ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [16 October 2008]

Hello, I'm going to make a start then.

I don't really like to use the word Artist to describe what I do, it has too much baggage attached. I'm just compelled to make creative investigations into things I find fascinating, which usually result in me making Stuff. Also there's already quite a lot of Stuff around so I might not always make something. That's okay too.

Sometimes I find it hard to talk to other people about all this, but I'm trying to get over it. After all, it's all just about Being Alive. I really don't like it when people use lots of long words, in fact I went to a party with lots of Philosophy graduates last month, and you know what? They used lots of long words to say nothing at all. Their opinions were simply dull and delivered with not much conviction. 

It's been an interesting month, what with the PRS application, suddenly I'm curating (and the main 'artist') for a sound piece in a nuclear bunker (funding permitting). Ian was really helpful and made me write it better.

Website is up there, half done, but there, and I'm getting my html chops up to finish the rest. Now my bread and butter writing work has dried up I've time to get Official, small toddler allowing.

# 2 [17 November 2008]

So, a month has gone by since my first post and I've actually done a fair bit. My website (www.nicolakearey.com) is up and running and almost finished. It's really helped crystallize my work in my own mind, but I've had to keep it concise otherwise I will find myself just feeding the monster all the time. 

I had a letter from the PRS but it was only to say they hadn't decided who was getting funding, but at least mentioned when the decision is going to be happening (17 Dec - the date now etched in my mind).

 I've met with Mike Hawkins in Cambridge who is putting on a live art event in December and I hope to be contributing with some live Shadow drawings, as long as there is adequate lighting that is! 

Also was happy to supply Gbenga with some sleigh bell recordings as I've got my new soundcard and can make beautiful noise with my laptop. Went and saw Jack's Wolf People and plans have been hatched for a new project with him and Ian, just got to get my Folk head on now.

Hopefully I will have my studio area finished soon so I can start painting again, it's well overdue. Just waiting to hear from Theatre Resource if I can use their rooms to mark out my canvases with the data projector too.

So not too quiet... only thing is as the dribbles of writing work appear I do have to drop everything as it's money in the bank. But I couldn't have a nicer client. 

# 3 [18 November 2008]

Another one of those sleepless mornings, my brain's ready for action at 5.30am. I was thinking what a great tool this blog is, helping my solidify my work that exists both in and out of my head. It's a good way to record otherwise transient thought processes. It makes working in isolation seem not so bad, having an imaginary audience.

I'm constantly having a dilemma about whether to make new Stuff, because there is already so much Stuff in the world. I am compelled to do it, so I wonder whether it is the process or the end result that is important. Some things are bugging me because they still only exist as an idea, so maybe this is the way to edit out the duff stuff.

# 4 [24 November 2008]

What a fertile few days... I've had lots of ideas and have started sketching in pen again. Very simple stuff but nourishing in a strange way. Having to think about what to put in for a new open exhibition and remembered yes, I actually have done some painting this year.

Really been inspired by a few of the artists on the Creative 30 competition. It's okay to have loads of clutter - they do too! And thank god, because I can go back to using some of it. I knew it was there for a reason...

Picking up my trestles tomorrow so I've nearly got a proper place to work. 

# 5 [9 December 2008]

December certainly seems to be already a month of contrasts. I've visited Christina Bryant at her studio whom I first met doing a very inspirational talk at Wysing. I'm looking forward to keeping in contact with her.

I've finally been sent the (somewhat rudimentary) score for the Headfuck piece that I'm performing with the Wrong Ensemble on Friday. Very excited to be doing an oboe performance so unlike what I am used to, without conventional notation or playing/improvising with 'feeling'. And with a composer and performers I've never met. 

Three pieces have gone off to the Margaret Harvey Open, which was a bit of a trial with parking and traffic. Mounting the pieces was a shambles so I am crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Not the way to operate really.

At last I've a chance to do some process testing with my latest project (shamelessly motivated by cash, while awaiting funding outcomes for other projects). Good to get my hands dirty again! 

I've had a brainwave about making an ergonomic china mug, just need to locate a pottery drop in now. 

 Then what do you know, I have to drop it all to earn a crust copywriting for my main client.

# 6 [10 December 2008]

A day of results.

My application to Axis has been accepted, excellent.

I also got in to the Margaret Harvey Open, good. 

Also, I've started testing my phototransfers on linen, and reminded how I love working with physical things, unlike computers, where everything seems unreal. I feel like I'm Doing, however, there are two bad habits that have tended to surface.

The first is that by simply doing, I am making good work because the toil is there. DANGER!

The second is that being surrounded by artists materials is that I start buying into the persona of the Artist, and get carried away imagining my virtual smock and beret....'look at me I'm an ARTIST!' oooh look at all my lovely paints and brushes. This is similar to a feeling I sometimes get when doing practical work....'look at me....I'm DRILLING!' etc. Not good, ego derived.

Both these things disrupt and can hijack the creative process in a bad way. 

# 7 [15 December 2008]

I'm going to write a post-performance offload of the Headfuck piece I did at the IMT on Friday 12 Dec. I attended only two rehearsals, so I started a day later than everyone else and had to be the new person for a while. Soon enough we were all at the same point and the other performers were all very interesting people.

I wrote earlier about the score being rudimentary. I couldn't have been more wrong. It was the most complicated thing I have ever played, but, having said that, after a few rehearsals my brain began to assimilate information in a new way, and I was progressing toward success rather than the perpetual failure of the first attempts. 

