ARTISTS TALKING

# 21 [21 June 2009]

Yesterday, I met with Jenny (I’m talking Hunt & Darton mode a bit now); we had our first activity day. To explain, we decided last month that we wanted more activity in our collaboration, less hard slog, but more opportunities to share physical activity together, of which this experience will feed back into our practice. We decided activity days, once every two months would suit as best, and that we would alternate in who would devise and organise the activity- anything from ditch walking (Holly) to a karaoke session (Jenny). This activity, not only allows us rest bite and the chance to make more of our lives like most that choose to pursue a recreational activity, it also allows us to experience further what it means to be human, what it means to have an activity, and hobby, a physical interest and in doing so what that teaches us about what it means to be human, beyond what we already know and experience and how those outside of a certain activity may see it as rather absurd behavior.

Yesterday’s activity day would focus on songs written by women for women, the majority of which reflect on love. This activity day was slightly more tailored to an up coming performance at a live art festival themed around Music in Norwich in July. After purchasing the top women songs compilation album, we selected lines from the lyrics that we liked, fragmented, ordered, came up with a few moves, my favorite an awkwardly long synchronized backing singer style movement, to no music and we couldn’t quite believe we had created a 7min performance! Not only a achievement in itself, and on reflection allowing us to see these success of these activity days, it also allowed us to work out that we can create 1 minuet of a performance per hour. Good to know!

A more epic activity starts next week. We are heading to Gower to take part in a horse riding week. I had proposed a residency period with Jenny for this Escalator project. With this recent interest in recreational residency and having already spent much time working in a theatre for a performance earlier this year we decided that this residency would be best for us if it were to incorporate some kind of activity. Accidently stumbling on an article in the local paper about a horse riding centre in Wales, we knew this was it. 

We have decided to keep a blog during the week, a separate one to this, so look out for it also on AN talking!

# 20 [21 June 2009]

Yesterday, I met with Jenny (I’m talking Hunt & Darton mode a bit now); we had our first activity day. To explain, we decided last month that we wanted more activity in our collaboration, less hard slog, but more opportunities to share physical activity together, of which this experience will feed back into our practice. We decided activity days, once every two months would suit as best, and that we would alternate in who would devise and organise the activity- anything from ditch walking (Holly) to a karaoke session (Jenny). This activity, not only allows us rest bite and the chance to make more of our lives like most that choose to pursue a recreational activity, it also allows us to experience further what it means to be human, what it means to have an activity, and hobby, a physical interest and in doing so what that teaches us about what it means to be human, beyond what we already know and experience and how those outside of a certain activity may see it as rather absurd behavior.

Yesterday’s activity day would focus on songs written by women for women, the majority of which reflect on love. This activity day was slightly more tailored to an up coming performance at a live art festival themed around Music in Norwich in July. After purchasing the top women songs compilation album, we selected lines from the lyrics that we liked, fragmented, ordered, came up with a few moves, my favorite an awkwardly long synchronized backing singer style movement, to no music and we couldn’t quite believe we had created a 7min performance! Not only a achievement in itself, and on reflection allowing us to see these success of these activity days, it also allowed us to work out that we can create 1 minuet of a performance per hour. Good to know!

# 19 [21 June 2009]

After a hectic week, I feel the need to write again. Not sure if its being led by guilt due to not writing for a week or guilt due to not focusing on any of my recent investigations for a week!

Although my current project is uninterrupted time for R & D within that un-interruption, there are interruptions, and this mainly revolves around my part time lecturing. This week however, it has felt more like 'full-time'. What with student shows, assessment and private views galore, I have been thoroughly transported away from a personal focus and sucked completely into the future of others- to be specific, art students.

This experience, although leaving me feeling slightly distracted for a week from my own work, has in away allowed me to reflect on my own journey since leaving my Foundation year in 2000. In doing so not only do I really feel my age, I also reminisce how exciting being an art student is and the impact it has on all you share life with- family, friends. Witnessing the faces of my student’s parents during the private view, I knew marked a shift in the relationship they would now have with their son/daughter. It was the start of something new and would be the turning point of which there would be no return. Gone are the A-level paintings, welcome to the real world- the art world! It has been a poignant week in many ways.

# 18 [7 June 2009]

As I mentioned this blog forms part of my current R&D project and is being used as a way to reflect on the project, share the project with others and log the project for future presentation and evaluation. Blogs are great for this and although I do not use a blog always, I have in the past used blogs alongside specific projects. An example is the use of a blog during a 23 days durational performance made with Ben for the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006. It became a great way for us to share the experience of the work with others, especially those not able to travel to see the work in edinburgh. It also acted as a shared space that Ben and I could both write on, but remain one document. The blog from Edinburgh is still being used by us now, not to write on but as material to feed back into live works, most recently the EEC performance. So loads of great reasons to use blogs both as tools but also as works in themselves. 

