ARTISTS TALKING

# 17 [4 October 2009]

Being Home

As soon as you begin your return journey, you just want to be home.  The train journey to the airport was sad - i can't think of a better word, it was dark, cold and raining for the first time during my stay.  I listened to my brash english music on my ipod and sat on a hard plastic chair in Tampere airport, waiting, and feeling very distant, physically and mentally from England.

There i was in Stansted airport again, as if no time had passed since i was last there.  It was 1am, and people were asleep across benches and on the floor like nomads with all their belongings being used as pillows and blankets.  The entire airport was quiet and sleepy - people were just waiting for their connecting flights or national express coaches like me, filling the time.

I have been home for a week and a half now.  There has been plenty to keep me busy; my running is getting better (thanks to Lisa's tips), im working in my sketchbook more, reading and researching about other artists and seriously thinking about performance art and how this can move my practice forward.  Last weekend i went to the Art Book sale at the Whitechapel and serendipitously attended a lecture by Claire Doherty about Situation Specific art, which was incredibly academic, and therefore i loved it (i am an art geek).  I have a few things to work towards; Christmas Open Studios, works to send to Riitta and mainly a group show at Landguard Fort in August on the theme of "readiness" or "waiting", something that requires a lot of research and sensitivity.  Performance art is very much on my mind, and feels like the most immediate medium to express most of my ideas.  I never expected the Ars Hame to cause such an advancement in my practice, i have a lot to be thankful for.

But the hard thing is that i miss Finland; its crisp autumn air, the space, luminous light and sensitive people very much.  I miss being a full time artist and being surrounded constantly by other creative types.  Everyone in England is so loud, and they mostly are saying meaningless things.  In Finland, as i did not speak the language, things were going on around me and i could tune out and stay focused.  Here, i can hear everything - and it is very distracting.  There is no sensitivity or sincerity in all these loud words being spoken at me.  I miss the sincerity an awful lot.

Im not moaning, honest - i just now know what i am missing, and i want it back.

# 16 [27 September 2009]

Tuesday - My last day in Finland

We turned a different way out of the road this time, and Edwina took me to the side of Riihimaki that i had not been to yet; i am amazed how far this town spans.  We were heading towards the Glass Factory and Museum, the trade that Riihimaki is, or at least was best known for.  First we stopped off at Gary and Eeva's house, they live in one of the original houses built for the glass factory workers and this whole district was idyllic.  Autumn is coming, the air is cold and leaves are falling rapidly, but we sat outside in our coats drinking tea, eating cake and talking about the town's relationship with art and artists.  It looks to be very important that artists contribute something to the town in order to get along smoothly, often running workshops for example or sitting on a committee.

Gary, who is a photographer, took us to his studio across the road to show us some photos that he's entering into competition.  Gary is a self-employed artist, and being in his studio, talking about his schedule, funding and residencies made me want to be an artist living in Finland.  I remember standing there, just feeling this urge, or determination to "be an artist", always.

We then went on to the Glass Museum to look around the exhibition and had lunch.  I felt really sad and time was precious, i had literally hours left of this non-reality that i had been enjoying so much over these past two weeks in Finland.

Edwina took me to the old glass factory, it is mostly abandoned apart from a few studios and storage.  We explored the derelict buildings of the factory, peeping through broken windows, squeezing through unlocked doors, gazing at huge empty spaces and trampling through long grass to reach further hidden buildings.  In England, you could never get access to such spaces, but for us, this was an abandoned adventure playground.  There were fragments of glass all over the place, and old orders and equipment, and a half built canoe in one space.  Light flooded in through cracks in the wood, although most spaces remained hidden from us as we did not have a torch.

I want to go back to the glass factory, in the snow, and explore it for days, making sense of the echoing rooms and forgotten fragments.  

It clouded over - threatening rain, and we were tired, not just from all the running around of that day, but from the intensity of the whole Art Week...

Its time to go home.

But I have to come back, soon.

# 15 [20 September 2009]

I took the train to Turenki as after Friday's seminar, Riitta had invited me over to her gallery with the possibility of making some Textile pieces for her to show.

It was a really enjoyable afternoon, and one that i could not had of predicted before i came to Finland.  Riitta showed me round her gallery space (which was built as a cinema in the 1960s), talked about the work she had there and some Japanese students that had stayed with her, and showed me the cinema space where they hold performances and fashion shows etc.  I had never seen anything like it, there was so much to look at.

