ARTISTS TALKING

# 31 [9 June 2010]

TRYING THINGS OUT

Made great progress yesterday. All the wall-hung work is up so now plenty of time to try things out and titivate.

Still got my fold-out books to finish. They're printed and folded but I need to finish off the covers and put them all together. There was a bit of time to do some of this late in the afternoon and when the cafe closed at the end of the day the sun terrace was the perfect place to work.

# 30 [8 June 2010]

BUBBLE WRAP, BOXES AND B&B

Oh the joys of B&B! I could happily live this life for a bit longer. Friendly little B&B, no-one to think about except me. TV, internet, books, bed and a cooked breakfast.

Will start hanging the work today. Got everything unpacked yesterday & found that my careful studying of the gallery plan seems to have paid off. I've got just about the right amount of work & may even choose to leave some of it out of the show if it's better without - "less is more" as my studio-mate often reminds me.

I've still got some finishing off to do on my books though, so no time to be complacent. Better get started then.

# 29 [7 June 2010]

CAR, FERRY, CAR

I'm off. Stocked up with pills to leave for the cat, food for the family; the work's (mostly) finished (there will be time for some in situ finalising when I get there); ferry's booked - 12 o'clock; car's loaded and I'm off.

Hopefully there will be more time to catch up with some blogging when I'm installed in my B&B with time and space to focus ONLY on the show. Sounds great.

# 28 [26 May 2010]

BOOKS

This week I've set aside a few days to make some small zig-zag books using images which I 've accumulated over the course of the 5 years or so that I've been working around the theme of Wanderings. Some of the earliest images taken in 2006 still have a strong resonance for me and it would be great to actually put them together in a way which can be shown to some effect. The trouble is that amongst the accumulated mass of photographs spread across 2 pcs, 1 external hard drive, numerous "backup" cds and 2 laptops I can't find the originals! All I have are these photgraphs of some mock up books I made from them. They must be here somewhere. This is my quest for the day - find the missing pics!

(Note to self: another job to add to the list of "Things to do when everything else is done" (haha) - "Re-organise digital filing system."

# 27 [22 May 2010]

TWO WEEKS AND COUNTING

Just two weeks left until I leave for the Isle of Wight where I'll have four days in which to install my show. I'm still finishing off new work - in fact I'm only just starting some of it. Today I started making one of the three simple concertina books which I want to make. However, hopes of making a new sculptural sand piece are fading fast - I think I'm just going to run out of time. I'm not too worried though, I'm sure I have plenty of work, and in the four days that I'm there I'm hoping to make a new site-specific piece too.

The concertina books are going to be based on some of the many photographs I've taken on my various trips to the island and will reflect my interest in the constant and ongoing battle to defend the island from attack from or by the sea.

# 26 [15 May 2010]

PARALLEL WORLD

I've been getting some more prints ready for framing today. At the same time, and for a different purpose, I've been reading with interest the publication The Urpflanze which is accompanying the exhibition of the same name at The Drawing Room in London at the moment. The publication is by Melanie Jackson and Esther Leslie and I must say I have found it really interesting and informative.  The particular passage which had a resonance for me, linking in some ways with some of the work I've been making, talks about photographs, "bits of the world seen through glass", as suggesting a parallel world to ours.

# 25 [10 May 2010]

PROGRESS

Everything is moving on and making progress. Two more paintings are ready for collection from the framer. I call them paintings in the loosest sense of the word. They are actually Letraset "drawings" on painted board. As with the blackboards I'm working on at the moment, the boards all have an integral history. They started off life as ten 4 feet square workboards which I used during the Watch This Space  residency at Phoenix Arts in Brighton 5 years ago - at the very beginning of my Wanderings work. I used them to form a huge 3 dimensional mindmap in the gallery space where I worked for 6 weeks. All of my research and development work was posted on the boards and linked together with tracks and trails of stickers, dots and lines of sticky tape. You can still see them here - http://bluemonkeystudio.co.uk/judith/watchthisspac...

At the end of the residency, the boards returned to my studio with me and over the years have gradually evolved. They've been cut down, painted over, and have eventually become works in their own right. The layers of paint have built up. Markers from the residency have been covered over, scraped off or built upon, forming a sort of historic landscape which has become the basis for my current drawings.

# 24 [25 April 2010]

Had a bit of a hiccup this week when, having got 3 big prints done & ready to take to the framers, I managed to leave them on the train. Luckily they turned up in Hastings so I had to make a trip over there on the train the next day to pick them up!

I've been working on some blackboard drawings for the show. They've come in out of the studio into the house now so that I can live with them a bit & decide whether or not they might be finished.

# 23 [19 April 2010]

SAND CASTS AND SKYBOATS

I've been thinking about whether it might be possible to make some sort of sand structures linked to my ideas about defence, attack and erosion. I've been tryng (pretty unsuccessfully so far) to make some sand-cast sandcastles. I'll keep trying.

Exciting though to see the details of the show on the Quay Arts website, and to receive the first proof of the promotional postcard.

http://www.quayarts.org/event.aspx?id=2975

# 22 [16 April 2010]

FRIDAY

It feels like it's been a good couple of weeks. A productive day in the studio has ended with 4 pieces of work going out of the studio and into the house - to be lived with for a while so I can see how I feel about them. They might be finished.

I can feel things starting to fall into place a bit - always a relief. Some more finishing off tomorrow, and then onto the next piece of work.

I've got a huge amount of material which I've never resolved and I'm beginning to enjoy reviewing it. I've moved on since I first produced these ideas and seem to have much more idea now about what they could become. It's been quite a journey.