ARTISTS TALKING

# 62 [2 February 2012]

Ok.

It seems like a long time since I was here but actually it is only ten days or so ago.

Since then?

I have decided to exchange my large studio for a substantially smaller one in the same studio block. Change over day is April 1st. I have closed my brain to all the inherent problems of quarts into pint pots.........too scary and it saps time and energy for any work. Doubtless it will all be a bit disastrous. I don't like the big space - no light and slightly sinister.....the small one is a bit too small, but I do now have a space to work in at home as well.........

The Farningham Hobby Horse Project is getting back on the road....Ros Barker and I have had all 120 out of storage and given them a once over. Wind and rain have left their mark so thats another job before they get exhibited in March- together with all the PR and so on that takes so long...

The moth wing paintings are so slow- three a day maybe..........is it worth it? No idea yet. I like the medatative , repetititive side of it but you do have to stay focused or it can catch you out...

I tend to stop and drink hot chocolate - gives me a buzz and warms me up...

I am trying to keep down a rising sense of panic re my solo show at the moment. June seemed so far away in November but my hefty dose of flu, a sick elderly mum [ongoing] and setting myself such slow, intricate projects has seen the time shorten considerably. If I don't work full on then it won't be done.

I have been invited to send a proposal into 'Telling Stories - Hastings' which is wonderful -something I would really like to get involved with. Last years 'Telling Stories - Margate' was such a great show ...

The proposal has to be in by the beginning of March which has taken me by surprise as the show is not until September. In my brain I had compartmentalised everything I am doing -  and filed this to start after June...

So - ideas heavy and time poor at the moment...........ideas keep pouring in like water. Probably because I am working daily again. Nothing for it but to run a sketchbook and hope the ideas stay fresh.........

Am I the only one who needs to live to be 100 to get it all done? Maybe studio assistants are the way to go; aka our Damian...

Edit... Edit....

Now - how to tackle five delicious moth boxes I have been given- where the contents are decaying into dust?

just beautiful.............

I may be a little mad.

# 61 [20 January 2012]

Having been the lucky recipient of some London Art Fair VIP tickets via a friend I collected one of my art mates and we sallied forth. Free entry and catalogues was enough to make us happy.

Last year I visited the Art Projects section last when I was hot, footsore and waterlogged with it all.

Am I the only one who quickly becomes over burdened trying to give fellow artists proper time and regard at these events? Now we have lost all labelling I am at sea so much of the time – especially faced with one work. Given a solo show the artist has at least a chance to inveigle their thoughts and wishes under my skin, but with one work I can manage little more than decide on its merit as an image and have a stab at where the artist is coming from. Thankfully the LAS catalogue offers just enough on each artist to allow you in.

Man to the rescue – having found myself chatting to one of the directors of the London Art Fair he told us that he was about to lead a tour of his eight favourite galleries and invited us to join it. Result.

We joined his tour. He, with pink egg timer in hand allowed curators and artists five minutes to talk about what they wished and then we moved on. His ‘Desert Island Discs’ selection included the Jealous Gallery who spoke about the annual MA printmaker who is chosen to join them, and Caitlin who choose 40 UK graduates ‘with potential’ to showcase. I studied closely the illustrated contents of the boxed book that we were handed on the train home trying to find any overall links. Fascinating and intimidating.

I enjoyed the throw away lines – ‘meet the nicest man in art……..we were here at 7.30 with the artist trying to work out if we had the right colours together…….’