We ate warm apple strudel, and i looked through a massive box of 6x4 photographs that another artist had taken whilst he travelled around Lapland.  The box invited me to "take any if you want to", so i now have a nice collection of of desolate scenes of Finnish landscape, only occasionally punctuated by a reindeer herder's hut.

Riitta showed me around the town; the lake where they go ice swimming, a tiny old cottage that they had bought and call their "grandmothers cottage" with a bed and stove and spinning wheel in, and a vitorian photograph of the previous owners which i thought was a little spooky.  The house also had an old sauna down the bottom of the garden which still works, it was charming in its ricketiness.  Last of all Riitta took me to a huge 1930's house they had bought near the sugar factory which they have just started converting into a place for artist residencies and workshops... and then it was time to catch my train back to Riihimaki with the promise that i would send Riitta some work in the post ready for a show in November.

What a whimsical little Sunday afternoon!  Perfect!

# 14 [19 September 2009]

Things seem to be coming to a close and i wish they weren't, but the reality is that i could not maintain this pace of art for much longer.  People are starting to go home, and i have done all of my performances / events. My line drawing this evening was quieter, but really slick in its presentation i felt, and i liked the drawing more this time as the dust had settled in a very sensitive way.  (i would load photos but i have used up all my computer memory with the millions of photos that i have already taken).

Tomorrow we'll clear the space where we have been working over the past week, and im visiting a gallery in a nearby town.  In the next few days i will walk around Riihimaki to take photographs of the short tower blocks they seem to have here (i think their shortness is due to building reg's), anyway, a lot of architecture has caught my attention and now i have the time to work out why.  

I catch myself looking into empty apartments around the town and thinking "yes, i could be happy living there..."

# 13 [18 September 2009]

"The Strength of Art" Seminar

I woke up early, but not as stressed as i was expecting to be.  Today was the "Strength of Art" seminar for the Ars Hame at the Art Museum where i was presenting a paper.  I have been waiting for this day for months:hours of agonising over what i should say and why, piles of books read, word documents written and rewritten...

I liked the audience very much, in fact i like Finn's very much... they seem very quiet but you are aware that a lot is going on in their minds, and when they say something, it is very considered and sincere.  I prefer this to the British way where we just seem say everything but can sometimes mean very little.

The majority of the seminar was in Finnish, so it was lost on me, Lisa Torell was the only other artist speaking in English.  I enjoy only being aware what is happening 90% of the time, its like i can tune out and occupy my own thoughts whilst the rest of the world is busy around me.

I spoke for 40 minutes about my practice, and how traces and spaces can inform this, working site responsively and the importance of process in my drawing.  There are always things that you forget to say, but i was careful to go slowly as English is some Finn's third language - i thought it better to say a little that was meaningful rather than a lot which was impenetrable.  

The event as a whole was interesting, i ofcourse enjoyed Lisa's presentation about form, context and spaces and how we interpret such situations through language.  The event raised discussion and awareness of a town's responsibility to its community and how we respond to it.

The only event that i now need to focus on is my Line Drawing performance tomorrow evening.  I am so amused that two weeks ago i was petrified by the thought of doing "performance" art and that now it seems to be the most natural and immediate medium for me.

# 12 [17 September 2009]

Day 4 of the Workshop - Performance Day (12.00 - 14.00)

What was i worried about this morning?  Making an Art Performance in a public place...?  No, performance seems to be a very natural expression of art work for me now.  So it must had been that i was to run for the longest amount of time that i have ever run for... usually my "runners wall" is 40 minutes but my running performance for the workshop lasts for 1 hour.

I changed into my running kit and bought some Mars Bars.  

I ran from the pedestrian crossing near the "non place", over the bridge and to the crossing at the other side of the bridge.  Adrenalin had kicked in and i was excited about the performance/run. It was great to be running again, for the first time in over a week, and i had forgotten how much i had missed it.  My body felt free and my mind made sense of this performance, how it could be described and what it was hoping to demonstrate as i overtook pedestrians and bikes whooshed passed me.

There was one lady who was walking along the path with a sledge like contraption, quite slowly as she had a lot of shopping.  I went past her once, and then turned around at the end, passing her again.  After running the length of the bridge i passed her again as she stopped to talk to a friend coming the other way - they were talking for a while, and so i passed her for a forth time.

