ARTISTS TALKING

# 27 [7 June 2010]

Um, not sure where to start with this post. Today I did some work...finally. Last week I did no work what so ever. Last Monday my boyfriend took me away for what I thought was a birthday treat, only then to get down on one knee in the middle of our walk in Oxfordshire and ask me to be his wife. From that moment on it's just been giddy, floating, gushing, permanently smiley Christina.... he doesn't know what he has started!

Suddenly I'm thinking flowers, dresses, bridesmaids, confetti, not public space, architecture, urbanism, psychogeography.

I've spent most of today sitting in my studio forcing myself to concentrate on getting my mind back on things and trying more ideas out with the camera. I've taken a whole load of new footage but just hope I'm not complicating my ideas further. The main trouble at the moment is focusing on one particular area of investigation and not getting distracted, yet also being experimental and creating possibilities for new things to emerge.

The assessment time was a funny one, the knowledge that you are making for an assessment was quite a self conscious one I felt, yet it was good as it pushed me to do things that I had been putting off for quite a while. Lots didn't work with the piece I put in and they became so obvious that I felt really frustrated at myself for not acknowledging them straight away whilst I was in the process of filming and editing. I am now cringing through post-assessment eyes at some of my decisions. Oh well, it seems a good way to make me more aware of these things next time.

I have attached the new edit of the video, the assessment one had me actually moving around within the space which really, really didn't work. This version is still really not quite what I was after... mainly because I didn't know what I was after when I did the filming - which obviously doesn't help much, but it gives an idea of where I am at at the moment I thnk.

# 26 [12 May 2010]

Assessment over and thankfully no terrible shocks, or big shake ups. It was a kind of...'things are fine... keep going... there's so much more to do.'

After my frantic assesment prep I have since completely slacked off - in order to gather my thoughts (well that's my excuse anyway). It would seem that there's not a lot on for us part timers for a while and I'm really hoping I can get stuck into my work and my research, use this rare time as much as I can. 

# 25 [26 April 2010]

Right, final week before the assessment, putting final touches to research folio and almost finished editing video. I'm not really sure how I'm feeling about either. The new work is so... new and the research folio is so... academic. It has been useful to have this deadline however because it has given me such an intensive time of making and reflecting, yes at times it was like getting blood from stone but got there eventually.  So tomorrow off to get it bound.

I feel like the new street filming work is a step forward for me and I've really enjoyed it. The video is clunky and I would change lots if I had the time but it has been the process that I have really, really enjoyed. It has definitely been a turning point and I am looking forward to getting out over the summer making new videos.

The bar work has been fun, I can't complain about it at all and maybe other new possibilities over the summer, but just keeping all fingers and toes crossed on those things. Feeling much better this week. Phew!

# 24 [22 April 2010]

It is turning out to be such a funny time for me at the moment. I've been thrown into uncertainty in so many different areas of my life right now, I'm doing that thing where I feel so stressed that I thinking I'm doing loads but most of my energy is just being sapped up by stress and worry.

I got made redundant at the beginning of this month, thought I was ok because I'd found another job straightaway, then the other job didn't work out, mainly because I came home and felt like I wanted to cry all the time. Then had long discussion with partner about not doing new, horrible, time consuming, soul destroying job and agreed that I should try to look for something relevant to my extensive education and chosen career for the last however many years, for a while, then go back to looking for rubbish, completely irrelevant minimum wage job when all other ideas have been exhausted.

So I'm now finding myself applying for the 'expenses only' jobs as that's all I can seem to find. I'm not complaining, I know we're all to paddle in that same old boat, but what a conundrum. Do work I want to do... for free, or do work that makes me cry and get paid for it?

Well, as a 'keep me a float' option for now, I'm off to try some bar work tonight, maybe I'll love it and not want to cry. Maybe I'll be like Tom Cruise... or... one of the Coyote girls... oh god, I want to cry already.

A friend made the suggestion that maybe I should use this as an opportunity to try out loads of weird and wonderful jobs as a kind of inspiration for my art, but I'm not inspired, I just want to use what I know and love doing. Ahhh, stamp feet, clench fists and scream and scream and scream, mmm that's better.

# 23 [6 April 2010]

I have now had 3 night walking expeditions and so far they have not been a massive success but still, it has been interesting in ways unexpected. Some observations made so far; 1. people never seem to sleep, there is always someone around. 2. I feel incredibly self conscious about being out and 3. where I see STREET police see BANK. Police cars patrol the town centre all night and are really interested in what people with cameras and a tripod are doing loitering around shops, because of this I felt quite distracted and ever so slightly harassed. I really don't know why I wasn't more prepared for this, of course being in the streets at 4am is going to attract attention, make one feel vulnerable, guilty and slightly paranoid.

