ARTISTS TALKING

# 41 [15 February 2009]

feel I should try to say something about the last few days. I feel like I am on waltzer 24hours a day, everything is streaming together, in a jerky, not-relaxing kind of way. Overall I am happy this morning, having had a couple of hours sleep and lots of good feedback about my work. lots of things have happened and I don't know where to start. got to get family up and out of the house so I can reset the hotel room and partner can ferry children to various activities, so in a rush at moment. I can't believe what people get up to when they have 20 minutes in a hotel room - they certainly don't treat it like a gallery.

hotel very hectic, staff not very helpful, churny tummy, lifts broken, non stop conversations and dashing around, sudden snow storm so I had to abandon car and sleep at a friends, then wear all her clothes on my opening day, tired, dry mouth, nerves, excitement, thrill, strange encounters. what will I do when it's all over.

# 42 [16 February 2009]

It's all over. It took most of the day to pack up and return various belongings to various friends, having lived an itinerant lifestyle for a week. I'm deeply exhausted and deeply safisfied.

I had an overwhelmingly positive response to my piece, and had to turn lots of disappointed visitors away, who had heard from other Coastival-goers that the 'chamber-maid' was one of their highlights. I re-jigged the bookings to fit another 7 slots in on Sunday and still had to turn folk away.

So I'm thrilled with the response, although I am already refining the piece in my head, and feeling a bit niggly about the bits I wasn't 100% happy with. Some people are never satisfied.

Children are demanding to know what the schedule is for half term. Friend coming to stay tomorrow with two small children. I just want to sleep...

# 43 [22 February 2009]

This must be the comedown. Even when you know what it is it's not much fun.

# 44 [23 February 2009]

I'm still having wild dreams where I am hauling projectors up endless dusty staircases, unable to find the right hotel room. I just haven't had a moment to mentally or emotionally process anything yet, having had an old mate and her two kids all squeezed into the house for a week, with lots to do and talk about. Youngest child goes back to school tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to an empty house. Got toothache today too.

Here are some pics of the film which was projected in the window of room 315, viewable from the street all night. It caused a bit of a stir amongst late night drinkers. It's quite a lighthearted video of me doing daft things, (ungainly star jumps, crawling, jumping about, waving) interspersed with giant close-ups of my face.

For those that saw inside the room it offered a very different perspective on the character who inhabits the room.

# 45 [4 March 2009]

I've been delaying posting a blog until a disc of images of 'Chamber Maid' arrives in the post from Julia Gatie, photographer. I'm not patient enough though, so that will have to follow. I do want to try to articulate that piece on the blog at some point though.

In the meantime I am experiencing my first calm week for ages. No 'chamber maid', no house guests, no Creative Partnerships deadlines (I'm a freelance Creative Agent), no urgent need to do a food shop/ mouse-proof the kitchen/ go to the dentist...

Most of these tasks are behind me for the time being, so I can finally let it all sink in and relax.

Or, it turns out, I can spend 3 days solid catching up on book-keeping and emails. Now my neck and shoulders hurt, and I haven't even finished my books. Thinking about money has led me to reflect on recent developments and plan for the next phase - always striving to get the right financial/creative balance.

# 46 [4 March 2009]

I've got a terrible dirty secret and I need to confess. I've been paying a woman to clean my house. She's been doing it since November, but it just never seems the right time to mention it.

Then a friend said that she'd noticed I was talking about housework less in my blog and I knew I had to come clean (so to speak).

It's the most wonderful thing ever, I get genuinely excited about coming home to a clean house on a Monday. I make the whole family tidy up on a Sunday. It's no longer my burden and I feel liberated.

How I reconcile this with my feelings of guilt about paying another woman  to clear up my sh*t is confusing. Like any number of guilty transactions (clothes from Asda, imported apples etc). And for that matter, why do I still see it as 'my' sh*t not 'ours'.

I've also (obviously) stopped adding to my jars of dirt and dust from the house, so that piece of work is on-hold until further notice. Which also makes me happy.

# 47 [4 March 2009]

A list of good things that have happened to cheer me up.

1. I've been invited to talk at the AIR open dialogues in Sheffield. A great opportunity. For me, words always flow better as written text, than when they come out of my mouth, but I'll give it a shot.

