ARTISTS TALKING

# 31 [23 December 2009]

I finished a commission for Enchanted Parks in Gateshead a couple of weeks ago, which went well I think - a local photographic group very kindly sent me links to images they'd taken (see accompanying photographs). It turned out to be a bit of departure from the muted, quiet and contemplative sort of work I normally make, but I think it was really good thing to work in different way, and produce pieces for an exterior location, something I haven't done before.

Just arrived down in Herefordshire to spend Christmas with my family. We inadvertently benefited from other trains being delayed after ours was cancelled, but it's still a 6 hour journey from Newcastle. Still, the county seems to be catching up with the rest of the country thanks to the copious amounts of snow currently falling. Looking out of the window just now where the snow was falling under a streetlight, the flakes were so big that they made spinning shadows on the white blanket underneath. I love the smell too - really fresh and clean, gorgeous.

# 32 [29 December 2009]

Cold and misty yesterday. My parents live in the middle of nowhere, which whilst very isolated, can be quite beautiful. I took these photographs when we were walked their dog in the Malverns - the mist reminded me of Dylan Trigg's photographs on his blog: http://side-effects.blogspot.com/ It's a little like the snow, everything is detached, separated from what's usually seen around it.

Re: work - just thinking about ways to combine a more delicate approach to the casts I've been making. The dresses were fragile, ephemeral; can this be furthered in relation to domestic objects, parts of homes?

# 33 [11 January 2010]

Just realised this'll be the first post of the New Year. I've spent most of it so far wrapped up in blankets and a shawl, admiring the beauty of the snow, before turning back to my computer to continue writing my MA dissertation. As I've mentioned before, this is about trace and absence in relation to the domestic environment, in particular to the house myself and my partner have just purchased. The idea is that there are effectively two sections to the text, having a symbiotic relationship with each other. The more formal, academic side is the critique of ideas and artwork in this area, whist the opposing side is a personal account of how the various ideas / points are related to the experience of creating a home in our new house. So, while yesterday was the bodily traces in art objects day (think hair, dust, blood etc), today has been about Boltanski's Missing House from 1990. (If you don't know it, see: http://www.flickr.com/photos/niah84/2842382429/). There seems to be a bit of contradiction going on as to whether Boltanski saw this piece in the same vein as his post-memory Holocaust work - one critic quotes him as saying that the installation is about "'the finger of God'; that is, the absurd and arbitrary contingency that determined that the residents on one stairway would be blown to bits, whilst those on the other might escape unscathed", where as another writes: "He ... discovered the names of the previous Jewish inhabitants, which he then used as the basis for the memorial content of the work". I've always liked Boltanski's work, the tricky bit is referring to artists who are so well written about in this field - it's really easy to go off on perhaps a really interesting tangent, but a tangent nonetheless.

The snow's pretty much all melted here now. Give the metro's headline of 'Briton's heaving a sigh of relief' as the forecast heavy snow failed to materialise, it seems I'm one of the few people in the country who would prefer that it had stayed. Okay, so the trains were crowed, the death-ice wasn't much fun and I really didn't like it when my boots leaked, but my god, wasn't it beautiful?

# 34 [20 January 2010]

My shortest post ever:

Writing this dissertation is beginning to feel pretty much like curating an exhibition - I know there's a way that all the ideas will work together on the page, but it's taking a ludicrous amount to time to figure out exactly which way that is.

# 35 [8 February 2010]

Finally back in studio to actually make stuff, rather than rushing in to print off a couple of things, grab some books and get back home to continue writing. The MA dissertation is finally finished, and although it's nearly killed me to get it in, I'm actually pretty proud of myself. I have posted previously about what I was aiming to do with the text, but I thought it might make a little more sense if I quote from the writing directly:

"The critical essay positioned on the left side of the page, draws upon anthropological, geographical and aesthetical sources to place the ideas of trace and absence in a domestic environment into a visual arts context. The accompanying text and images on the right side of the page are a series of reflective writings and photographs related to my personal experience of the issues raised in the main essay. The symbiotic relationship between the two sections contextualises the main essay, whilst creating a piece of work which can be understood as a manifestation of my artistic practice. The sections of each chapter have been ordered to create a sense of overarching narrative, while the language used has been chosen to imbue a sense of these works and ideas in the reader's mind."

I'm seeing this writing as a piece of work itself - the design, paper stock, typesetting etc were all carefully considered, and were in fact integral to the understanding of the piece. I'm intending to put a low-res version of it up on my website for download, just as soon as I've had chance to make it web-ready.

