ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [22 July 2009]

JULIET-

Just got a text from my friend Joanna, she says 'Sounds to me like ur beginning to enjoy hiding away!' Maybe she's right.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table where I've been sitting most of the day except now its dark outside and perched up in this top floor flat I'm beginning to feel very excited about our first show at Southside Studios.

I've spent the majority of these last three weeks hiding out in my very comfortable surroundings planning, plotting and promoting this project. There has been an absolute enormity to do, but I'm coming to realize that this is in part because we have approached it in the way we have.

When Gregor gave us this opportunity, an eight-week period to curate a series of exhibitions at the Southside Studios, I don't know what he expected us to make of it. What we have made of our opportunity is very characteristic of ourselves. From a position of absolute naivety, having never done anything like this before, we have run the project in a way that is ultra idealistic and incredibly ambitious. As a result it has been a huge amount of time consuming hard work filling up all our time between our day jobs, taking tours, working in shops and serving drinks, but as a result this has been the most incredibly enjoyable learning process. I do hope that the finished product bears the marks of our sincere labor and the serious attempt to stave of the emptiness predicted for our first months out of art school and to harness the tenacity and talent of the year group with whom we graduated.

  From a position of no previous experience our aim has been to curate thematically series of shows in which the participants entirely self-selected, would be recommended to the project by the compulsion to continue to produce visual art, in a way ultimately both compelling and coherent.

From a position of almost total ignorance we have secured sponsorship, produced a website, courted the press and planned a large party on small budget.

The kitchen table from which so much of this project has been planned and put into action does not belong to me. I am currently homeless, but have been taken in by some kind friends of mine, and like the mongrel in Disney’s ‘Lady and the Tramp’ have been given three luxurious meals a day and a comfortable place to scheme from.

Though, I admit, very nervous about how little time we have left before the opening, I feel so excited about what our artists have proposed for show one and by what we will do with the Southside Studios.

A person cannot be too nervous that the close of a day that began with pumpkin pancakes and the sale of a painting and has concluded with arrangements for the delivery of a considerable quantity of cider. A lot can be attempted whilst hiding out in someone else’s kitchen.

# 2 [28 July 2009]

JULIET-

At work in the art school shop and robotic with tiredness, I was up working on a drawing for the show untill late late night. Heres some photos of what we did at the Southside Studios yesterday. Install starts tomorrow.

# 3 [28 July 2009]

CARRIE -

'Well I've been grumbling at the lack I of time I have at the moment to watch Diagnosis murder, but these last couple of days, however jam packed, have been thoroughly exciting. 

Today Jen and I went to check things over and make a few more plans at the after party venue.  We're fortunate to have John Petrie on side, guiding us with his experience and excitement. And my, is it incredibly exciting. The Hetherington Research club is a real gem of a place, and the collaborative Noma/Cheer will be pushing the place to its most extreme potential, using the grand spiral staircase as their stage.  

The French windows I imagine will be further put through their paces by Holy Mountain. 

As Juliet mentioned, tomorrow is the big install, now the space is ready and the work has arrived.  I've checked my bus times, and I'm off to bed. More thrills than any Dick Van Dyke potboiler.

DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM AFTERSHOW PARTY ON FACEBOOK -

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=107793703662...

# 4 [30 July 2009]

JULIET-

It's the night before the first opening. I stayed up until half five last night finishing off a couple of drawings to go in the show but am still miraculously wide-awake. Its quite a nice feeling, I think, when its starts getting light and you haven't been to bed yet, especially (and I'm going to sound like a loser here) if you've been up all night by yourself working on something, I always feel like I've thwarted the norms of human behavior and cheated the rules of life.

So sitting up here still awake and nervous now, because of the art chat in the pub (as ex GSA students nearly all our friends are also ex GSA students (its like being in some religious order that has renounced the outside world)), I decided to post some pictures of our beautiful 34 crates of free St Heilier pear cider and sufficiency of Kettle chips, to comfort myself about the opening to tomorrow and to tantalize anyone who might read this to come.