Stand P8 bought us into the world of L-13. [Light Industrial Workshop]. This installation of ‘A Brief Survey of Art Hate Field Propaganda’ was work manufactured to look in period while not being so and dealing with events that never were. Art Hate was founded by Billy Childish and Harry Adams and as such was an obvious strange bedfellow to its neighbouring profit making galleries – and a staged one. I couldn’t but help think that for all it’s obvious anti -establishment intention, that by allowing themselves to be bought into the LAS arena they had allowed the work to be neutered and subsumed by the ‘Art World.’ Given the philosophy and intelligence of the artists involved this seemed most odd. I still feel I must be missing something here……

Back downstairs in amongst the more conservative galleries I find myself meandering about trying manfully to  impose some sort of order - stick to the right or left - hand lane……doesn’t work. I see something far more interesting and dive off towards it. Quickly I find myself giving works [with a few exceptions] less than a cursory minute each. This can’t be right. How am I meant to ‘do’ this?  I find a friend’s work and am cross for her that her works have been hung deliberately close to another gallery artist whose palette is so similar- they seem to bleed into each other.

One thing did hit me forcibly – an overall ‘vintage’ feel to a lot of it, from Robin Katz proudly showing us his Lynn Chadwick sculpture on the tour to the endless Ben Nicholson’s, Prunella Clough’s and their friends…..a sea of browns and greys and concrete …………

The other was the interest that abstract seemed to be getting. Just an observation.

Oh - and I was too knackered to go back upstairs to Photo 50……so sorry -next time.

# 60 [19 January 2012]

Such a relief.

Everything has colluded this Christmas to stop me getting into my new room to start work again.

But here I am in my new studio room at last and I have been working again - all day. Over the last week I had become desperate to find the time to begin work. Partly the panic of knowing I have a gallery to fill in June; working as slowly as I do there are no short cuts, partly I just felt well again and more centred. I can’t work if my head space is somewhere else.

It always takes me by surprise how strange it feels to go back into a project that has been left for a couple of months. It is as if it is someone else’s work entirely..

Concentration not helped by the bitterly cold weather. Two jumpers, two scarves and an old oil filled heater at my feet later I finally settled to working properly for a couple of hours at a time.

Now I will have to work on keeping the social diary free day after day…………….

It has taken me all day to re-learn the skills, recall the colours I was using and re connect with my slow pace of advancement. It is like stepping out of one life into a parallel universe. One that I know by experience will, by the end of the week, no longer seem remarkable.

I have however been having a total crisis of confidence while sitting here working. I have been rehearsing in my head all the work done and planned and suddenly things I thought were good seem trite.

By lunchtime I had convinced myself that I had lost my way………..maybe this is good and will result in stronger work. At the moment it feels scary because I have to eventually deliver, I can’t spend a year finding out.

This could be the moment I have to put into practice the phrase ‘I would rather exhibit just one piece I am proud of in an empty gallery than a gallery full of work that I am not sure of……’ I was even sitting here fantasising about scrapping the work I have done and going back to a painting project I planned at college.

Now I just feel tired and battered, but will carry on working as it seems to allow me the time to think and my mind to run free.

It’s just that where previously I felt secure in my plot I seem to have lost it completely!

# 59 [14 January 2012]

The Collection Plate has been collected. Its contents examined and archived - in that I have photographed and listed both the start and finish of the project.

When I put in the proposal I was reacting to the curator's interest in exploring the temporary nature of exhibition in the contemporary gallery space - with a theme that drew on transience. 

The weakness as I now percieve it is that I have no record of objects left in the bowl but taken out again before the end of the project. I know that some have changed- a baby's blue mitten , a 'gold' child's play ring, the head of a plastic figure and a credit card holder appeared and disappeared, but there were probably others.

I would love to have a future opportunity to re-run 'Collection Plate' but with a CCTV camera visble above it - thereby introducing an element of survillance [as in bank cash machines] during addition or withdrawl of objects in the plate............

Items in collection plate on day one = not taken/ swopped:

Transparent hair ornament

brown hair grip

metallic red paper clip

metallic blue paper clip

pink paper clip

large black button

small black button

linen button

pink metal heart charm

orange sea glass

green sea glass lge

green sea glass sml

broken turqoise and pink charm

old gold and glass pressed flower pendant charm

orange ‘do not eat’ token

ceramic ‘elbow’

brass screw

white safety pin

20 euros

British 1p

British 1p

British 1p

British 1p

British 1p

British 2p

1 Euro

1 Euro

= 27 items.