I've also been buzzing with ideas about new work today - I want to incorporate the more conceptual ideas I've had as a result of the writing into the sculptures / installations I make. Firstly, this is going to involve thinking of the traces left in our house in terms of layers of semi-factitious narrative. There are various indents in the carpet from both our furniture and the previous occupier's furniture - whilst I know the narrative, the stories associated with our own furniture, I only have vague memories of the previous furniture. These memories are intangible, fragile things, subject to erosion by time. So, any traces I associate memories to in relation to this pre-existing furniture, while based on fact, gradually loose this 'factual' content, become embroiled with imagined ideas, and hence the coined word 'factitious'.

Buildings don't exist is a set time periods of 'then' and 'now' (see http://www.glimmersinlimbo.co.uk/) - there is a fluidity in how they would have existed at different points. So the other area I want to incorporate in this new work is a way of suggesting the gradual build-up and erasure of these traces over a period of time.

What I'm intending to start with is a cast of the carpet in our living room - the carpet is cut to the walls, so the size and shape of the room, plus an idea of the type of building is implicit in the work. The cast will include indents from various items of furniture - ours, theirs, other furniture which isn't theirs, but is similar to what I remember it being like.  

So it looks like I'll be making something pretty big. Yeay!

# 36 [25 February 2010]

I've been having one of those weeks / most of the month when my brain just feels like cotton wool. Trying to pin down a cohesive thought has been nigh on impossible. So instead of rushing off to the studio this morning to faff about and not achieve a massive amount, I'm sitting under a couple of blankets on our bed (very cosy) sorting though emails of various upcoming things (AV festival kicks off next week) and writing lists.

We've got the carpet all rolled up, and I've managed to locate a space I can roll it out to see it in a different context over the weekend. Not an easy feat, as it's about 6m long by 4m wide. I've had a chat with a few people about ideas for the carpet piece, but I don't think I can make any decisions until I've been able to view as an object as opposed to the floor of a room.

The trouble with making a cast is primarily the enormous cost, plus if it were being made out of a stiff material (such as concrete of plaster) it would need to be assembled in sections, something which would affect the work visually. I then wondered about treating the carpet in some way, perhaps with wax and graphite power, so if people walk on in during the exhibition, the marks of their feet would be left as traces along with the indents already in there. Trouble with this is that the indents have been made over quite a long time period, where as the foot marks would be created in a period of days - the work could easily end up being about the time of the exhibition, as opposed to the much longer history the carpet has. There's also the problem of using quite 'arty' material such as wax and graphite. I tried to shift away from the materials a bit by burning some of the flea market photos I have, effectively creating my own carbon. But then, it this trying to bring too many things into one piece?

I've gotten hold of several pairs of 1920s creamy coloured elbow-length leather gloves from another flea market. I thought these were pretty fascinating because of them being made of a skin to cover a skin; they're a little stained, some are really crisp, others are very soft. I wasn't sure what to do with them, so I started unpicking the seams, seeing what happened when I opened them up. I was also thinking about using them as a support for printing photographs onto. But as was pointed out to me (quite rightly, I might add) is that the glove would basically be acting as a canvas for an image - it wouldn't really be about the skin, but the glove. And why a glove? And is this trying to put too much into one piece again? I realised that even though I haven't worked with print or drawing for several years, let alone paint, there's a way of working that is easy to fall back on. It's something quite habitual, even though I've been working with objects, I still see things very much as images. Also, it's very easy to want to 'make' something. Perhaps just moving the carpet out of its current context will be enough. Maybe the glove says enough just by being unpicked.

# 37 [5 April 2010]

(5th April 2010 continued)

15/03/10

Is there a way of incorporating sounds related to specific parts of / marks on carpet? Some documented sounds (movement within the room the carpet has come from, sounds of the house) mixed up with layers of 'faked' sounds?

17/03/10

Documentation as trace

Different ways of documenting the space - the carpet itself, photographing, videoing. The carpet contains marks and echoes of a previous existence in this everyday context; I'm intending to use alternative photographic processes to record stills of the space - the images become about the process itself as well as the space I'm photographing; using video to record different parts of the space gradually fading into other parts, introducing a time-based element to the recording / documenting process.

But all documentations are traces - they're reliant on a different media, they're a shift away from the thing they're documenting. So perhaps a way forward is to use the media to explore the space, using the way that the media shifts the understanding of that space as part of the idea of these traces I'm looking at.

19/03/10

How would a series of video sequences work? Each looks at a small section of the space, explores it in a way that's sympathetic to that area. Sometimes the separate sequences overlap, not quite together, sometimes seamless other times jarring. Re-visit various sections of shots, so there's suggestions of repeating, layering ... They're then projected together, some on the floor, perhaps others on the walls or on screens. But again, maybe this is overcomplicating it.

