ARTISTS TALKING

# 16 [22 June 2010]

Emerging from the National Maritime Museum, one of four females in a lecture room full of men, I wondered why the sphere of engineering is still predominantly male. I had a fascinating day. The Electric Horology Group was 40 years old and to celebrate gave a day of lectures on Electric Time, superbly chaired by David Rooney (former Curator of Timekeeping at the Greenwich Observatory)

Questioned later about whether I was confused by the breadth of research possibilities, I had to confess that the day’s lectures felt like a leisurely and stimulating day out, rather than ‘research’.  Looking at everything from synchronizing time in  workplace clocks, to measuring the fractions of time in firing ballistics and thinking about the role of the quartz crystal I was completely absorbed. It has fed my imagination (for this and a future project.) In thinking about the point that time came into our homes outside of the mechanical ticking on the mantle I have found a missing jigsaw piece for images for the film.

All I have to do is add them now!  Uncontrollable excitement followed Friday’s arrival of the editing software on my doorstep. Swiftly followed by the frustration of the pop up box telling me I do not have the correct system requirements to load it. (I have!) With my tip top IT adviser away for the week, I am left with the frustration of trying to work out new ideas with the Pritt again, until his return. It has ruined my week’s plans.

After making a mock up the publication, that will accompany the work, I found it easier to approach a writer last week regarding his writing an introduction. Having him agree, I now have to work how to phrase what I am expecting from the piece. I want to save his time and my disappointment. It could be a longer job than I expect. And now on the top rung of a ladder that is stretching towards an exciting funding opportunity- I should really research alternatives, should that ladder topple! (Now an experienced owner of many a rejection letter, plus I have kind of mentally allocated the funds already)! So I am not bereft of things to do but have dithered while I wallow in the disappointments of technology failure again today. 

# 15 [27 May 2010]

HOUSE tour weekend!- and until half an hour before the talk I felt fine. My thoughts in order, studio tidied and all those little tasks cleared up -and then my nerves kicked in. Ladies and Gentlemen...this was the first public airing of the film so far. I felt exposed. For a moment I wished I’d opted to discuss the series of stills instead. That would have been so wrong. My vision for the project is there and strong and I was glad to hear in the feedback that it came across that clearly! From both our talks important issues were raised around artist’s practice and in various ways validated all our different backgrounds and ways of working. Phoenix Brighton and HOUSE provide a chance to visit an artist's studio and immerse yourself in an artist's methods in a way that a simple Open studio doesn't. A welcome and valid experience for artist and audience.

Making a decision this week  about which software to use for the film (much deliberation, googling and phone calls)- and getting the definitive quote for print costs has set straight my budget.  I managed to borrow equipment from a local community centre last week. No deposit, no charge, no fuss, no questions, just a trusting friendly face offering a community service. A reminder to broaden where I look for support! Organising the materials for the publication has been prompted this week after confirming the contributing writers and finding a glimmer of hope for additional funding.

Next? Camping, then counting down days to a mid June Symposium where I get to meet lots of eager cog enthusiasts.

# 14 [23 April 2010]

All my steam has been channelled into getting a storyboard drafted out for the film I have decided to make. With production costs (not covered for this by the Arts Council funding) I set myself a deadline to get it sketched out clearly and ‘sold’ to the Engineerium to coincide with a grant deadline. All that done and tensions rising as some of this pent up steam escapes as joy, some as confusion. The building and plans still in flux.

It is been an absorbing time. I have nosedived into it most days, - coming out dazed at school pick up time hypnotised with that plinky music and dancing images.

The way I work is adapting more readily now to suit. Always an advocate of cut and paste I do revert to collage wherever I can as a thinking process. In fact, in cataloguing my entire life.  This storyboard was costing half my funding in glue sticks as I shuffled and pasted photos and drawings, and wasn’t allowing me to think quickly enough. So I’ve opted for the path of a moving storyboard. Paste, playback and delete with ease- on screen. Rough and ready but finding the right mood.

Collage is a word though that echoes through my entire practise, and beyond. A simple realisation. This time I am pasting images together in a linear way as opposed to overlaying them.

Perhaps a good route into the talk I am about to give as part of Brighton Festival’s ‘HOUSE’ studio tours. After Easter disruptions and time with technology studio time has been left out of routine for too long. Be good to reacquaint myself with its four walls and reception of FIP that I can’t get at home.  