2. I've decided that my luxury item on my desert island would be a pair of robins, perfectly adapted to the climate, but outwardly identical to British robins. It's been worrying me for years that I couldn't think of a luxury that I would actually want.

3. I'm working on an artist's book to document the work produced during my ACE funded R&D year - working with a really good designer, Adrian Riley from Electric Angel

4. My secret about the cleaner is out in the open. phew.

5. I've decided to make more time for networking in West Yorkshire - we've lived here nearly a year, and I do really like it, but need to be more 'part of it'.

6. I'm going to Venice Bienale - partner bought flights as a surprise Valentine gift. Not bad eh?

7. the days are lighter, the sun shines a bit more now, which makes everything a bit more cheery.

# 48 [8 March 2009]

Here are a couple of pictures of elements of 'chamber maid'.

I'm going to try to put some clips from the films onto youtube, but BLIMEY doesn't it take a lot of time to keep on top of your internet profile. My website's still under construction (Mrsite wasn't as easy as the packaging promised, so I'm going to enlist professional help), my Axis page took two hours to update last week, and still needs lots of images uploading, I've joined platform58 but not got round to actually doing anything with it, and I haven't even started with youtube.

# 49 [16 March 2009]

It's about time I wrote some sort of description of and about 'What the Chamber Maid Saw' - for some reason this task has grown into a monster in my head - not sure why, but can't be bothered to dwell on it - there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason about which tasks 'bother' me and which ones don't.

My particular area of interest is around gender roles in domestic labour, contemporary roles for parents, fantasy roles, exploring private and public identities.

My work often involves a voyeuristic element, as I create environments that reveal traces of inhabitation or human activity. The space and the objects within are cast as witnesses to an event, and the audience is left to imagine their own narrative. Collections of dust, dirt, detritus and bodily emmissions are often gathered as evidence of a life lived, of feelings and strong experiences.

This installation incorporated all of these things. Room 315 in The Grand Hotel revealed the story of the absent female tenant, and was open to a lot of different interpretations by viewers. Visitors booked the room for 20 minutes, and were left uninterupted to poke around in drawers and cupboards. They then checked out and returned the key. The crumbling grandeur of the hotel also deserves a mention as part of the visitor experience.

The drawers in the bedroom each contained a pair of womens knickers with photographs of details of the room stitched into them. Some are funny - a light switch, or a fire exit sign in a gusset. The knickers range from the extremely large and sturdy to the barely there.

The bed was covered in a shiny gold bedspread, with screens embedded in 5 windows, showing videos of close-ups of body parts - perhaps an uncomfortable reminder of the many people who had used this bed.

The hotel TV played a looped video of a woman in a sparkly dress spinning slowly round, arms outstretched, interlaced with footage of washing spinning in a machine - the two images fading in and out of each other.

The sparkly dress re-appeared hanging above the toilet in the en-suite bathroom, which also contained photographs of details of the room, and blurred polaroids of the woman in the sparkly dress in the bathroom.

The wardrobe had lots of empty honey jars and a felt cone dripping honey into an oval dish.

On the desk there was a clear plastic file full of index cards. Each card held a labelled packet containing human debris - hair from the plughole, nail clippings, bogeys - with notes about when where and why they were gathered.

A handmade notebook/diary offered more insights and intrigue.

So - I think you get some idea from that?

# 50 [24 March 2009]

I went on a brilliant course at the weekend - 'Crunch' video editing with Impossible Theatre. Had a great time, trying out lots of ideas and not worrying too much about whether or not it's 'good art'.

I'd like to get back to the studio and continue with this open approach. No deadline, no outcome required. That's always when the best things happen.

Not sure when I'll get chance though. Last Thursday I wrote down all the tasks I have set myself, then tried to allocate slots in my diary between now and September to get everything done. It was like a jigsaw with too many pieces and it's so hard to prioritise.

Being good at planning and organising my time is a double edged sword. It means I get a lot done, but I always feel under pressure, which makes it difficult to cultivate said 'open' approach. I feel like something needs to change, but not sure what. The Crunch weekend was a great breather.

I think part of the problem is that since moving I haven't really found any mates to relax and pass time with, so the busy part of my life  fills the gap. So - I'll add that to the list - make more time for making friends.