# 5 [3 August 2009]

AMY-

So  408 bottles of pear cider and a barrel of kettle chips later we find ourselves having pulled off a memorable, interesting and well attended exhbition. Upon entering the vestibule one is met with a crescendo of sound, emitted from an animation projected onto the ceiling; a contribution, from participating artist Jonny Long. Necks craned, entrants who had just made it through the rather industrial style door bore witness to a 30 second film, closely followed by an exhibit which necessitated a plunging downward, a film played on a television screen situated at the depth of a black shaft upon whose sides swarmed an army of white protruding growths. Thus far, in true homage to Poe the aesthetic has confined itself to a monochromatic spectrum; a facet which continues in the work of Julia Mckinlay in her offering of a framed drawing in inkpen. Considered, linear and sparse, McKinlay also delivers a healthy dose of pathos in her arctic landscapoe with horn adorned penguin. Advancing slong the white corridor ( it took 4 coats of white paint to eradicate the stencilled face of a little spaceman who grinned back at us unphased after the first two coats. Anyone might think he was mocking our efforts to convert  that long but very useful passageway into some semblance of a gallery space) one is then met with the small scale framed pencil drawings by artist cum curator Juliet Fellows Smith. Intense and densely shaded at intervals the drawings harbour something of the loneliness and melancholy present in the poster image and which emanates from the narrative of Poe's piece of work from which the show took its title. An abandoned boat became something of a motif in the very fabric of the show itself. Lastly; an onslaught of sound. Just as one is losing oneself in the shadows of these quiet but brooding images which seem somehow to have been wraught into existence against their will a cacophony of American monologues berrate the gallery attendee back into the space, and one has the sense of being somehow chastised by these faceless voices reporting on various political issues. Accompanying this unashamedly rude awakening ( one is blasted by speaker on either side of the corridor) are stacks of pulped newspaper; a veritable mulch of text and Jeremy Oversier's interpretation of the maelstrom as an endless mass of information rendered meaningless by its very magnitude. Turning right one then enters the gallery space ( via the St. Helier's stall set up outside, obviously). For those of you who then proceeded into the gallery Well Done and for the rest of you who simply clung barnacle like to the table, practically buckling with pear cider for the rest of the evening Shame on you. The gallery comprised the work of no less than five separate artists which, in an area no larger than a generoous airing cupboard, ought perhaps to have felt crowded. In fact, this was by no means the case.

# 6 [10 August 2009]

JULIET-

Here are some photos from the opening of show one 'Descent Into The Maelstrom' and of B-movies in the fridge gallery the next day. Sadly none of the afterparty at which within the refined confines of the Research Club, the Glasgow University Post graduate Union there was crowd surfing ( I only know that because i overheard people talking about it at the opening at Tramway on Friday, I don't clearly recall the crowd surfing, I was having too much of a good time to notice even human bodies being passed over my head). On second thoughts I'm rather glad my all too exuberant dancing was not captured on camera.

With thanks to Joanna Waclawski for her diligent photo-taking in the face of extreme cider consumption.

# 7 [22 August 2009]

CARRIE-

We vowed to learn from our previous slip-ups as we readied ourselves for JACK MOVE, the second of three GSA Mutual shows at the Southside Studios.  However aware we were this time of such obstacles, new difficulties inevitably arose...surely this should get easier!?

Well, tonight is the night and we have overcome hiccups and it looks great. Walls have been filled in and painted, work has been hung, and then re hung, alcohol has arrived and posters have been distributed.

Now all that is left to do is for you to all come tonight from 7pm to the Southside Studios.  See you there!

# 8 [7 September 2009]

AMY-

Mixing bowls belching out heaps of savoury snacks, a myriad of multi-coloured drinks; syrupy, cloying cavity catalysts, a fluffy pink mask sails past at eyesight- was that, is that my chum behind there? Speakers blare corny anthems, everyone is sporting little badges and enters through a silvery, fringed curtain straight into a rip-roaringly good old time. The evening was, perhaps some two sausage dog balloons and a clown short of bearing a true semblance of the most wonderful ever kid’s party. To interpose, that is, ahem, with an exceptionally mature, insightful offering of work from our collaborating artists. 

