ARTISTS TALKING

# 10 [7 December 2009]

My head is feeling much more together this week. Finally I feel like I have relaxed a little.

We part time students arranged our own crit on Friday so that we could finally get more familiar with each others' work and share some of the things that are going on with us. We booked out the project space and quite informally gathered around to take it in turns introducing our ideas, showing the work and then had a discussion about it.

It was a good time for me to talk about my work, after the wobbles and general vagueness of the last few weeks I feel I am gathering up my thoughts and working with much more direction and focus. Discussing it with the group was very useful and allowed me to attempt articulating my ideas in a more coherent manner, instead of falling back on the phrase... 'I really don't know what I'm doing at the moment' which I seem to have been repeating for a while now.

The focus this week has simply been searching out places, linking spaces, in between, transitory spaces particularly and collecting images of them. I am travelling quite a bit so these kind of places are in abundance. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about ideas while I'm actually on the move and passing through these places that are appearing in my work. I am really interested in the contrast of these kind of places to the very private home spaces that I have focused on before. These seem to hold all sorts of new possibilities.

I spent Tuesday visiting public car park stairways and trying not to choke on the powerful smell of ammonia that they all seem to come with as standard. It is so universal, Quintin suggested maybe it was pumped in purposefully just to deter people from hanging around in them. Maybe he's got a point! I managed to get a few snaps whilst out Christmas shopping with my Mum on Thursday. I had to laugh as she cringed bemused by her daughter's strange behaviour and walked slightly ahead muttering 'You are so embarrassing'. Oh, how funny to see the years have reversing our roles!

I have since been working on these photos, stripping them down to just the smallest information and playing with pulling out different parts of the spaces signs. I have been doing this on the computer and really enjoying the process. I feel like I have many steps I want to explore with these images, like my domestic images in the past, looking for ways of pulling these signs apart and re-presenting them within new spaces. It has been wonderful to get wrapped up in this process again and go full steam ahead with some sense of direction. I never thought piss-smelling stairwells could bring me such joy and satisfaction.

# 9 [30 November 2009]

Thinking very carefully about what to write today. Last week was a lot of reflecting, reconsidering where I am and considering where this is going.

I think it is a confidence thing. Since I began this course I have found I am conscious about my work made over the last 3 years or rather concerned with distancing myself from it, like it won't stand up to the criticism of the MA. So being absolutely truthful here, I must of assumed that what I have done so far isn't very good. (Ironically, there is a street in Wimbledon that I walk past on my way from the train station to the College called Goodenough Road, complete with little demon camping out on top cackling in his high pitched devilish tones....'YOU'RE NOT, YOU'RE NOT, YOUR NOT!')

So you can see how I came to the conclusion that I have a slight confidence issue.

Anyway, the reason behind this sudden evaluation of the issue is that I had a tutorial on Thursday. It wasn't a bad one at all, it was very helpful and enlightening but it did highlight the fact that I've got a little side tracked. I can see now that I have left a lot of hard work behind, maybe as I'm starting to suspect, as a bit of a safety barrier. The things that I have done before, without any feedback and guidance previously, feel a little vulnerable. I appear to have attempted to throw everything out before anyone else can. This going back to basics is not working, it is confusing me even more and taking me off the point of what my work is really about.

Luckily my tutor probed me for what I had done previously and asked to see it, then confronted me about how what was then relates to what is now and why. Oh, how the simple questions can hit you like a smack in the face. I walked away from the tutorial giddy. Why could I not see the obvious in my own work? Why do I bend to an invisible, self created, completely fictional pressure? ...again that leads back to my lack of confidence issue....right I'm going to have to knock that little demon off his perch!

# 8 [21 November 2009]

This week, quite out of the blue I've found a new place to work from January. It will be such a different set up from the one I've been in for four and a half years now. The most drastic difference will be that I will no longer be part of a studio group. It is a converted out building in a village 10mins from where I live. It is quite lovely, a perfect size and most importantly affordable. My own space... it is going to be so strange and I don't have a clue how I'm going to find the experience of working alone. Part of me is excited about not having distractions, having complete control over my time and place and being away from the politics but the flip side of course, being isolated is worrying. I'm thinking the situation may suit me well while I'm at Wimbledon 2 days a week with plenty of opportunity for discussion and debate, but beyond the course, I'm sure I will feel the need to be working around other artists again.

The course is getting busy. Every week another few things go in the diary and my writing has got increasingly tiny, migrating up the side of the page to fit it all in.

I had my first crit on Thursday. I showed 3 video clips. I never would of believed that I would be showing video work especially so early on in this course but things are changing fast. Ideas are multiplying and expanding with every working day. I am thinking hard everyday, waking up to the ideas and struggling to put them to bed at night. The reaction to the work was generous and encouraging, nothing to cut me down. No attack. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed listening to peoples comments. It was a very valuable experience and the criticism was really helpful.