# 17 [7 June 2009]

continued from last post....

I have managed to cut down hours lecturing during this project and have regular mentoring, something invaluable when you have been making work for 8 years but still need now more than ever to discuss it with someone outside of the work. It has also allowed me to reflect and take time to digest the last 5 years of working predominately with Ben. This too feels initially unproductive but I need to keep reminding myself this ‘time’ is not for just doing, manically, but also thinking, looking back, drawing conclusions, analyzing what’s happened, where I am now, how I got here, where I want to go etc…etc….

Of course, I guess I’m sounding like I’d prefer not to have funding and that would be very wrong. I wouldn’t be able to sit down this afternoon, reflecting and writing this if I hadn’t got it, too busy with other stuff, and am unsure of the future after it, it has had such an impact on me as an artist, my work and its development and I am certainly in a different position than I was before it, professionally, creatively and within my own self confidence and clarity and its not over yet. What I am discussing in this post is the illogical feelings that sometimes arise when things are going well, in the hope I am not alone. It’s not a reflection of the funding system or of my views towards funding, but simply a sharing of my feelings and anxieties, however stupid.

To finish I had a funny conversation with a man in the pub last week. He asked me how I get paid as an artist. I told him about this recent funding, and how although it was not a long-term wage it was a chance to pay myself for some time out of my normal paid work to focus on the development of my practice. He asked where this came from, I answered, the arts council, he asked where do they get there money from I hesitated and suggested the government, he answered with, oh so its my taxes then… I replied, its not like I’ve built myself a duck pond or anything! The paranoia is setting in, its like some great big cycle that’s been in orbit for years has revealed itself and everyone’s got a heighten awareness of exactly how the system works…I laughed it off, justified the pint as not coming from the funding and luckily he broke into a smile too…I left the pub and headed back to my studio to bury the guilt!

# 16 [7 June 2009]

So...after these great chances to perform of late, I return to re-examining my Escalator project. Where am I in it? What have I done? How is it going? How’s my expenditure looking and where am I going to take the next 4 months of the project?

Its a funny thing really, your realise that when you finally get funding for something, in this case R&D to continue establishing a solo identity, developing new work with Jenny and Ben, raising professional profile, blog and creating a website, that you suddenly feel like you need to be busting your ass creatively to justify your funding, and on reflection the whole point of the R&D time is to not let this happen, this is what happens outside of funding right? When you’re balancing day jobs with creativity and working all the hours under the sun to get stuff done? Well no, in my case I’m still busting my ass, but I think that’s my own problem in not being able to fully manage funded time, its quite, in fact very, overwhelming really, which is essentially ridiculous, because we all know that it is more than okay to get paid for making artwork, that’s what we all fight for right? But it still feels weird when it happens and in a strange way you feel like you need to work double as you would normally to justify the funding, but we forget what we usually do is essentially for free, its hard to make that shift in what you already do for free to suddenly become funded for a while? It’s hard to shift mentally from making work for year’s predominately unpaid to getting paid and its easy then to overlook what you already do!

Don't get me wrong; the funding is great in allowing uninterrupted time to focus on my practice. And of course I’m making more work because I have uninterrupted periods of time to do so, however there’s always a niggling of expectation and the responsibility to do something productive or maybe I mean produce a product, because the project is funded. I guess when you work outside of funding, if its more risky it doesn’t really matter, but, although the funders have no expectations, somehow, I don’t know if its just me, I feel as though I need to do something really ground breaking!

(In two parts due to word count- this needs to be read with next part and doesn't exist without it!) 

# 15 [7 June 2009]

So...as I was saying the performance with Ben was very different. I was not having to remember any script or order, it was not rehearsed, i was not directly communicating with the audience, i was not alone. I was calm. I had after all performed the week before, Ben had not performed for 2 years, we had not performed together for two years. I felt older and wiser- more mature, more able to enjoy it. this marked an interesting stage in the history of Ben and Holly. It feels like a new chapter rather than a picking up of the old chapter. this is refreshing.

We read our journals from Edinburgh, simultaniously, we dunk past objects used in performances in paint, shredded journals and coffee, we repeat this.