# 13 [23 February 2010]

A respected on line source of music provided an ideal, and easy, option for the sound .

Luckily, after deciding to switch off last week- with some easy viewing telly, I realised how popular!  A BBC tour of rural Spain. A Channel 4 house search in France, in one week! Firstly I didn’t think my choice of music was so ‘travel’ orientated( although I had decided it was more jaunty than I was looking for! Secondly, The work needs to be unique - Plan B is confirmed. I have two professional contacts (cost an issue but funding application pending) and two colleagues that could be open to negotiation! So making a list of genre, tempo, mood and words to describe what I want to achieve with the sound. Not the mood of a European 'sejour' thats for sure. 

My excitement about the work is building up like the pressure of steam waiting to be released. 

# 12 [12 February 2010]

The Beam Engine started yesterday at 11am to an audience of six. It got going seamlessly with grace, elegance and an almost silent whirr. The building filled with new smells, sounds and sights of coal and steam. Left alone with it I lost myself in the hypnotic motion and gentle power and filmed it and thrilled in the boiler’s flames and steamy spaces. Working for the first time in over 4 years.

Sipping tomato soup, from Peter, to warm up- and celebrate, I studied a ‘man going to replenish the fire’ in a 1712 engraving. It made me consider the engine as a whole, not just the individual moving parts. More filming until the power went on the camera (now on shopping list: extra battery pack!)

A problem with working site specifically in a building that has ever changing plans, with work that is shifting equally as fast, is that identifying the right spot to show it. I liked the space we explored in January, but light was an issue. Now the sound has developed a new direction I’m not sure if that  would work. The room I thought would be roped off now won’t have to be. It is a distinct possibility, but is it right. And the plans I’ll see in a few weeks may offer further possibilities in rooms yet to be built!. With such flux I have to just focus on the work and stop feeling so desperate about the location, for now. After seeing Mining Review, Number 11 (1949), I threw another idea that wasn’t right into a basket this week. Satisfying!

Next week I meet with my Peer Review Group. We are going to work on a group project and with my days and increasingly my evenings being swallowed with engineering influenced thoughts it will be refreshing to be distracted down a new creative route.

# 11 [2 February 2010]

Snows and obligatory shifts in the daily routine meant a disjointed start to the year and planned experiments at the Engineerium postponed. The shift in the main focus of the work was unsettling me too. Like being a vegetarian and then suddenly eating meat, and having to tell everyone (or vice versa!) I am giving my practice a new ‘label’ and its taking some getting used to. But that’s why I’m doing this.

 Time now is divided between warm home and chilly studio, studying ‘The Mechanical Engineer, a Magazine for the Mechanically Minded’ and The Engineer at home, interrupted by bursts of Googling. The photocopying at the studio is interrupted by doodling. I have finally found my strand in the old paperwork and I have a clear concealed subheading now. Obvious now, I wonder why it wasn’t before.

Suspecting that the building work may take longer than anticipated I’m gathering ideas into baskets. An initial idea is heading towards a basket, a by-product now. It’s stronger out on its own and it gives me other exhibiting opportunities away from the Engineerium. I'm getting better at paring ideas down.

 Last week (after they had tested the pressure in Boiler No 2) I saw the dark smoke escaping out of the huge chimney and floating towards Hove Park. A reminder, we don’t see this much anymore. Giddy with nostalgia (all that mighty heart had a beat) I filled my camera phone with (inadequate) photos.

# 10 [14 December 2009]

‘A Kids guide to Managing Time’

What did I spend the most time doing?

What did I spend the least time doing?

Is there something I would have liked to have spent more time doing?

Is there something I would have liked to have spent less time doing?

Is there something I would have liked to have done but didn’t do?

Did I have enough free time when I could do what I wanted to do?

Did I spend enough time doing things I decided to do?

Do I feel good about the way I spent my time?

It appears that I have spent most of my time thinking and printing.

Four meetings in the last week have addressed different aspects of this ‘Mighty Heart’. One: with my funding ‘expert’; one was an APD 1-2-1 session about the ambitions for the work, the third with the project manager thinking about timescale and budgets and the final one with a colleague looking at the practical problems of projecting and sound in the space. Then more thinking! 