Next week, another one to one tutorial with a different tutor. Right, getting in to the swing of it now, I think.

With so much to take in, just trying to be sponge-like... oh my poor brain.

# 7 [14 November 2009]

Thankfully train problems didn't prevent me from making it in to Wimbledon completely this week and actually helped me find a cheaper (although not quite so relaxing) alternative route. So I now feel better equipped for future problems. Bring it on First Capital Connect, I'm starting to see your cancellations as a challenge!

Being part-time is leaving me feeling a little bit of an outsider. I am skirting around the studios, not really knowing where my place is. The full time students occupy the centre, they look settled in, at home, confident in their routine. It is, I'm starting to see two very different experiences. I feel more like an observer looking in. I don't want to sound negative about it, it's not necessarily. I am still confident the part-time option is the right one for me, but as an observation and I suppose this is obvious, integrating into the college community is harder work, less automatic.

That said, this week has felt like progress. I got chatting to another part-time student and discovered that we are at very similar places and many of our ideas cross over. It was one of those great, exciting conversations when you end up talking really fast and being very animated. So after our discussion we agreed that it could really benefit us to work in the same space for a bit. So she is going to join me in the project space in a few weeks. Neither of us have a particular plan but feel that we are both more than happy to just experiment and bounce ideas around. We aren't thinking of it like a collaboration but more a chance to have more discussions, help each other out and share the equipment. I'm really looking forward to this.

# 6 [7 November 2009]

More playing in the studio this week. I feel my work, my identity, my process, my ideas are all somewhere else, somewhere where I can't quite get a grasp on them. My approach has gone from somewhere specific to somewhere increasingly vague. The plane of possibility has suddenly grown rather vast and it feels a little overwhelming. So I'm playing with lines in the studio and reading Deleuze on the train (phew). This vastness seems to of provoked a vagueness. Looking at lines, looking at corners, looking at the space around me. All I can say about my stuff at the moment is that it is unsure, searching. I have booked the project space at Wimbledon for a few days in a couple of weeks time. I feel that I need to actually work in that place. This nomad feeling is making me feel quite distant from my work. Like it is always somewhere else and I am forever having to conjure up its existence in my mind, forever recalling it and its existence somewhere else. There is an underlying need for transportation and temporariness. These altered demands on my production have brought up many questions.

I have entered the world of academia and at the moment it is a lot discussion, a lot of theories and concepts, a lot of analysing(which is proving fascinating and exciting). So what is this funny feeling I have? A loss of privacy and the protection of it just being me, maybe? I never realised my isolation provided a feeling of security in that way. I feel like my process is going to be opened up, dissected, my bubble burst. Will I be found out? Will I be exposed as a fraud? Will I be sent away with my head hung in shame or sent to the corner with the dunce hat on? Ok sounding a little neurotic but so far this course is, I guess having the desired effect...it is challenging my methods and the cozy-ness of old habits and... there doesn't seem any place to hide.

Btw I'm on twitter and pimping myself for followers. http://twitter.com/Chrissy_Bryant

# 5 [31 October 2009]

This week...um...trying to think back all the way to Monday. Monday, I was at the gallery (work, boring, yawn, yawn) Tuesday I had a play day at the studio. I enjoyed it. It seems I have started a routine of spending my studio days just getting straight on and building things, constructing drawing set ups around various areas of the building, taking lots of photos and then taking it all down at the end of my day, going home and thinking about what I have done and looking back at the photos. I quite like the immediateness and spontaneity of this approach. It seems to be a response to having so little time to spend in my studio. Being in there has started to feel more like an event in itself.

Wednesday I spent the day in London seeing the Turner Prize (enjoyed Lucy Skaer's work), the Anish Kapoor exhibition and Metzger at the Serpentine (favourite moment crawling around on my hands and knees under a giant sheet trying to see the image beneath me whilst trying not to get in a knot.)

The 2 uni days were made up of exhibitions, seminars, lectures and workshops as part of the Graduate School. I managed to get to Chelsea on Thursday which was a great opportunity to familiarise myself with the site, see the other students. I booked myself in for a workshop session with Angela Rogers. I really didn't know what to expect, titled 'Stretching the Rules' and something to do with drawing was the depth of my prior knowledge. What it ended up being was a really interesting drawing 'conversation'...literally, I draw a bit, you draw a bit (no talking). We drew for a half an hour which actually felt like 10mins and then discussed our drawing and how it felt. To me it felt intense, strangely intimate and I found that in a similar way I become stuck for words sometimes, I became stuck for a drawn response at moments. It was so interesting how we provoked reactions through this drawing exercise. I felt often a sense of confusion and amusement on my part. Afterwards I realised I had been really open with Angela following our drawing session, discussing anxieties about words and meanings being misread and worries about being led/following. Did it turn in to a kind of therapy session?...I wonder if she finds that she gets that response often. Or maybe it's just me! Egh.