# 38 [5 April 2010]

Notes from my sketchbook: Trying to 'write-up' a month's worth of ideas and experiments seems like a rather trite and pointless task (I still haven't gotten the balance between spontaneous blogging and my need to have anything I write planned and carefully considered beforehand) so I'm attempting a different approach - what follows are a series of expanded notes from my sketchbook where I work out concepts and comment on ideas as I try them out.

04/03/10

I've had several ideas about various objects and materials I've gotten hold of, but I'm not sure how they relate to each other (if indeed they do) and how these ideas relate to where I think my practice is heading.

Several of the leather gloves, seams unpicked, lying on the floor. Tried this out, but not sure they should be on the floor - what's the reason? Seductive quality of gloves, most apparent with soft, supple ones; prised open, the interiors exposed to the air. Impressed into plaster walls?

Photographic prints on sausage skin- interest in using this material comes from it's use to repair old vellum books, vellum having a 'memory' (after damp has penetrated it, then it's dried to another shape, it keeps going back to that shape, despite later attempts to restore it). Which is interesting, but perhaps more down the archive route that my work is currently going in. Also, by using the skin as a support for a photograph, isn't this just making the skin into a canvas?

Photographing / filming our house - particularly in the empty living room; 'living' being part of the point, it's not currently being lived in. It's an empty ignored room. Can the act of photographing / filming be an act in itself? What if I wear long leather gloves and a negligee whilst doing this? Photographs of empty living room with leather gloves in shot - a set up, a staging?

Is there a way of incorporating sound and smell into the work?

14/03/10

I've placed the old carpet from our living room on a wall. The carpet is the size (4 x 4.7m) and shape of the living room - you can see where the carpet lay under the door, where the bay window was, where the fireplace and chimney breast projected into the room.

Carpet on the wall - references to a canvas, paintings placed on the wall. But it's the size and shape of a room, removed from its original context, opened up for examination. Is placing it on the wall trying to change the fact it's a carpet? Elevating the status of it? Is it becoming a surface as opposed to an object? Everydayness of carpet - is this negated by placing it on a wall? Or has it just shifted its inherent everydayness somewhere else?

How to light it? Layers of different indents and traces highlighted by setting up a lighting programme, which gradually changes over time. So a time element also becomes part of the piece. Would it need sound too? Traces as sounds and smell (the carpet certainly does smell). But again, perhaps this is trying to add too much to a single piece.

I'm trying to think of ways of not making something, ways of manipulating the objects in other manners.

(continues)

# 39 [7 April 2010]

After trying out the various sequences idea in my previous post, for the moment I've settled on concentrating on a dirty shelf in our living room. The various bits of paraphernalia that sat there for months have been removed, leaving a behind what appear like a dark shadows in the silvery dust. I'm videoing this tiny incidents on a macro setting, so the details are crisp and enlarged in the centre of the frame, but slip out of focus as the camera pans.

I've been editing this over the last couple of weeks, but I shot some further footage this evening. Stills of shots are attached to this post.

# 40 [18 April 2010]

I can't remember where this is quoted from, but it is apt for the stage my video sequences are at the moment: "Beauty is rearing its ugly head". Indeed, the reason I was intrigued with these macro shots to begin with, is that the camera transformed mundane grey dirt and plaster dust into something quite magical, with a hazy dream-like quality. But that's just the problem - they everyday has been usurped by the fantastical, and by being so, the breadth of the piece's concepts has been limited. Basically, I need to rough it up again.

In the latest shooting, I've tried to avoid framing the shadows of the screws and nail, instead focusing on ripples in the dirt, a tiny hair, a delicate smudge. I've also been playing with the focusing, letting it slowly slide out, watching the line of focus slip up the screen. I'm quite pleased with some of the shots, the difficulty I'm having is editing them together.

I spent the majority of today at the wonderful 25 Stratford Grove (http://25stratfordgrove.wordpress.com/). Brian Degger has just finished an art/science project there, which involved the creation of bio-plastics and culturing phosphorescent bacteria - really interesting cross-over between science and art. What intrigued me the most was the story of how a cancer tumour was taken from the body of a woman many years ago. It was deemed to be so interesting, that's been grown in laboratories ever since. The lady it originally came from has since died, but in effect a part of her is still living. Or at least, something long ago was a part of her - it has since developed to become something in its own right. I think the reason this interested me is because it made me think of how I've been considering traces and documentations to be something external to what they reference. Certainly there is an indexical relationship, but the document, the trace, is wholly dependent upon its medium - be this a photograph, the written word or moving image - and its relationship to the memory of the event or object.