This is the concept that i am interested by:  there had been some criticism that the running didn't look that abstract because the distance across the bridge was quite long, and perhaps i should had gone a shorter distance.  However, i was looking for something that was normal for 95% of the time, and only seemed strange for the remaining 5%, for example this lady who just saw me run backwards and forwards a few times.  Maybe she didn't think it was strange at all, and perhaps that is irrelevant? 

The run was never trying to be anything grand or show stopping, in its most immediate sense, it was a record of repetitive activity and the increasingly exhausting effect this had on my body as my rhythm changed over time.

My rhythm did change, and i hit my "wall" at 45 minutes.  My legs did not hurt which was good, but my breathing still needs working on.  Towards the end of the performance i could sense that some blisters might develop.  Lisa and some others from the workshop ran with me, this was good, i enjoyed their genuine encouragement.

1 hour came round (i thought it never would!), i collapsed in a sweaty heap on the grass by the pavement and ate another mars bar.  I feel this is one of my most interesting works so far, and there is scope for development...

# 11 [17 September 2009]

Wednesday - Day 3 of the Workshop (presenting documentation)

Lisa had ordered two large sheets of plywood for us to present our documentation of the project on.  This would serve as an "exhibition" to inform our audience of our process.  We had done some extensive documentation over the past two days, we had over 200 images, and i had recorded some videos on my camera phone.

We needed to select images and decided to use the following headings to order them slightly: Site, Process, Performance, Discussion.  After spending the morning staring at our laptops in the space, we were becoming tired, and everybody had opinions about how things should be presented, so ideas were changing rapidly.

The images were printed at a local photocopy shop, we made posters (in Finnish) and had to select images and write text for a small catalogue which will be held at the art museum in Riihimaki.

We worked until 6.30pm, and then made our way over to the "Art Jam", a discussion forum for Ars Hame being held in a nearby restaurant.  We were all exhausted, and the thought of having an Art Debate was the last thing that i wanted to do.  Luckily, we drank beer, chatted, laughed and some people danced to the odd Indian/Finnish music being played.

Thursday - the morning before the Performance

The Performance is from 12 - 2pm today, this morning we only really need to get the boards down to our "non place" and prepare for later.  I will be running for one hour and i am pleased to see that the weather will be cooler today.  I have never run for one hour before, i will be a physical wreck by the end of this!  But im strangely looking forward to that feeling, the feeling that i have made art-WORK and achieved something... which was my concept after all...

Catalogue Text: "Running"

I will run across the bridge for one hour; left to right and right to left.  If you were to run this distance once, it would not be considered abnormal, but if you ran this short distance repetitively, onlookers would think it strange.

My body’s rhythm will change throughout the hour as I become physically exhausted and anguished, but the runner continues as a matter of principle, demonstrating conscious determination.

# 10 [16 September 2009]

Tuesday - Day 2 of the Workshop (Presentations, Performances and Crit)

We had until 2pm to work on our "performances" and to think about how we might document them.  The first exercise that i did was to draw across the crack in the road, onto paper every time a car/bike/pedestrian passed me on the bridge.  I sat on the pavement for an hour making this drawing, it acted as a record of traffic, and different drawings made at different times would give different results. The end result was fine, but not strong enough to be my "performance piece".  I enjoyed working in a public place where passers-by could glimpse me, but not understand what was going on.

The piece that i will carry forward as my Performance will be my running idea.  I will run up and down the bridge in Riihimaki for one hour.  I see it as a large version of my line drawing, where my body is the pencil and the road is the ruler.  Like the line drawing, this activity will have an exhausting effect on my body, and my rhythm will change throughout the performance.  At first i will be uneasy until i find my pace, then have fast and slow moments, sometimes i will feel determined, other times, tired.  I have never run for an hour before, so im not sure how my body will fair - but it doesn't really matter if i cannot run towards the end, i will continue walking.

The activity of running across the bridge is not abnormal, if people were to glance me doing this performance, they would not think anything of it - but if they were to see me running this short distance repetitively - then they would think it was it was strange.

"If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all." 
— John Cage

I have recently discovered that my new phone has a video function, it is very low-tech, but i would like to record the performance on here.  I would position the camera at one point on the bridge, and just record the rhythm of my feet as they ran/walked past - the intervals of when the viewer saw my feet would vary depending on my pace at that time.  

The crit lasted from 2pm til 6pm, everybody gave a "trailer" of their performances and we discussed them and talked about the documentation and life span of each.  We had only been introduced to this "non place" a day ago, and everybody had come up with something different, inventive, curious or moving.  We now need to consider how we present our performances to the public, and will be working together in the Project Space today (Wednesday) to pull together our extensive documentation, produce and exhibition and perhaps a catalogue.

