively plays in it. This is a promise to myself. Please, anyone reading this, call me on it if I depart into the realms of project management!

# 2 [8 February 2008]

A bit of a mixed week... lots of ideas earlier in the week which are all scribbled down so they don't get lost.

I've pushed ahead with the background research... I've been trawling through 19th century census results and apportionments in the Cornish Studies Library. That was a really strange experience as they are all on microfiche, something I haven't used for over 20 years.

Also been in the National Trust office playing around with Map Info, a GIS mapping programme they use for landscape based work-planning and trawling through their Intranet looking at strategies etc... This project is very much about working within relationships whether that be conversations with tenant farmers and wardens, or the wider working of the organisation. Interested in layers and layering... layers of history and pre-history and also interested in using the tools that the Trust uses in its day-to-day work within the making process.

Reading what I've just written I am wondering why I started by saying its been a mixed week... probably the effect of going down with a cold! The week was overshadowed by ongoing discussions around a relationship central to the project - it looked as if we were just going round in circles. But tonight I heard that the problems were due to nothing more than a misunderstanding and are resolved! Great as it now means I am going to be able to push on with the real research, meeting people, developing relationships, listening and seeing where it goes...  

# 3 [8 February 2008]

I've just been trawling through my iPhoto library uploading pictures and realised there was something I had missed writing about - 'Grace's House'.

I came across Grace's house when out walking with my partner some months ago half a mile from Carn Galva. Its an old tumble down granite one room 'house' that probably I have since found out dates back to the 17th century. What fascinates me about it though is what I came across inside - three pairs of old child sized iron bunk beds!

Steven my mentor asked me what it was that drew me to them... something I've been wondering on... revisiting some missing childhood place, feeling connected to something, recreating story, creating memory? Perhaps creating self... not sure, something to keep wondering on.

Anyway I spent three/four hours up there the other day drawing and taking photographs, in that space where you become so absorbed in what you are doing that you don't notice how cold you are until you stop. I became fascinated by ideas of uncovering story and started playing out the role of archaeologist, the most insignificant pieces of rubbish became embued with significance as I recorded my 'finds'.

What is quite strange is that the more I research, the more I come across about this tiny home. But no where, not in accounts of its grade 2 listed status or recent writings about the history of the hamlet does it ever mention the bunkbeds. Why are they there, where did they come from.... stories of evacuees come to mind, I do know that until comparatively recently it had a 'replacement' tin roof... Something for my enquiries... 

As I write I am wondering at the relationship between the unearthing of my stories and the stories of the beds, with the wider story of a landscape that tends to be defined more by what it was, than by what it is to become. It is now part of the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site, ESA, SSSI, AONB etc etc. Where does living tradition in a contemporary world find a voice amongst the initialled designations and picture postcard images?

# 4 [13 February 2008]

Had a really important meeting today which sorted out lots of outstanding issues around working space and practicalities. I'm going to be based in an old cowshed! It will create issues around damp (used to that in West Cornwall..) but somehow it all feels part of working off site and I am excited, but also feeling apprehensive as it means I really have to get on with things... Doubts (the self doubting variety) keep trying to creep in, but increasingly now a days I can see them coming, see them for what they are, sift out the useful bits of learning, of development and leave the rest, put them gently to one side. Long may it last!

I am going to hold on to the sense of excitement and opportunity... and the incredible setting to work in. I just can not describe how breathtakingly beautiful Bosigran was today, drenched in sunshine facing the sea.

# 5 [21 February 2008]

Layers & networks... connections across time & (s)p(l)aces...

Playing around in my head, researching, some really good conversations with other artists... but also beginning to play with materials, drawing, layering with photoshop, lots of beginnings - bit like a rabbit down a warren at the moment, could go anywhere!

Started to look at  Postmodern Geographies: Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (Edward Soja). Also planning the ALIAS seminar with Andy, thinking about the curating but also the practicalities, like having fun. It should be a good weekend (19th - 21st September) - watch this space!

