ARTISTS TALKING

# 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.

# 17 [26 January 2010]

Right, need to get brain in gear. I think I had too much sleep last night and I am now feeling extremely weary and watery eyed this morning.

Today's mission is to attempt writing my first 500 words on my research paper for discussion at our next critical practice meeting. Also I aim to finish writing a review on the Damien Roach exhibition I visited last week and oh yeah, must write this blog post too. Too much writing...

I'm reading some really interesting books at the moment 'The Production of Space' by Henri Lefebvre and 'Non-Places' by Marc Auge. The Lefebvre book is taking me ages to read though, with only a weeks loan from the library I'm renewing constantly, fearing the day that someone else requests it and I'll have to reluctantly hand it back. It is such an interesting book. These French philosophers don't seem to hold back on confronting the powers that be, with theories and words at least. I feel like I'm just scratching at the surface of these ideas, trying to get my head around the concepts but there have been some sentences that stop me in my tracks and make me just sit and think about this situation we find ourselves in and try to make some sense of it.

'What we seem to have is an apparent subject, and impersonal pseudo-subject, the abstract 'one' of modern social space and concealed by its illusionary transparency, the real 'subject' namely state (political) power. Lived experience is crushed, vanquished by what is 'conceived of.'

'Invisible fullness of political space sets up its rule in the emptiness of a natural space confiscated from nature. Forces of history smashed naturalness forever and upon its ruins established the space of accumulation; wealth and resources; knowledge and technology; money and precious objects, works of art and symbols'

'History is experienced as nostalgia and nature as regret.'

There are many of these high impact statements throughout this book that make me want to sit and stare into space, through an overwhelming sense of dread and at my/our general pathetic blind passivity to our state of being. It is hard to read this stuff and know how to react to it. In our latest lecture given by John Cussans, he talked about our passivity and how there tends to be a sustained neutral, silent position held when it comes to the political, a strange general apathy towards major issues. Lefebvre is constantly talking about the organisation of space and knowledge as a means of manipulation, he also talks about the issue of the 'users' silence. He asks the question; Why there is this worldwide passive response from the 'users' of a space that is manipulating and damaging them? He attempts to explain it by the idea of diversion. Considering that our attention is diverted by a part of space 'endowed with illusionary status, namely that concerned with writing and imagery, underpinned by the written text (journalism, literature) and broadcast by the media.' Believing that this amounts to an abstraction creating 'reductionistic force on 'lived' experience.'

It is understanding it in some 'real' terms, identifying how it is part of everything that we do. How can we experience our everyday in any other way than through the systems that create it? Lefebrvre explains that this abstract space is 'a highly complex one'. Yes, I must say I am finding that. I'll keep reading on...

# 16 [18 January 2010]

What is my research question?

This is one of the headings I put into my note book last week with the intention of making sure I don't forget that I need to start thinking in these terms. I feel like it is something that should be obvious. My research question is my research. It's simple. When I work what is the answer I'm looking for? What is my drive, my focus?

The problem I'm finding now is that when I try to address the question of the 'Question' I find it isn't something that necessarily falls on to the page in a coherent, organised sentence. Can my question be a feeling, an inkling, a vague notion? Well, no. Understanding and being able to articulate what my work is about is vital. In my application to do this course I wrote what I believed my work was about. My work existed at that time in a certain way. I looked at how I worked, what I think about when experimenting, I looked at what came out of that thinking and what emerged through the doing. That felt easier and a more natural way to comment on the goings on of my practice at the time.

However, since I started this course, things have changed, the waters muddied. I now am trying to look through the murky depths of my ideas, to find some certainty and some clarity, at least enough to feel a movement forward, a sustained momentum. The answer to finding this is the 'Question'.

Ok, so what I want to do now is stop at this point and consider what is important to me, discovering this by honestly looking at what I have been doing and what I come back to, time and time again. The following 3 points are my attempt to search out some clarity and some common threads linking my ideas together.

1.How we see, feel and respond to images of spaces that indicate 'non-places' (those everyday places that exist purely to take us somewhere else). Using line and perspective drawing as an indicator of these places, juxtaposing lines in space with lines creating space.

2.Lefebvre's theories on the production of social space. The factors involved in how space has been organised and developed and what this contributes to in terms of our experience and reading of our everyday environment in Western society.

3.Looking at the function of the gallery space, comparing its physical material existence and boundaries, with the cultural, social understanding as something designed to provoke ideas and discussion through the viewers reading of art pieces within its context. (exploring the notion that through its separation from the reality of the everyday, it presents 'truth' and 'knowledge' of this reality).

Reading this back I'm not sure if I'm articulating myself very well but it really is as precise as I can be right now. I tend to keep trying to elaborate more and more until things turn into a mangle of random thoughts so I'll settle for these 3 points for now and come back to them again soon to see if I can refine and write with more clarity. It really does feel like trying to find something that is determined to remain obscure.

# 15 [13 January 2010]

What would life be like without these online spaces now? It is almost impossible for me to imagine. I'm definitely in agreement with Jonathan Moss in his latest post. It has opened up a whole world of communication and support that I'm sure has been a huge factor in helping me evolve my practice and feel in some way connected to something much bigger than just myself.