     Intentionally serving as welcome playback of erstwhile jolly misadventures- before council tax and c.vs and dole queues- the tone of the exhibition, in its entirety, was a little nostalgic for something now past; those heady days of party-harding which characterised Art School term time. Wearing rejection ever easier now, no longer licking our paws in maudlin self pity with each knock- back, each second sentence carried on the air seems to be suffixed with ‘I saw this residency online’ in somewhere or other. But one should not be deceived nor indeed disheartened by the necessity of ‘Jackmove’s unreserved jubilance to cure the onslaught of grown-up monotony now setting in. Professional opportunities have fallen into the worthy laps of many of  Show Two’s exhibiting artists, pre-empting recognition and exorbitant success upon whom they have been bestowed. Slowly but, indisputably surely this year’s batch of fresh baked  Glasgow art graduates are charting a clear route for themselves in the hinterland post Art School. Given a year, or perhaps less, it can be fully expected that they will emerge entirely from the undergrowth, rubbing their eyes, newly resplendent masters of their own practice.

     Wary and not a little disquieted by the astronomical alcoholic percentage of Zamaretto we soon discovered that this was gloriously concealed by the most cheering of sugar-sweet flavours. The bar was arranged with bottles in colour gradation, from ambery peach and yellow-golden pear through to a windsory green apple and true blue raspberry, which was positively cerulean! The masses present were forced to individually ask themselves a question when confronted with bountifully free measures of this unfamiliar spirit. Their internal dialogue went something like this; 

‘Am I Zam?’ glug of the beverage ‘Zam I am!’

Boy oh boy, Zam they certainly were, putting the stuff away like teens at a soda fountain and uncovering a vast quantity of mixer combinations in the process. Banana and coke, cherry and coke, pear and cloudy lemonade, original on the rocks and chocolate with milk à la white Russians all come highly recommended. Think something which looks like fruit syrup and tastes so innocuous must surely be a placebo? Think again. 

# 9 [13 September 2009]

CARRIE -

Visual and historical collage has never been more prevalent within all realms of contemporary existence. A fairly obvious observation, but one that has caught the attention of many in our merry band of artists in the GSA Mutual.  So much so we dedicated our second show Jack Move to cutting up, copying and pasting. 

Indeed, within our own hotchpotch ranks demonstrate a plethora of diverse origins, ambitions, and characters.  Some of us share commonalities, but we are all united by only one factor; we are making Art in Glasgow. We are striving and surviving together. 

It was our realisation of this union that brought us to The Mutual.  How then could we articulate this camaraderie to the world beyond ours?  Our language and ideals are romantic, and naive, drawn to the heroic and chivalrous, a crest seemed a natural expression of our identity.

Never ones to opt for the easy route, digital technology was never shunned, just not considered necessary.  Images, patterns and motifs were ripped out of books and magazines, photocopied, traced and glued.  

Each one carefully considered, its relevance and meaning of the highest importance; holding distant ideas that the crest and The Mutual may continue long after us in our moment.  Without the historical lineage of the oldest houses, our crest is born in this moment.  Yet its imagery delves into our understanding of the past we bear.  The Lions hold the long plait of GSA alumni Margaret Macdonald.  ‘Our understanding’ as the plait indeed may not be an accurate memory of GSA’s past.

These feroucious Lions hint at the future we are fighting for, supporting the shield with our present, the Saltire of Scotland and the linked rings of St Mungo’s Glasgow.  Support is fundamental; it is the hands of co-dependency and co-operation that crown our crest.  We need each other, sticking together our skills and prowess for the mutual benefit of all.

# 10 [25 September 2009]

CARRIE -

Well it's almost a week now since we opened our final show at the Southside, 'Brigadoon'.

It's been a summer of intense energy and we're still reeling from the extreme highs and lows that go along with the total immersion in a project.  But we grumble not!  

The achievements of all the participating Mutual artists this summer is astounding, made all the more poignant as the students return to art school, we realise, we were doing the same only 12 months ago.

If you missed the opening last weekend, we will opening the doors of the Southside once more tomorrow, Saturday 26th, between 12 and 5.

Do pop along if you can, the 44A or the 66 gets you to Victoria road at Bowman Street.  The show really is worth the trip over the river, and we'll throw in a cup of tea and a biscuit for that extra incentive...