ARTISTS TALKING

# 57 [9 April 2009]

I am struggling to work out how to do something... how do I give myself a breather, feel happy with the progress I am making as an artist, and stop feeling intimidated by my lists (short/medium /long term ambitions v day-to-day life lists). It's making me grumpy.

ps. no mouse activity to report.

# 56 [4 April 2009]

continued from previous post (told you this was a subject liable to get me going)

So -  based on my track record up until 1997, and the small projects I'd done in the intervening 10 years, ACE were prepared to fund me for a research trip to Kyrgyzstan to learn yurt making techniques.  This trip changed my life. Two weeks without  mobile phone or email contact. I had no duty to anyone but myself. This was the start of things, and I've really got my practice at the core of my life again now.

I've had a couple of great mentors, Jane Sellars from the Mercer Gallery and artist Rebecca Chesney, who really gave me the confidence to make work from the starting point of my experiences as an artist and mother. This is what underpins all my work now.

My practice involves an investigation into how we become who we are. I had to undo the version of myself that I had constructed as a mother, and reinvent my artist self. Now I have to be vigilant, to nourish and feed life into both roles. We all 'get into character' for our different roles in life, but I observe, document and analyse these roles, looking for a revelation in the details  of domestic life.

I am interested in the way that subtle injustice becomes invisible, and therefore more insidious and undermining. In households with two heterosexual  parents working full time, the woman is statistically likely to be doing 80% of the domestic work in the home.

My work, my art, my life are all intertwined and overlapping, each one influences the other. My life is rich, my children are at the heart of every thought I have, my art tries to express something about the subtle hidden elements of family life. The process reflects the content, to the extent that I don't know which element influences the other more.

There are side effects to talking on this theme - it doesn't represent everything about my work, and some people enjoy looking at my work without ever knowing about this starting point, or identifying any feminist angle. This subject matter is an anathema to some people. I hope that the process of making the work is an evolutionary one, starting from the point of view of a parent, and resulting in something relevant to anyone. Some of the content of the work is entirely imaginary, mixed in with biographical information, which confuses and upsets people who think they know how I should be.

So - parent as artist - artist as parent is a big theme for me. And I haven't even mentioned the discriminatory aspect of many artist opportunities - particularly residencies, which offer accomodation for one person and require you to commit intensively for several weeks. It precludes parents from a significant income stream.

Ooh I'll be chuntering away all day now. Better go and see what the kids are up to - they've been worryingly quiet for ages.  

# 55 [4 April 2009]

OK - so - artist and parent.. 

I became a parent in 1997, and immediately  came face-to-face with some hard realities. I had been living a very easy going hand to mouth existence up to this point, working into the night on art projects, living on pasta when the money stopped flowing, able to do things on a whim.

The baby cried a lot and slept very little - not usually for more than an hour, followed by a long period of crying.

I had always coped with difficult things in life through making art, and it just became impossible to do this. The baby needed me constantly, my partner worked long erratic hours in a theatre, and the only time I could afford childcare was when I was earning money. I carved out a living through developing and running various community based projects, flirted with health and arts work, managed an arts centre, and generally felt more and more despondent as I compromised my creative ideas to meet other people's agendas.

In 2003, after 6 years caring for preschool children I decided something needed to change. The options were;

1. run away and reinvent a new life

2. get my art practice back on the road, instead of a furtive, squeezed between other jobs, and hidden from prying eyes and sticky children's fingers type of activity.

The other persistent issue during this 10 year period was  a growing resentment that I seemed to be making all the compromises while my partner ran all manner of exciting events, worked all night, did things on a whim etc. It wasn't because he was callous, simply that his work earned money we needed, and my art practice didn't directly earn enough.

# 54 [3 April 2009]

Some other unrelated and non-mousey things that have happened lately;

I talked about my work at AIR Open Dialogue in Sheffield. I spent two days in advance of this worrying about how to say things that are both true and interesting, and clear without being limiting. I made myself a little collection of prompt notes on polaroids (it works like a list with no order of priority, as the polaroids open like a fan). The polaroids were a hit.

All that thinking about my work has made me feel like I'm missing something significant in the way I'm thinking about it. Not sure why I feel like this, but it makes it hard to relax.

I'm still trying to document new work for Axis and youtube. When I opened the bag of stuff from 'What the Chamber Maid Saw' the bedspread gave off a strong smell of the Grand Hotel. I've sealed it back in it's bag to keep the smell in.

I've filled in a long questionnaire from 'Creative and cultural Skills' about the needs of the visual arts sector. I tried to describe how it's sometimes hard to feel like I'm part of a sector. Then I answered an email from Andrew Bryant about the value of 'artists talking'. By the time I'd done that I had convinced myself that I feel part of an artist network. What's the relationship/gap between the sector and the network I wonder. Briefly. No time to dwell on it too long.

Andrew's asking me to write a post about being an artist and a parent. Where do I start? It's the subject of a thesis, it's at the root of everything I do... I'll give it some thought.

# 53 [3 April 2009]

The good news!

Wednesday night. We caught a mouse, by hand, in a tupperware pot. It was hiding behind the bread bin so we chased it into a tupperware pot by waving a wooden spoon at it. Then we threw a tea towel over the top and admired how cute it was, and how pretty it's little hands are (see fuzzy picture taken on mobile phone). Then we set it free outside. A great moment. Hopefully that's the end of the mouse saga.

The bad news!

Friday morning. There was a little very still tail poking out of the zapper this morning. I had to have sit down before I opened the lid to examine the dead mouse. I had convinced myself that there was only one mouse and we had caught it. I am sure anyone with mouse experience is chuckling at my naivety. I don't want to have mice any more.

# 52 [31 March 2009]

The snap traps are rubbish. We've gone high tech with some kind of electronic electrocutor mouse zappy thing. Youngest daughter cried so we said it would just stun them then we can set them free (not true).

Had nightmares all night - think it's guilt related due to knowingly lying to child and attempting to murder mice.

Huge relief to discover empty zapper-trapper this morning. Canny mice got the peanut butter from the back, thus evading the zap.

Mice 2, Masseys 0.

# 51 [25 March 2009]

The bloody mice are back! mouse poo in a spoon on the draining board. nice.

I've blocked all the holes I can find with wire wool and put two snap traps down. Relieved/disappointed to see they were empty this morning.

# 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.

# 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?

# 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.