But aside from the self consciousness, things happen that are really fascinating. The streets are like stage sets waiting in anticipation for the actors. It is on the empty street that I am almost able to get a glimpse of how this space exists before the ‘actors’ arrive. The signs, codes, markings and boundaries of the environment seem to be quietly waiting for the arrival of subjects and as it waits it continually flickers, blinks, swivels, points and directs with a steady authority. Giving it a faceless, abstract presence. I want to try out many different ideas, but as of yet I haven’t really been able to bring myself to be any more out of the ordinary than just being there in the first place. I’m hoping my confidence will grow and I will feel more free to experiment soon. So far all my interaction has felt laboured; experimentation and creativity frustratingly suppressed by the place.

# 22 [1 April 2010]

The Easter holidays have begun, which means 3 weeks to our first assessment and still very little actual work to speak of. Essay was handed in yesterday, so that one's behind me at least until my feedback session and so on with the million and one other things that seem fantastic in my head but are worrying still just that... in my head.

But plans are starting to happen and I currently have video camera and tripod to hand and a date in the diary for my first filming session, 3am tomorrow morning! Ok so part of me is going to hate myself for wanting to do something at such an unearthly hour and another part of me is bubbly with joy at the prospect of having the streets all to myself (bar some foxes, the local night dwellers and possibly a psychopath or two)

I had a tutorial last week to discuss ways I might get going with some of my fantasy ideas and we talked about realistic approaches that might help me to get them materialised. Just what I needed, that little bit of reassurance that this can actually go somewhere and I have a good range of possibilities to play with.

I don't know if I dare say it but I feel like I'm getting some sense of direction (egh, now that certainly will of jinxed it!)

# 21 [22 March 2010]

So, more busy weeks are passing at lightning speed and I'm starting to wonder whether I will ever actually get round to making and experimenting with any of the vast number of ideas that are floating around my head at the moment. I was told reassuringly on Friday that the making side of things with catch up with all the research side in due course and that it is fine to be a bit out of sync and a touch lopsided. With the presentation done (phew) and actually even enjoyed in the end, I am now working to get my essay finished and ready to hand in for this Friday. It is indeed creating an extremely lopsided practice at the moment. I can't seem to get my head out of a book long enough to make anything. I am pleased with how much I am enjoying the reading and research but feel a bit pitiful as an artist to tell the truth. I keep visualising me doing one thing of another and it almost becomes as though I have done it and I somehow mentally move on but I can't develop a practice on pure fantasy. I want to do things, try out, develop certain processes better and much more and I need the time for it.

Anyway, I am suppressing the potential anxiety simmering away at the situation and trusting the advice that it will all catch up and start being more balanced in time.

# 20 [9 March 2010]

I was sat looking out into my garden this afternoon and what do I see scurrying from under the fence? Huh, two little Mice. After watching them scurrying back and forth for about 10 minutes, I suddenly realised that I really should write a post on my blog. It has been ages.

It's been ages mainly because although things have been mad busy, I haven't really felt that there has been much to actually write about. I started another blog...and feel like a traitor. But I needed to do a more 'proper' research, ideas, reflection type one for the course. We get assessed eventually on something called a research folio and part of mine, I have decided will come from my other blog. Anyway, so I've been neglecting this one...although this one is much more fun to write, but it's just I don't think my tutors are going to find the Mice in my garden and what I had for dinner that relevant to the course criteria.

We've had our interim show over the last two weeks and it has been a really good experience. It was quite intense, with some fall outs and even a few tears, but the challenge of all working together and attempting to get 50 artists work up that's all quite different, into a relatively small space and make some kind of show was definitely... an experience. I was relieved to have not put myself forward for curating and instead was part of the hanging team, we just did as we were told (admittedly at times with slightly gritted teeth). It was however very interesting to see how each team of curators handled the responsibility and the power. They each had a bit of a peep talk from Terry Smith at the beginning of the week and I think he played devils advocate a bit. He made them more aware of their role and pushed them to challenge both audience and artist in some quite provocative ways... suggesting leaving things in bubble wrap or hanging things in really unusual ways. Each team reacted to this in their own ways and often fought it out between themselves once he had gone, but obviously some artists weren't happy to go with their plans and some were quite unaware until they turned up at the opening, expecting their piece to be hung as instructed on the submission form.

This created an interesting debate that went on throughout the two shows about role of curator and role of artist and who should really have the final say. The curator trying to see the show as a whole and seeing the whole as more important than the individual and the artist trying to retain the original intention for the work and it's reading. The debate continued and remained unresolved.