For just a few minutes afterwards, my ears had a new way of hearing. I was able to discern new sounds amongst the cacophony of urban noises on the bus to the station. The sounds had always been there, but I had become newly aware of their order and sequences as I’d been listening in a different way during the Headfuck rehearsals. This soon faded as my brain assimilated and ignored as usual the wealth of ambient noise.

It was a battle when performing the piece, in the sense that you were trying to listen to certain people (who you needed for triggers) and trying to ignore those you didn’t. Normally one tries to listen to the whole (including oneself) and play your part according to the feel, etc. And we weren’t supposed to be playing ‘with’ each other, but outputting purely what the instructional score dictated. Nevertheless, there were some quite nice moments, in the conventional tuneful sense (although this is not the point). 

Having an audience made the duration of the piece contract, we'd been consistently playing it for around 20-30 minutes, I was concentrating so hard each time the minutes passed quickly. They all started shuffling around the ten minute mark and then settled again. Even the performers had difficulty knowing where the end was...but finally there was some applause.

# 8 [4 January 2009]

(PART 1)

So time for a little round up now of 2008, so much seems to have happened since I started this blog in October.

Christina Bryant won the Margaret Harvey Open, thoroughly deserved, although I must say that I thought some of the other works that made it in were of dubious quality, and I did not agree with some of the other judging decisions. I concede it must be very hard to mount such an exhibition and achieve any kind of cohesion. I went to the award ceremony and was disapointed with the placement of my works, and the general jumble of so many pieces on the walls. I imagine a Royal Academy effect was desired, but it was far too crowded for that. When the winner was announced I immediately started clapping (on my own) as everyone else didn't seem to know what the piece was. Much to my husband's enjoyment and my embarassment, the clapping was not picked up on, until everyone had oggled the piece, mad a two second judgement about it, then clapped as per society conventions. So I had my own little clapping performance piece while the husband guffawed behind his hand.

It made me think about all the different spheres of the 'Art' world, how disjointed and separate areas can be. Because some of the very respected photographers I know wouldn't have got anywhere near that exhibition, which had always seemed more 'local', yet their work is the very best in contemporary.

My funding for the nuclear bunker project did not get accepted, but things have been progressing so fast, I've barely noticed because I'm on to the next idea(s). A bit like records, they tend to come out so late after the work was recorded, they can loose their freshness. Now I'm all for percolation of ideas, letting them settle, but there is definitely a part of me that needs to investigate Freshness and Immediacy. Getting new work out there asap. Hold that thought.

# 9 [4 January 2009]

(PART 2)

Regardless of personal motivation, Xmas simply forces me to come off the boil a bit, due to family commitments and the crazyness of the season. However, I'm newly invigorated by a load of illustrators I found on a little google journey that's taken a couple of weeks. My passion for drawing or doodling has been reignited through some very talented people, who are all younger and more attractive than me and seem to have this secret coolness that I missed out on. More importantly, they all seem to be DOING IT, ie working. There's so many of them too. It's so overwhelming but I'm curbing my doom laden instinct by just doing what I feel. Is there room for another? I do feel though that I might have a few commercial ideas that are untapped and could raise a few beans.  I'm also working on a sort of artist's book, and this is another recently discovered world that already seems saturated with artists, along with typography.

These are all old passions that until recently haven't seen the light of day for years but I'm reminded that I really used to enjoy them, and rejected them because I had a big moral crusade that they weren't useful or practical. Anyway, I've got over myself now and can do the practical, leaving room for the beautiful and pleasing.

The remaining wringing of hands concerns just how to get all of this creative body of work (both realised and unrealised) to be cohesive. It's a little frustrating as the world seems to continually compartmentalise creative work so when you work in lots of areas where the narrative of contemporary practice is at different points, or overlapping, or ignorant of others it's hard to know where you sit.

And where am I heading? With another baby planned for next year, I will be carving ever smaller chunks of time for me and my work, literally forcing a jekyll and hyde approach. I've decided not to be too hard on myself, and just do what feels right, until I have more time and can reach a confident decision about direction.

One of my doodles says

'IT CAN BE ALL THESE THINGS'

so we'll see. 

# 10 [11 February 2009]

Well over a month since my last post, and it has been a strange one. It's been hard to summon the impetus to retain any offical creative flow, but an artist curator in Milan has shown some interest in my Flyover series and possible sound works as well, for an upcoming exhibition in Italy so I'm curious to see what happens.

I like to remind myself that inspiration and influence for me is ongoing and more commonly occurs outside the remit of conventional research and creative practice. Like going to the supermarket for example. Or being turned on to Richard Feynman's way of thinking through some great YouTube links a friend sent me. TO summarise, it's ok if you don't know the names of stuff, but it sure as hell helps when you're trying to talk to others about it!

Very strangely, a few of my peers and all seem to be thinking at the moment about diversifying into other creative areas (naming creative and comedy writing, plus what I call Money Paintings). Some for all too obvious monetary reasons, others purely for exploration. So the future fruits are a yet unknown species, and may involve psuedonyms for logistical reasons.

I have started an Artist Book (as I believe they are called); as you may remember Dear Reader I have been doodlling and think I have found a way to group pieces together cohesively. 

Lastly a pause for thought to consider an artist friend who is contractually stuck in a creative partnership hole, trying to get out but caught in much red tape and need to earn a living. How lucky I am that I swan about pretty much free creatively, with purely time constraints and the wants of a small toddler to butt against. If I had to work in a certain way, day in day out, with someone I no longer cared for artistically or emotionally I would be very sad indeed.