ARTISTS TALKING

# 11 [31 January 2010]

I'm happy to have finished the residency - it's been great, and I was ready to go - but I am sad to be finishing my blog.  It has felt very special to be part of this artists community and I have really appreciated the comments that I have received, and the knowledge that my progress has been watched by other people.

I came into the residency with three main fears, that I would not be able to cope without the support I had as a student, that my work wouldn't be appreciated or understood, and that I wouldn't be able to generate ideas.  

I've discovered that all those fears were unfounded.  I have become an independent artist during these last four months, and produced new work that engaged people.  I feel very lucky to have had the chance so early on to prove to myself that I can do it. And I hope that I will be able to use this good experience to keep my confidence during the inevitable challenges ahead.

This week I have been setting up a studio in my house - which I hope will work out - though I've never worked at home before. I have research visits booked for March and April to start learning about Victorian underwear construction.

I've been asked to do an installation for the newly re-opening Platt Hall Costume Museum with another ex-Embroidery student.  The work will be there from March to September.  It will be great exposure.  And there is the Stroud International Textile Festival in May, and a gallery interested in showing my work next year.  So a few things to keep me busy...

...and maybe to write about in a new blog. But in the meantime, goodbye, and thanks for reading.  

You can see more of my work on my website www.annieharrison.co.uk

# 10 [22 January 2010]

Ending with a bang or a whimper?  I think the combination of closing the exhibition and the snow closing everything else, has caused me to run out of steam with the residency.  I kept meaning to go in and had ideas of what to do, but it was all getting a bit half hearted. 

However, I had a good meeting with Emily and Hannah from Nexus. I acknowledged my lack of energy and we decided that the project has reached its natural conclusion and confirmed that the residency would end on 31st January. They have someone else who is eager to start, so that works out well for us all. I'm not going to do a proper reflection here until I have actually finished and moved out, but I can at least say that it has been a real gift and I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity.

The main thing that has been occupying me is what to do when I move out of my studio at Nexus.  Mia, my best friend from college, and I have been looking for a studio to share, but there is a high demand in Manchester, which generally means high price and low availability.  We saw wonderful studios last week, but couldn't possibly afford them, which was very disappointing.  

So in the meantime, we've decided to convert a room in my house - it's not ideal, but will have to do until we work out how to make money from our work - and that is another question that is occupying me at the moment. But I think that is a whole other blog...

# 9 [5 January 2010]

The exhibition at Nexus ended on Sunday and my installation was taken apart and the 1500 sheets and 750 pillowcases are now at my house!

I've just been sitting down to do some applications for new projects and have discovered that there is a problem with the photo's of the installation - which are all huge files but low resolution.  Is there anything I can do about that?  Does this mean I have no decent photo's of my installation?  What a disaster!

# 8 [26 December 2009]

What does it mean to have a holiday?

I have a paid part time job at the university, which closes between Christmas and New Year, which this year means that from the 24th December to the 4th January, I don't have to go to work.  My first thought was: great, I can spend more time at the residency.  But then I realised that I am really tired and need a break.

So I decided, take time off from the residency as well.  But then why did I spend the whole morning writing a proposal for another project, and why am I now writing this??  

Is it possible for a free lance artist to have a holiday? And if I spend my holiday drawing and doing watercolours, is that really a holiday??  

What does it mean to have a holiday?

# 7 [18 December 2009]

What do you do when the viewer doesn't respond to your work as you want them to?

I've been spending time in the cafe this week, instead of in my studio, talking to the customers and trying to get them to participate in The Cubicle Project.  I've been surprised and pleased at how interested people are and have been delighted by how many of them have filled in sheets saying what they would keep if that was their only personal space.  But most responses are about the luxuries they would keep - lap tops, guitars etc.  But what about the basics like clothes and shoes?? That doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone so far.  That was what I wanted people to think about.  When the women come into the refuge, they had nothing except the clothes they wore, I was hoping people would reflect on that in this season of consumption. 

I don't know whether I should just accept it, or whether I should change the questions I'm asking to elicit the responses I want? Dilemma! 

I've got the photographs from Zara, who very kindly spent Saturday morning doing shots of the sheet installation for me. I was relieved to get them done, as the installation will be coming down on 3rd Jan.  I'm posting some here, and will be sending them off to some galleries in the hope...

Off to Hotbed press this afternoon to do some trial prints for a series I want to do of the buildings where the social projects were housed.  I've also been doing linocut for the first time - really like it.  That is this years christmas cards taken care of! Now just presents to get...

# 6 [13 December 2009]

Almost a month since I last wrote!  I simply have had no time.  I don't understand where it goes.