# 9 [15 September 2009]

Feeling pretty exhausted after Saturday's performance, i had a day off Sunday.

Monday, and back into full, busy and intense routines of working again.  It was the first day of Lisa Torell's "Urban Spaces" workshop.  What was i expecting?  To put myself into someone else's hands and to enjoy being navigated, to work with others and have dialogues reminiscent of Art School crits.  There are 10 participants and Lisa asked us to identify some "non places" in which to work.  Edwina, who lives in Riihimaki spoke about an abandoned area underneath the fly-over so Lisa set us some parameters around the site to focus us.  The three words that we have to think about and make work in response to are:

Time, Moment and Routine

I spent some time walking around the area, but wanted to sit down and go through notes in my sketchbook, extracting words that had previously been useful; crossover, touching, separating, joining, crack, crease, cut...

I didn't realise it at the time, but i had settled in my non-place here.  A grassy mound linking the two stretches of road, with no real purpose.  I liked sitting here because i could see activity on both of the roads and have always liked it when two cars, one on the lower road, and one on the fly over cross the bridge at the same moment.

I was also aware of a clunking sound made by cars driving over a strip of metal on the bridge, this reminded my of my line drawing performance, where the join in my perspex created a new sound for the pencil to score over.  

The nature of the workshop lends itself to performance because we have a very short time to work in, and limited materials.  Today, Tuesday is the day for resolving some of these ideas, and we have until 2pm to work, and then will present something to the group.  So far i have two ideas:

Moment:  recreate my line drawing on the pavement of the bridge, over the fracture in the surface.  (on paper, or directly onto the pavement?)

Routine: Running up and down the bridge, left to right, right to left for 1 hour - the same amount of time that i spent on Saturday's performance.  Running is a routine for many people, it helps me get mentally into the right place to make work, and like the drawing, it has a physical and exhausting effect on my body.

I thought that "Time" would be the easiest word to work with, but i still don't have an idea for this word.  Perhaps its too big?  We have alot of time today to work on our thoughts, so something should come.

We are meeting at 10am and have a new text to read, Lisa said that we should think about the beginning and end of a work, which is something that i have been thinking about in relation to my line drawing, especially performance.  

# 8 [13 September 2009]

Yesterday i performed my line drawing for the first time.  I was anxious about this because it is usually quite a private activity in the studio, that only those who have a deep understanding of my practice have witnessed. 

At 6pm a sizable crowd gathered and i was due to start.  Should i say something first?  Should i round everyone together?  They all seemed quite happy chatting - so i decided just to start without making a scene.  The noise was penetrating as the sharp graphite nib of the pencil scored along the canvas, and it soon caught everyone's attention. Some people sat in a semi circle around me on the floor, near the tv monitor (Liam set up a video camera on the drawing and hooked it up to a live feed on a tv monitor, so the audience could see the detail of the drawing). Although i had my back to everyone because i was drawing, i was aware of movement and activity behind me - i could recognise people out of the corner of my eye, and they were taking photos and films on their small digital cameras.  To my surprise, a man came up very close to me, and took quick photos with a huge camera and big flash, it was clear that he was from the press.  The performance was generating more of a reaction that i had expected.

I drew for an hour and became more relaxed in my rhythm, and so did the audience - they all seemed very calm around me.  Despite me thinking that they would get bored of this repetitive activity, most of them stayed for the full hour.

My arm ached, i could feel blisters developing on my palm, my body swayed from side to side as i drew the full length of the line, and i got a stitch.  It hurt when i sharpened the pencils, and their nibs kept breaking.  So much dust was produced.  I had forgotten what a physical activity this drawing was, i became bored, but very determined and tired.  Sometimes i would draw slowly and then i got fed up, so went really quickly for a short amount of time, until the nib broke again.  The pencil made a sharp scraping sound on the fabric and perspex, a different sound each way, left to right, or right to left.

I found myself deep in thought as drew, thoughts about what the drawing meant and represented came into my head, and i wish i could had written them down for the seminar.  I could also hear people in the background talking about the drawing, and what it meant for them, or what it looked like.

At 7pm, the performance ended and i took down the ruler and fabric.  Everyone crowded round the remaining drawing on the wall with curiosity and took photos, and the room was filled with conversation and energy.

I was exhausted, but very pleased the audience had responded so well.