Items in collection plate on day one taken/swopped during exhibition:

Gold charity heart brooch

orange trolley token

silver trolley token

blue and yellow glass bead

silverhair grip

printers badge

green marble

red glass bead

  ‘cricketer’ 5c coin

Euro 10 c coin

Burmese ‘dancer’ gold coin

British 1p

British 5p

British silver 5p

British silver 20p

British 1p

Euro 50c

Euro 10c

British £1.00

= 18 items

Items found in plate at end of exhibition= added /swopped:

Baby’s rattle dummy

Silver clip

Shell

Yellow bead

Glass from spectacles

Ring from keyring

Brown hairgrip

Red paper clip

Plastic spoon

Four sweets in wrapper

Small nail file

Plaster in plastic wrapper

Green Waitrose token

Red plastic plectrum

Small ball of Blue tack

Raffle ticket

Tiny white plastic figure

Dead flower x 2

Cinema Ticket

Snap bracelet label

Certificate of Posting

Minature Audi car badge

Confessional letter – hand written.

= 24 items.

So - money was taken but not added to the collection. Objects added or swopped with the exception of the confessional letter appear to be 'pocket items.'

Visitors appear to have been willing to interact with it and to take money from an 'ecumenical' set up. I will be thinking around it all for a bit.............

# 58 [13 January 2012]

I have had the dreaded lurgy- chest infection and all. Thankfully after Christmas, but am only now beginning to feel human agin. Sadly with it comes the realisation that I am now behind with everything , but still lacking the energy to really tackle it all full on.

Everything seems too much effort. Today one of the speakers for SVAF declined for next month and it just seemed a mountain to climb to sort it out again.Ridiculous really.

The main thing that has happened is nothing. No drawing, no blogging, no progressing anything..........

On the no blogging front I didn't even have the energy to report that an anonymous 'confessional ' letter has been left in the Collection Plate.

Not something I had expected.

I wondered if the ecumenical white cloth or the religious connatations of the collection plate may have illicited it. Maybe the fact that the collection plate was obviously a used and legitimate 'public space' beckoned.

" I often feel unable to explain how I really feel. When the time comes words become so hard to use. Empty is the only word and it still leaves my mind blank.

When I am sat in the back of the car I imagine cars coming towards my side of the door, where I am sitting, without a seat belt, at full speed, only hurting me.

i have recently cut myself , on my left shoulder. I was in a very different mood when it happened. I scratch myself , pull my skin until it looks raw. I can't control myself............."

" ....punching hurts my head. I can't stop. I want to obliterate everything, everything in my way, everything in my head. I can't be given responsibilty although I crave it"

The note shocked and saddened me. Interestingly the author has succeeded in laying some responsibility my shoulders.

I thought around the possibility of  acknowkledging the note by writing my own and leaving it the bowl. In the end I did not. Not because of the art work but because I felt I might be offering not just contact but hope of  a healing conversation and I didn't feel qualified to start that........

# 57 [23 December 2011]

Well now.

Christmas table laid and presents wrapped and feeling quiet smug. Kids returning on planes and trains tomorrow night and I can't wait.

I love Christmas and our very old beamed house lends itself to it. Deep red and green and gold - it glows in the firelight.

Every so often I come back from somewhere spartan and cutting edge and wonder to myself about dressing the whole place in cold twinkling silver, but somehow I know it wouldn't work.

Today I went to talk about an open submissions exhibition we are organising for Sevenoaks Arts Forum -a group of 50 professional Kent artists that I facilitate. One of the Kent arts officers will be choosing the work for us and the hang will be co- curated with SVAF. We are aiming for a spare, curated, professional show - we have great talent – so why do I feel responsible for the content being good enough?