I want to do more research before I start making the garments for my new project so I spent a bit of time looking for collections of working people's garments, but by a strange fluke - none of them are taking research visits. Platt Hall is reopening in March after a major restoration, Gawthorpe Hall is redoing it's exhibits and not taking visits until Feb. The Museum of London has no spaces until April, and the Ripon Workhouse museum is reopening at Easter. June Hill has put me onto a project in Chichester so I will contact them next week.

So it looks like I'm not going to be able to get on with this work until the spring.  In the meantime I've rejoined Hotbed Press, a fantastic resource in Salford, and will concentrate on making prints of the buildings that housed the social projects of the Methodist Central Buildings.  I haven't decided how to do them, but probably collograph or etching.

I've also made another installation in the Cafe.  I've been fascinated by the Women's Hostel that opened in 1890, so with the help of the Nexus team, have built a cubicle in the cafe, 4 foot by six foot, the size of the cubicles in the hostel, and put in a bed and a little cupboard and am asking people to sit in the cubicle and think about what belongings they would want to keep if this was their only personal space.

I'd really like to collect peoples ideas for use in another exhibition, but no-one had written anything in the first 48 hours, so i don't know whether they will. I think instead of being in the studio next week, I will have to sit in the cafe and talk to people about the project and encourage them to take part.

Yesterday I had a wonderful photographer called Zara Harrison in to take images of my sheet installation and the cubicle installation.  I'm so relieved to get this done.  I have a couple of applications to do over Christmas, and need good photos. I'm picking up the images on Tuesday so will put some on the blog.  

One of the lovely things about doing the photo's was being around the sheet installation and seeing what an impression it makes on people. About half the people walking past look in at it, and lots of those who come into the cafe stop and look at it and talk about it. It was very encouraging.

I hope I'll get time to put a few of the new photos in a presentation I'm doing about my work on Tuesday night.  It is for the Creative Practice part time degree at MMU. It is a great opportunity and I'm looking forward to it.

# 5 [17 November 2009]

The exhibition opened last Thursday and it was a great party, loads of people and loads of chat.  But do people ever actually look at the work at openings??  

Also, this exhibition was about getting the work seen in order to generate new opportunities for all of us, and though the opening was very busy, it was young cafe scene rather than art scene people who came, and that doesn't get us any further forward. Maybe that was a vain hope from the start. And maybe I am wrong.  Maybe those young kids are where it is at in the Manchester art community.  But if so, I have probably missed my moment, having celebrated my 46th birthday on Saturday!

But the exhibition looks amazing.  I will get some photos to put on the blog, but I didn't have time on Thursday and haven't been in since.  And I need to find a photographer to record my installation, which I am really pleased with.  It does look fantastic!

Of course I haven't had any time to work on my new project and today will be spent tidying up, and then the rest of the week I have to work in my paid job to make up the time from last week, and so another week goes by!  

I have been thinking that I need to do more preparation and not rush into making.  I thought i would use sheets to make the garments, but I'm not sure that the fabric is right, so probably need to source stuff from an antique textiles fair. And I looked in the MMU library for garment pattern books, but didn't find anything appropriate, so I have been making my own, but I wonder if I should do some more research before I give up, because authentic patterns would be better.

Ok, back to the studio...

# 4 [5 November 2009]

Things have really moved on since I last wrote.  I very quickly determined what I am going to do while I'm here. Surprisingly quickly!  It is weird how I can go from - eek! no ideas, can't remember how I get ideas, I will never have another idea in my creative life - and then the next thing is that I have an idea! It never fails to amaze me!

So there are a couple of projects I want to do.  I was inspired by these little exercise books from the archive of girls rescue home. One contained inventory's of the belongings of the girls when they arrived, mostly just the clothes they wore.  Another book listed the names of the 105 girls who went through the home between 1893 - 1900 and included their ages, the date they arrived and left, where they went on to - mostly into service, and a couple of sentences describing them.  Some of the comments were positive, but most seemed very harsh, things like 'dishonest and untrustworthy', 'lazy and needs careful watching'.

I realised that I didn't understand much about the clothing of the time especially the petticoats and pinafores.  What went under and what went over?  So I spent some time researching what working class people wore at that time - not much written about the subject of course, but I got some images of underwear and of working class women and girls.

I've decided that I will make 105 garments, one for each of the girls, and embroider their description on their garment.  My first attempt was a pair of drawers - which I made out of one of my cotton bed sheets. I had to make up my own pattern based on a picture from a book. It worked ok, but it made me realise that I really want to sew the garments by hand, which is going to make it a very long project! I've unpicked a linen surplice that I got from the antique textile fair last year, and started hand stitching an apron from it.