Off to the top of Galva now to try & work out the archaeology and yes, do some drawing! 

# 6 [21 February 2008]

A mid winter day up on the top of Galva, far removed from the hint of Spring we've been used to. Spending an hour or so up there taking photos and drawing, it is easy to see why people who lived up there in Early Neolithic times moved down to lower ground when the climate changed - will we adapt so readily?

Having spent so long poring over archaeological surveys it was really good to just spend some time up there in an absorbed creative  space, pacing the ground, exploring, imagining myself into the tor enclosure. I had forgotten just how rugged it is up there amongst the granite boulders on top of the carn - the google earth images flatten it. You really get a sense of how the enclosure would have been laid out for habitation and of the almost inpenetrable granite defenses to the north and south, and the sight lines reaching across Mounts Bay to the Lizard on the south and the Atlantic a mile to the north. Exhilerating.

# 7 [22 February 2008]

Had a really good mentoring session today with Steven. Useful initially in that it gave me something to pull things together for, to stand back from what I'm doing - I printed, photocopied bits of stuff I've been working on and pinned them up. Surprised myself in that it kinds of makes sense...!

Reinforced for me the importance/validity of that visual musing process or furrowing the soil as Steven puts in... and I could add in at times leaving it fallow... or 'set aside'... Discussed a fair bit around the need not to 'top load' it... to be confident in myself with my practice... that it is critically framed, it is political - can actually just get on with it, do the musing bit, do the play, the research - cos the rest is there and will come through.

Covered stuff around research-led practice, socially engaged/relational practice... role as artist working as agent within the system, as discursive agent within society... artist as conduit, tipping heirarchies up side down...

All good stuff. Now got an MA application to write. Followed by weekend - I have four children... don't need to say much more!!! 

# 8 [20 March 2008]

Its been a while since I've written here. Its a strange experience writing a blog; there's a conflict between the ever present feeling that this is going out into the public domain whilst if is to be worthwhile it needs to be honest, to describe the patches that feel dry and low energy, the set backs with funding, the batting your head against a brick wall experiences... So it is this latter place that has dominated the last few weeks. And I guess it can be as much part of the pattern of practice as the energised creative flows where almost in spite of yourself wonderful things happen - doors open and ideas stream.

But good things are happening. I am working with a group of artists really committed to the project (despite our funds being smaller than we had hoped) so something really exciting will definitely come out of it (and in terms of process and collaboration already is). I have a place on an MA at Falmouth in September. And I am beginning to get a feel for the shape of work that is coming out of the research... 

The next fortnight is pretty much taken up with children home for Easter and off to London next week for a National Trust/Arts Council conference (with a spot of gallery trawling thrown in for good measure!!).

# 9 [9 April 2008]

The London trip was really positive - The Bosigran Project received lots of support and encouragement at the conference which has boosted us all and bodes well for future developments... Meanwhile we are pushing on with funding applications for this year and developing the new organisation Bosigran Arts with support from The National Trust and Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange. An exciting programme is developing and a really good artist team in place to work with - Rebecca Weeks, Ian Whitford and Andy Whall.

# 10 [9 April 2008]

Off to the Royal Cornwall Museum in Truro again today - went last week but there was so much stuff to go through, I need at least another day. 

I found the most amazing documents from the early 1600's - original leases for Bosigran farm to tenant farmers, all hand written in English (Cornish although still the vernacular in the High Country of West Penwith, would not have been used for legal documents...) on what I think is vellum (must check out with the librarian today). They are folded up into irregular bundles and tied up with ribbon, one still has the original seal. You have to wear gloves to handle them. I felt really affected by them, not sure why... if I'd handled a piece of 16th century furniture I am sure it would not have had the same effect. I think it must be around the ritual of unfolding, of opening up a piece of someone's history; it felt so privileged. There is something here I need to explore visually and also something around collections and archives. I want to find a way to display the documents at the farm in September but there will be big issues over security to overcome first. It feels like they really should be seen, and preferably back in their original context.