It was durational- an hour, we could have gone on longer. It felt hard work and focussed. I felt it more deeply inside than recent performances. I think this is because the nature of this type of performance feels more soulful. Because of its absence in directness I could feel it more rather speak it. It wasn't just about the audience as the work with Jenny and recent desk work is, its about me and me and ben in this case, our relationship with each other and materials, it felt much more about my passion to be creative than a passion to be entertaining, which is not really a passion of mine, more of a tool to communicate stronger ideas.

Today I feel at home, the work with Ben has now had closure, I've got closure on it, and feel excited about the prospect of completing this new performance in the future. 

# 14 [7 June 2009]

The past weeks have been amazing in every sense, two performances in two weeks, both new work, both very challenging, both very new experiences, both very different works. It feels good to be in the middle of this thickness, full, fullfilled, exhausted, excited about the future and anxious...as always...sorry!

To sum up, which is the only way I feel I can discuss these events right now, I have learnt a lot. The junction performance, titled 'everyone standing around sniffing the platform at Hertford east' was me alone, solo and i was very nervous. The work had a lot going on in it, lots of ideas surrounding material, consumerism, control, performance for the sake of performing, the blurring of art and life, current PM spending issues, guilt to name a few. I was also in an office space, a statement in itself which i kept overlooking. I performed twice, i used dialogue and action, I knew what i was doing, I had a format, and script if you like and an order, to remember. One bit went out of order, it threw me, i rushed the rest, i was left feeling young, naive, exposed and the underdog, all of which felt worse because I was a 'escalator artist'-  someone whom had been invested in over other artist, selected on the basis of my work and practice and now this... (I was performing at an escalator venue), of course this is only existing in my head, it was not the feedback I got, not that the feedback i got was great, just non, and that the limited space of the office was interesting as the audience felt very near each other in a awkard way. It was also said to be very much about control- hilariously! 

The second day went much better, I had time alone, to digest the previous day, decided to change the beginning, I wanted to be in the room when people arrived, already doing something, so to dilute the start somewhat. I spent more time in the office space and began to see it. I decided to make more of the space, use its contents, celebrate its contents, call its contents the work- the printer turning out a sheet of paper, the phone on loud speaker, the opening of the windows, the light on and off. The highlight and most enjoyable moments was when I asked the audience to collectively help me move a book shelf across the office. The weakness, not knowing it was about control until after the performance. I felt i had found myself in the work more. I am left still questioning the directness of the performance, the direct communication with the audience? What my role is in the work?Who I am in this performance? Some people left looking like they didn't get anything from it, others laughing and smiling. 

The performance with Ben was very different... 

# 13 [29 May 2009]

From memory to desks....

To accompany last weekends performance and the general concern with desks, I have had over the past year, I have be working on an exercise I set my self a couple of months ago. I have been collecting photographs of myself sitting at other peoples desks. 'Where I work I don't have a desk". This work supports my ideas surrounding the power of owning a desk, its reflection of the human condition, its daily changing association to success, money, global issues, the blurring of art and life, processes, day jobs, always being between to things rather than being fully in one, and the history of the desk. Again, what could be perceived as a 'naughty' exercise, these photographs are taken without the desk owner knowing.

They are all taken using the self timer button and I only sit for a maximum of 30 seconds at each desk. I have tried to keep the pose consistent, but it is still very much a working idea.

The images shown were mainly taken at the college I work at, late one Thursday evening after everyone had left. 

# 12 [29 May 2009]

In addition to last week’s letters, I have also been physically representing the 'remembering' process- and exploring the use of a 'remembering game' if you like. Something that’s also came out of my workshop day in the village hall with Richard. He brought along some objects for me, a box of snakes, (quite literally) ribbon, chalk pastels, and a few other well-chosen items. I was immediately drawn to them, maybe because they were new to me? Maybe because they were nice objects, well chosen, complimentary of each other, if the mundane of objects can compliment. Colour wise they were appealing, warming; a breadth of pastel pinks, blues and greens...

I knew I wanted to respond to this desire, to everything about these objects, from the way they had been placed on the table by Richard to the space between each object, the composition and the very fact that at that moment I wanted them to stay like that for ever. My initial reaction was to pin these objects down, secure them, and keep them just the way they were- I slowly drew around each object using chalk. This in itself allowing me to spend longer with each object as this process required a slow action, thought and a focus on the circumference of each object.

It was this that led to considering the other things I wanted to keep hold of and lead me back to my thoughts on addresses and telephone numbers. What would happen if I forgot one day my old address? Or my parents address, my old, old address? Fundamentally I mean I would be okay, but would it scare me? I started to think it would, a whole memory wiped, a house wiped?