ARTISTS TALKING

# 41 [12 July 2009]

The Baskerville House Exhibition was really successful. The venue was spectacular, a beautiful building in just about the most prominent position in all Birmingham.

As part of the exhibition there were two debates held in the exhibition room, hosted by Tim Marlow of White Cube. The guest speakers were Janice Blackburn, Matthew Slotover, Stephen Snoddy, Frances Morris and Artist Richard Wentworth to name but a few.The discussions were based around museums, art galleries and collections awith particular focus on the potential New Contemporary Art Gallery in Birmingham. This sounds really amazing and I can hardly wait until it's here.

# 40 [5 June 2009]

MY NEXT EXHIBITION 

 

Visual at Baskerville House 2009

presented in association with Art of Ideas II

FREE ADMISSSION

Open daily, 30 June - 12 July, 11.30am - 6.00pm Baskerville House, Centenary Square, Birmingham, B1 2ND

 

This exhibition has been selected from the Visual collection by Stephen Snoddy, Director, The New Art Gallery Walsall. He takes nature as his theme. ‘We have just passed midsummer’s day and my thinking is that we should celebrate the natural world and deliberately bypass the busy urban metropolis which is directly outside the doors of Baskerville House. City life is a fast accelerating life and time passes without contemplative thought and a slowing down is needed to appreciate the emotional impact of Nature and all that is imbued in it to survive the daily onslaught of the new technology media driven world that hinders our attachment to the enduring beauty of Nature in all its essences, outcomes, phases, beauty and cycles.’

 

Exhibiting artists: Daniel Bosworth, Ian Bratley, Louise Cattrell, Sarah Chapman, Ravi Deepres, Anne Guest, Paul Hirst, Nigel Jackson, Chris Keenan, Susan Laughton, Betty Pepper, Steve Speller, Sonia Stanyard, Pamina Stewart, Kate Walters, Stuart Whipps and Simon Withers.

 

Visual at Baskerville House - FREE Exhibition Tours:

2 July, 12.30-1.30pm

9 July, 5.00-6.00pm

Please book at katja.ogrin@artsandbusiness.org

# 39 [5 June 2009]

I went to Derby University Degree show today and really enjoyed the work on exhibition. It was a diverse mix of work as is usual in degree shows but the work was of a very high standard, which is not so usual in degree shows. So congratulations to all involved, for what it is worth, I thought you did a really god job!

# 38 [29 May 2009]

IM A DAD AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

 My wife gave birth to our second son today!

 We have named him Oliver William Hirst

He is as beautiful a creation as my first son and they are both by far the most amazing and wonderful things that I have ever come across.

Thank you to my wife, she is beautiful too!

# 37 [29 April 2009]

It's been a really busy week.

Time is at a premium at the moment and sleep is the casualty. For the last week the earliest I have been tucked up in bed is 12:30 am. The norm has been 1:30am and even 2:00am I'm having to get up at 6am at the momet to go to work, after work it is sorting my son out and and getting him to bed and then after dinner i finally have some time to concentrate on art.

Over the last week I have been in the studio a few nights preparing for my latest exhibition that I put up on Tuesday.

Last week I had the preview night for my exhibition at the university of Derby. It went really well and there seemed to be quite a lot of peole there to see the work. I also had another preview night on Friday which was at Derby Museum and Art Gallery. I have a painting in the current main show that is about imagined landscape. This exhibition uses the museums collection of landscape and exhibits this work along with work from a few invited artists dealing with landscape in the present. I was privilleged to be asked to be part of it and was extremely happy to see my work exhibited alongside works by Lowry, Joseph Wright and Michael Porter.

Last week was a week of proposals. I had to write quite a lot of proposals and this has been the main reason for so many late nights.

 I have finally had indication that my materials budget may soon be paid, I hope so as I need to start making some new work.