The other thing I want to do is a project based on the cubicles where the women slept in the women's refuge.  They were 4 foot by 6 foot according to the plan of the building that I found in the archives. I constructed a cubicle in my studio to see what it feels like to have that amount of private space and it really is cramped. There is space for a narrow bed and room to walk alongside, and they shared half a window with the cubicle next door.

I want to build one in the cafe and get people to sit in it and think about what possessions they would have to get rid of if they only had that amount of space.

Everything is on hold now until the exhibition which opens next Thursday (12th).  It is going well, except the leaflets say it opens on Friday! 

# 3 [18 October 2009]

Only three weeks into the residency and already behind with my blog!  During week 2,  I spent my time in the Local Studies Unit looking at archive documents, including the fascinating 'Girls Clothes Book' from the girls rescue home.  It was an inventory of what the girls brought with them when they arrived and sometimes what they left with.  I am quite suspicious when church writes about it's own social projects.  They are all made to sound wonderful, but what were they like for the people who used them? So it was reassuring that there seemed to be at least a material benefit to living in the girls rescue home.  Lily Hargreaves arrived in 1914 'very poorly clad.  Came as she stood. An old black hat. NO coat.' She also had a frock, a pinafore, 2 petticoats, boots, stockings, a chemise and knickers. When she left in 1916 she took with her 38 items of clothing, her own bible, poetry book and satchel and a purse with 1 shilling and 4d.

I also looked at a 'pictoral survey of the Manchester and Salford Mission', from the early 1930's, with addresses and photos of all the projects except the girls rescue home.  It will allow me to identify the locations and see if the buildings still exist.

I began the third week feeling a bit blank. I'm finding it hard to get a momentum when I can only get to the studio two days a week, and not even consecutive days.  I did some writing to get my negative thoughts out of the way and then started drawing from the photographs and doing some monoprints. It is very reassuring to get things up on the walls in the studio.  It looks like a working space now. 

The next day was entirely taken up with moving my bedsheets into the studio, ready to be installed in the cafe's street-level shop window.  Getting the sheets out of the storage unit was not so hard, but getting them into the studio was another thing entirely.  Parking in a loading bay, we had to move 1500 sheets and 750 pillowcases, load by load, out of the van and into a disabled lift to get up the entrance stairs, then into another lift to the basement and through double doors across a foyer, manuevering round the cafe tables and customers, through two further doors, both of which involved a 90 degree turn.  I borrowed a linen cage from a friendly laundrette, and managed to draft in my boyfriend, the cafe manager and the van driver to help but even so, it was 4 hours of backbreaking work. 

It is a big relief to have done the move and to have them here, even though it has halved the size of my studio!  I can't wait to get them out again and install them!  Plans for the exhibition are progressing well, and everyone is working hard.  We open on 12th November.   

# 2 [4 October 2009]

My first week was great - I really got into my research and have already found a couple of avenues that might be fruitful. 

I spent much of the time in the Local Studies Unit in Manchester's Central Library.  I cannot praise this resource highly enough.  I have done a lot of research there over the last 4 years, and the staff are always helpful and knowledgable. 

I've discovered that the original Methodist building was from 1781, but after splits in the church, the congregation had declined to such a level, that the church was demolished, and the current building opened on the old site in 1886.  It was at the heart of a new kind of ministry, which took as it's motto 'need before creed' and was a hub for a number of social projects which over the years included men's and women's night shelters, a labour project, a maternity hospital for unmarried mothers and a girls rescue home. Some operated from the Oldham St building and others had their own premises.

Some of these projects sound questionable to modern ears, but in the days before the welfare state, the only thing between poverty and starvation was the workhouse.  Given what I know about the workhouse, I think that any alternatives would have been welcomed.  I'm just amazed at the amount of work that was being done by one small church. How did they fund it all?

Next week I am going to look at archival material from some of the projects and see if I can get a flavour of them.  I want to locate the original sites and do some drawing and photographs, see if anything grows out of that.

The main frustration is that 2 days feels so short, after being used to working every day at college.  But on the other hand, it does give me time to think and reflect.

Other things this week: I got my application in for the CUBE open exhibition, finally!  And good news, my paid job is being turned from casual work into a half time contract on a much better rate.  That's such a relief as I was wondering how I would survive on the hours I was doing since starting the residency.  I've also started working on my mask for the publicity shots for the exhibition I'm curating in Nexus in the middle of my residency.  It's a wrinkly old lady face but I'm struggling with the eyes...