After the first week on the tech (skivvy) team I started to wonder about my own work and how I was going to approach this dilemma, in the coming week. I decided in the middle of one night that I would instead attempt to reassert some of the artist power into the space. I therefore decided that I would do something site specific and kind of in the way. So I decided to lower the doorways by a few feet. It was a quick decision, but sometimes I find that those sudden jolts in the night are worth running with. So I did and it was fun, watching everyone over 5 ft ducking in and out of the room and it felt really relevant to where things are going with my work at the moment. One of those tasty little starting points.

Anyway, so that's over with and no time to breath it's on to thinking about my presentation that is this Thursday. It has been such a hard process putting it together but slowly, slowly I can feel it helping me to get things a little more focused. Everything has gone on overdrive since Christmas and all the information in my head has been mixing around into a great mush. In fact this whole thing feels like wading through porridge (the kind you get when you're just a little short of milk)

# 19 [15 February 2010]

Phew! Arrived home Friday evening, my head spinning, brain buzzing, eyes watering and tummy rumbling. A combination of affects that made me unsure of what to do first - laugh hysterically, write madly, sob despairingly or just collapse in front of the dinner table and scoff down a beautiful dinner of fish and chips dished up by my wonderful partner. Luckily I started with the latter after which the need to do any of the others was adequately subdued for the evening.

It was a really good day, a really good week in fact but I am starting to feel the heat. We had our first critical practice group tutorial on Friday and there was some really great discussions. It was exceptionally helpful and I think, gave us all a lot to digest and a good insight into just what a big task lay ahead of us. I feel pleased to have got going with my research and reading right from the beginning of this course but it felt for much of the first few months that not much was actually making sense, only now do I actually feel I'm making some ground. Although, everything is still such a jumble in my head. It is true the more you learn the more you realise there is to learn and it creates a real hunger to discover more.

It feels like a whole wealth of information, new influences, fascinating new thoughts and discovery has been opened up to me. A quarter of the way through this course I can already feel it provoking an extremely significant change in my thinking and I'm enjoying it so much. It is definitely uncomfortable for much of the time but strangely thrilling...and it's only begun really. I look at the full time students, now nearly half way through and see the extreme pressure they are under, but it is really interesting to observe how their work is changing in such a small period of time and the really interesting debates emerging through their practices. The Post-graduate forums have given a really good insight in to other peoples concerns and research processes. I have mine own presentation to give in March and I am really scared about it but definitely looking forward to the discussion which I'm sure is going to be really helpful to me (although am sure I will not be thinking of that on the morning of it when I'm trying to hide under the table, hoping they forget about me) I am such a scaredy cat when it comes to speaking in front of people, in fact I always dread it. I seem to revert back to my school days and I'm suddenly a bumbling, stuttering, bright red tomato. Oh joy!

# 18 [6 February 2010]

It's been a busy week with one thing and another. Tuesday I was over in Swindon setting up for the second part of the Domesticated exhibition at the Post Modern Gallery. It was an interesting space and quite a contrast from the Chapel. It is a gallery but still clearly once a post office with counters and signs scattered throughout the room. I really liked the feel of it. The references to what it once was were subtle enough to not distract from the exhibition but enough to keep the character of the space and its context exposed.

I was exhibiting the same staircase that I showed for the Bath show, that I made last year. It was interesting to revisit this piece. It has been stored in Swindon for the months in between the last show and this one. It's physical distance from me has felt poignant. Installing it for this show has been a good opportunity to reflect on the changes that are occurring within my practice and where I have come from. Things have been placed under real scrutiny and I kind of feel right in the middle of the haze of intense questioning but I can still look back and appreciate the relevance of where I have come from and how I ended up here. Even in this thick fog of confusion and possibility I can link up the threads. I feel reflective looking back and excited (and a little scared) about the uncertainty of going forward.

College was really enjoyable this week and is starting to finally feel like things are under way. I can't believe it has taken so long but finally I am getting use to the travelling, relaxing into my weekly routine and getting to know people a bit better. I think I found the sheer number of new people and limited time to properly get to know them quite overwhelming. We have our interim show coming up at the end of the month at The Nunnery, I'm really looking forward to being involved. The group seems to be well organised and hopefully it's all set to run smoothly. I am a little worried about what I'm showing...its very unresolved and new territory for me but we have been encouraged to take a risk with it and that's what I'm doing and trying to get as much out of it as possible and enjoy it. I think sometimes I forget the enjoyment part... I'm doing what I absolutely love but am usually too busy worrying to remember that. It's so silly.