# 36 [20 April 2009]

I'm sat in the garden after a hard day of work watching my son play with his cars, he's being extremely creative with everyday garden objects making bridges, tunnels with all sorts of imaginative ramblings exuding from his little person. He is really happy. Sitting watching naturally led to reflection of my own creativity which to be honest s a little bit stagnant at the moment.

I'm extremely busy balancing work, preparation for exhibitions, proposal writing, preparing for a new baby due any time now and being dad to a lively, demanding and lovely little boy. There isn't much time left to creating art at the momet. I'm getting into the studio a couple times a week but this is mainly for the purpose of preparation that needs to be done. I've run out of paints, stretcher frames and a host of other materials and have come to a bit of a standstill. I am still hoping and praying for my materials budget to come in, hopefully it will arrive to coincide with the end of these exhibitions so I can start afresh and concentrate my artistic time solely on some new creative work.

Oh to be as free and imaginative as a 2 and a half year old child.

 

# 35 [10 April 2009]

Yesterday was hanging day for my latest exhbition. I'm exhibitng at the Corridor Space Gallery, University of Derby. The exhibition runs from next wednesday 15th April through to Wednesday 6th May. There is a private view on Wednesday 22nd April from 5pm.

I am exhibitng with Fine Art Photographer Marc Redford and we are showing work that was commissioned by the Cavendish decorative and fine art society based on "Hidden Derbyshire" My work is relating to the experiences of the derbyshire landscape and Marc's work is a collection of fantastic photographs of the interior of the crescent building in Buxton that has been left to dereliction over many years.

If yu are in the area please come and have look.

It took us about 5 hours to put up the work an we think it looks great.

This exhibition brings me to a time for new work and new ideas so I am really looking forward to the next few  months of push my work on and in new directions. It is really great to get commissions but they can restrict the creative process and artistic freedom.

I look forward to posting some new work soon

# 34 [4 April 2009]

I had a really encouraging meeting with the people at Arts and Business this week. The represented artists for the East Midlands region came together to meet each other and to discuss the future with Arts and Business. The people at Arts and Business are really nice and really seem to know what they are doing. I am looking forward to the forthcoming year and hope that we will all be busy.

I have to prepare for an exhibition this week. I install the exhibition on Thursday so I have still got a lot to do. I will go into the studio tomorrow and expect to be in most nights of the week. I have all the usual mundane tasks to do, painting edges of canvases, attaching hooks and spacers, mounting etc.

I have a backlog of proposals to write and at the moment the only time I have to work on them is late at night and I am finding it really difficult to concentrate. I know i must knuckle down and get them done!

I am looking forward to starting some new work shortly. As soon as my next few exhibitions are completed I can concentrate on something totally new, I don't know what yet, which is quite exciting.

# 33 [11 March 2009]

Today I was part of a creative careers event at Derby University. I had been asked to be part of a Green Room of experts to advise students on starting businesses after graduation.

It felt really strange as this time last year I was one of the students and I am certainly not an expert on starting businesses but everything went well in the end despite my worries about lack of credentials and experience.

It was really great to talk about my experiences of leaving University and setting up as sole trader as an artist. We discussed the importance of networks and also of having confidence in yourself as an artist and in the work you produce. We talked about how the current economic climate has effected the art market and stressed the importance of trying to keep a momentum going, planning for the future and being prepared to work extremely hard.

Dylan Jones, Editor of Britain’s best-selling mens’ magazine GQ was the main guest speaker who spoke immediately before ours slot started. He proved to be a very educated, intelligent, articulate and funny man which really set us up for a fall, with a an untenable position ahead of us we all did our best and managed to come out relatively unscathed, I would like to think that what we had to say was useful. It was certainly a useful experience for me.

# 32 [24 February 2009]

I haven't submitted a post for a while, things have been really hectic what with work and art. I just haven't had the time to actually write a post.

I've been into the studio on Friday and Monday for the past three weeks. I hae started 2 new paintings and finished off a few others.

I've had a few rejections in the post for some applications although there are still some outstanding opportunities that I am waiting to hear about.