I have spent little time making, apart from lists of things to try out in the new year.

More time looking at a book on Railways, Identity and Culture (inspiration comes in unlikely places) would have been good, and for finisihing the list of words that describe the emotional journey I want people to take through the work. Really pinpoint how I want them to feel?

Back at the Engineerium I handed back a technical drawing we uncovered (from 1917) of the grounds this week.

Needed to confirm the depths of some pipe work, as the building work progresses, it reminds us of the importance of archiving all these papers for the computerised era.

# 9 [18 November 2009]

Goldstone, Examinations and Repairs Book (found today)

At the newly installed

Boiler Number 4

June 4^TH 1934

Slow fires put in

June 7^th 1934

Raising steam

June 8^th 1934

Inspected by Mr. Thomas at 80Ibs

April 6^th 1937

Flues swept

November 16^th 2009

Day of the flue cleaning of Boiler Number 4, readying it for inspection and firing up after 4 years at a standstill.

The health and safety standard outfits didn’t deter the soot getting in as they scrambled deep inside the boiler, armed with brushes. The soot is so fine and 5 barrows full came out from those dormant tunnels, nothing like the 88 barrows that came out when the boiler was fully working.  

Back in the studio there’s a pile of photos to edit ,which is thrilling me to the core, and Rotring pens to clean...not quite so thrilling (the nostalgia wearing thin as the two I want to use are blocked.)

The latest old paperwork we found may help with my narrative strand...But it’s looking doubtful. Nevertheless the writing itself is inspiring.

My school run ‘bus job’ has been jotting notes for the funding application and on the opposite page thinking about other venues for the work, after the Engineerium...and Christmas lists.(it’s a long trip)

# 8 [10 November 2009]

Engineers Report Book August 1918

Gentlemen, I beg to report that In July last I received a letter from the Vulcan Boiler General Insurance Company Ltd dated 10^th of that month pointing out that the boilers at the Goldstone pumping station were now 56 years old and that even when new had only a moderate factor of safety, and asking that the pressure in future should be reduced from 60 to 40 lbs to the square inch.

Your Obedient Servant

My Notebook November 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen

With numerous diggers paving way for the new kitchens, I wandered to the boiler room to attend to the task of envisaging myself meandering round the exhibition. Suddenly I seized on the idea of how the sound will work, a giddy rush emerging on the Number 5B as I penned it in my notebook.

Enlarging and cropping has been the week’s task in hand, and contemplating funding. With a couple of possibilities on the horizon realising this project with less compromise is an option. I know now what I need to achieve with the sound. I’m ring fencing ideas and about to launch my plans on the Engineerium for consent, before I start writing yet another plea for additional funds. Adventurous it may be, but I am endeavouring to drive my work forward.

To quote James Nasmyth (inventor of the steam hammer, 1808-1890)

‘It is one of the most delightful results of the possession of the constructive faculty, that one can build up in the mind mechanical structures and set them to work in imagination...It is the early cultivation of the imagination which gives the right flexibility to the thinking faculty....’  from the British Engineerium executive summary circa 1993.

# 7 [27 October 2009]

After presenting my Peer Review at Fabrica and showing mock ups  and photocopies for the first time beyond the home front, my thinking is clearer. I answered some of my own questions. What am I trying to say? What is important to me? What fits the space? (- and if money was no object?)  The group help me answer more....Why am I doing two bodies of work (when only one is clear in my head?) I have been working with layers in recent work, is it enough to have one? – and is a photocopy enough!?  The day after the review I went back, to 1992, and my own limited edition. It’s all about narrative (my life before layers)

I have been sneaking in test drives in camera shops over half term and am on the verge of a Canon. With my head in dusty B&W photography I’m waiting to hear about when they are going to clear the flues at the Engineerium-not quite the same but...

'Step into that cage which hangs over a yawning well away up at the Goldstone Waterworks;-permit yourself to be lowered into Plutonian darkness; and at the bottom of the well you shall have a new experience. You shall not plunge into the cold bath you expect:- for your sake, the mighty engines up overhead have pumped the wells dry, so that you may undergo the strange experience of taking some lengthy walks eighty feet  or more under the surface of the Earth, and may witness some novel effects of illumination.'  The Brighton Herald    May 28^th 1904