I visited my collection plate en route. Interestingly all the money has been left and it’s the items that have been swopped. The plate now boasts a plaster, glasses lens, bus ticket, rubber and a dried flower. The blue baby mitten has gone.

Interesting. Has the fact that it is called ‘Collection Plate' made people feel that the money was sacrosanct and not to be taken?

It still has a week to go and it will be fascinating to see when I go to photograph it at the end if all the coins still remain.

# 56 [18 December 2011]

I am embarrassed to tell myself that since returning from Burma I have managed to do next to nothing towards any of the show commitments I have for next year..

My elderly mother has been in hospital and that plus Christmas preparations seems to have sapped all my creative energy.

Nothing there.....quite unlike me. A bit scary.Odd.

I have made myself a lovely drawing space in the new room - with good light and loads of table top space to stretch out on..I am nesting quite happily in it using the computer. From where I sit I can now see the sky, a garden and birds and squirrels. Quite wonderful after my big studio without windows.

 I seem to have that December feeling that you get about weight or exercise; I'll just wait until after Christmas and then I will begin to draw again..........

Ros Barker and I have started the second phase of the Farningham Hobby Horse Project. We have had stands made for all 120 of them and are now seeking inside venues between now and next June.

The project has been invited to show in a local gallery for one week in March. A great chance to hold a private view for the village, and to reconnect the horses and their makers. We are intending to photograph both together as a historical Kent document.

What else I have done since returning:

 Arranged the room into a drawing studio. .....................                                   Sorted my paints and given away a load of textiles and threads to another artist........................                      Organised the Art Forum that I run and held a speaker meeting and an annual wash up meeting. ...........       Started talks with another artist in my block to swop my large studio for her smaller one...................

Somehow now I write it all down it seems that I have achieved more than I thought. Just not the drawaing.

Hey ho..........                                

# 55 [26 November 2011]

.............and back to Margate again last night for the Private View.

I got to Margate early to visit 'Scotts' - a huge warehouse of antiques and curios. I was hoping to ferret out a butterfly box, a display cabinet or anything that could be used as museum style installation furniture for my solo show next year. Nothing.

Still, I like a good ferret about - what my husband calls my truffle mode- nose down, tail up...........

Meeting up with people at the Private View was fun. The fourteen printmakers all know each other now and it's good to catch up. When I go to art things I always find I come away with at least one new contact that I am excited about.

Last night I met a temporary installation artist who is planning to be involved in a project that I have also been asked to be join. I do hope the project comes off - talking with him was fascinating and inspiring and I would look forward to working with him.

So - it's time to turn my attention back to my moths....................after three weeks holiday abroad and immersing myself in the maps I feel quite distant and unattached to the moth work; it feels just like something that needs to be finished.

I have started so I will finish.......... like work.

Tomorrow I will set it all out again and hope that my interest will return. It will be a struggle to get the facility to draw so small and intricate back again. Drawing like that but still having immediacy and sponteneity in the line seems to come from hours of practice. And I am out of practice.

# 54 [24 November 2011]

Back to Margate again today- to invigilate the gallery all day on my own.

Twenty five visitors, ten of which said 'What did this place used to be? I love the wall/floor/ tiles......'

Its called the Pie Factory - Doh!

Sorry - reading my book for hours on end has made me feel like I've been on a long haul flight. Tetchy.

And no sales.

Two interesting photographers, a woman who puts art on melamine table mats and a sad couple who wished they had stayed in Bromley and never moved to the sea.........such is the minutiae of Life.

# 53 [23 November 2011]

Just back from the wilds of Margate. Exhibition all hung. Looks good. Really pleased with my monoprint map collages - they had some really nice comments - and I sold one to one of the other printmakers. I always think its such a compliment if an artist whose work you admire likes your work enough to buy it. 

So - completely knackered- its been non stop getting them finished since we came back from holiday last week, but a warm glow. Made even warmer by a phone call as I left from my errant daughter in Malawi to say she is getting married.

Glass of wine with the sausage casserole tonight I think.