I was quite fascinated to look back on just a normal days browsing history and post it, just to see how it felt. The answer- quite uncomfortable really, almost like I'd exposed too much of myself. Even though I had actually taken some stuff out...like online banking, I still felt like I was doing something completely inappropriate. I wonder how revealing our online footprints are?

Anyway, yesterday I was busy in the studio again. That always feels like a much more healthy activity, in contrast to my job at the gallery when I have far too much time to ponder, yet no freedom to do.

I have been starting to work from these images that I collected and work them into a space. I've been using insulation tape to mask out the lines. It allows me to work rapidly, make changes, add to, take away and not be precious about it. I really enjoy this way of working. Continually moving from photo, to drawing, to wall, back into sketch book with notes and more sketches. Each time I move into a different medium there is the trace of the last move I made still in my mind. Things pop up, almost of their own accord. It almost feels like I'm shaking and shaking my thoughts around in my head until things rattle out.

Still, I'm not sure I have any clarity about where I'm going with it yet but I have some ideas I really am looking forward to trying out. I'm going to enjoy the inspiration while it's with me and try to keep following the momentum. I'm sure there will be lots of time for the critical questions and analysis over the coming months. Now I just want to do do do.

# 14 [12 January 2010]

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# 13 [5 January 2010]

I've now got settled into my new space. It is a really odd feeling. Digswell had become my everyday routine. Not doing the familiar drive along the windy back roads to Welwyn seems the strangest part. That route literally feels engrained in my mind, like every time I did it, it carved out a deeper and deeper physical groove through my mind.

So now I have a new winding road to use every morning and this one is particularly wibbly wobbly indeed. It's well and truly out in the sticks. I spent my first afternoon alone there today and was extremely apprehensive when I arrived. I had got it into my mind that there could be the possibility that I might not be able to do any work there, like it would have the wrong feng shui or something like that and any creativity would seize up from the moment I crossed the threshold. I had a really restless night last night with this concern playing on my mind.

Today though it's fine, actually it felt really good. For the first time in ages I have a desk looking out over a grassy meadow. It's been a long time since I've had a studio with a view...in fact on consideration I never have. I don't think I've ever worked in such a quiet space before either. I am looking forward now to getting into the routine of it and making it feel like my own.

Art work wise, Christmas has not been a very productive time for me, although this I anticipated. I actually feel pretty invigorated by the break from it all and am keen to get on. I've looked back over the stripped down drawings I did of car park stair wells today and can see many aspects about them that I want to pursue. I'm heading back out with the camera very soon.

Another thing on my mind, before Christmas, I asked a fellow artist to draw a space she knew reasonably well but couldn't see at the time, on an A4 piece of paper. The only brief was that she draw it however she wanted but how she thought best communicated the space to someone else. I would really like to see how others approach this too. If anyone would like to do it for me here I would be forever grateful! Rules are no words and just pencil and A4 paper, and it can be anywhere you like and just a quick drawing/sketch. If you can do one you can email it to me at info@christinabryant.co.uk and I would be really interested to see it.

# 12 [12 December 2009]

Oh, just seen I'm featured in a curated selection on axis.... yay!

http://www.axisweb.org/atSelection.aspx?AID=2391

# 11 [12 December 2009]

I have started getting my things together in preparation for the studio move at the end of this month. I'm not going to get a lot of time in the studio over the next couple of weeks so it feels impossible to get down to proper work in there. Can't start building too much or drawing on the walls, I've got to start winding this work space up.

It was rather strange and left me quietly reflecting on the three years I have spent in the space, as I attempted some organisation and gathered up all this stuff. All the things you unearth during a mass sort out of this kind. The piles and piles of photos, cds, slides (blimey!), magazines, half used sketch books, many different drafts of artists statements on scrappy bits of paper, the list goes on! There is evidence of the occasional attempt to organise (dated albums, the odd folder with dividers) but these I can see, although well intentioned, have been short lived. Most stuff has been hastily stashed in boxes, plastic bags, all in no particular order...a sorting nightmare! I took the brutal approach when it came to throwing out and keeping. I want space not old rubbish. New studio, new leaf, new organised Christina......ha yeah right!

A side from this packing up I did get into London to see some good exhibitions over the week too. (have made a firm commitment to myself to dramatically increased the amount of exhibitions I visit) Having my student rail card has helped massively with this new commitment. Over the last few weeks I have enjoyed some great days in London, whizzing around on the tube from place to place. I particularly enjoyed the Roger Hiorns piece on Harper Road, Seizure. I found it completely fascinating, a dazzling spectacle, literally a gem concealed within the drabbest block of flats ever.

Other highlights of the last 2 weeks... John Baldessari at the Tate Modern, Bloomberg New Contemporaries 09 at A Foundation near Old Street and For the Blind Man at the ICA. Next week Sophie Calle exhibition at White Chapel.

Any suggestions for what's good to see at the moment would be very welcome!