Friday was at Wimbledon. I went to some interesting discussions. Particularly interesting was a seminar on collaboration with Sonia Boyce, discussing its purpose and its problems... I was obviously considering it in relation to my recent experience of collaborating. After the discussion I could see how inevitable our fall out in the summer was. We were like a text book example of all that can go wrong in collaborative projects and it helped me understand why it might of happened that way.

# 4 [24 October 2009]

Another week, another significant amount of travelling, another lot of lugging my extremely heavy bag and knocking in to everyone and everything followed by my 'Sorry, sorry, excuse me'. Some more trying to work out where I am suppose to be and racing to get there. A little more standing staring aimlessly at the notice board and the train information board. All in all the regularities of my routine are starting to emerge.

I did manage to get my first tutorial after some confusion. The difficulties of the part time option have started to become clear. My tutorial was cancelled in the week due to my personal tutor being unwell, but rescheduled last minute with someone else and... I missed the message or the message missed me. I turn up with no work, not even my sketch book in an attempt to reduce weight for that day. Anyway, to cut the long story down a bit but to insure due credit is given to the hero of this tale... my wonderful boyfriend came to the rescue, battling against the clock with a rucksack containing the weight of about 5 large house bricks on his back, travelling across London, spending a small fortune on a rail ticket, having abandoned his lunch he was just about to bite into, to deliver me my laptop and sketch books with an hour to spare! Thank you so much!

So I had my tutorial and I feel that it went well. It has given me plenty to think about and although I'm in a time of change with regards to my practice I don't feel lost at sea. More than anything I feel excited (slight nervous excitement maybe) but enthused. I think what I really got out of this tutorial was a conversation that reaffirmed my own considerations and doubts. It was the first time Edwina had looked at my work and her response to it felt completely in line with what I think I'm doing but pushed those difficult questions about where it's going. This has given me a sense of reassurance but also left big question marks hanging over the future progression of it...there is an opening up happening and I am eager to embrace and drive the change.

A tiring week but a good one.

# 3 [17 October 2009]

This week seems to have gone in a flash. I managed to spend a precious 2 days working in my studio.(well mostly just sitting, staring into space, at times sporting a rather fetching polystyrene box over my head. Don't ask!) It has been a while since I got in there and even when I have it's always been with another more practical task set out ahead of me. This quiet contemplation, experimental time is well over due. I know I rely on a certain obscure time/space to withdraw into my thoughts and push out those yet unseen possibilities. I can't say I unearthed a lot but I did feel I started to contemplate areas of my work that need to be strongly reassessed. I guess it is quite normal to have found a process of working that feels comfortable and 'right' because you have learnt to do it over time, let it define your progress. But is it really working for me? This has been the question constantly in the back of my mind this week. Can I approach these ideas from different more effective angles?

So I'm now a little lost in the fog of it all, my ideas, my approaches. Where am I? One noticeable feature of this is that although I feel a little uneasy about where I am, I don't feel in a panic. Is it because I am aware that I am on my MA and that this is a time for experimentation and questioning? I feel like I want to unpick so much of what I've done up to now and really understand it better...for better or worse.

Anyway, I have my first tutorial next week. I think it will help. I need to discuss these thoughts and concerns and I also need to just battle through it in my mind.

# 2 [10 October 2009]

Phew, it's been a busy week. Tuesday went really well and was unexpectedly relaxing. A good mate of mine from the studio kindly agreed to come with me to Bath to help out with the installing of my stairs for the Domesticated exhibition at Walcot Chapel. It turned out to be a really good day for catching up during the 3 hour journey there and I think we almost forgot we weren't on a holiday and had work to do.

We got the piece up without too much of a hitch, although having to stand at the top of a 6ft ladder with a 4ft pole in my arms waiting for the glue at the end of my pole to dry and stick my little plastic block to attach my fishing wire to, to the ceiling, was pretty tiresome. It is quite often that it is at these moments I find my mind pondering as to what exactly in my life led me to this particular position.

Once up and secured I found it difficult to fix my eyes on the piece. It was so different in this new space, disappearing in to its background. Having left the wall behind me and having produced this free standing 2d/3d drawing I am feeling oh so slightly apprehensive. The fact that it can be seen from every angle yet seems to hide from view continuously left me feeling uneasy. I'm not sure why. I didn't however have long to look at it and consider, before we had to be on our way back. So it's there and I'm here.

Wednesday was a bit of researching into possible new studio spaces. It seems that there might me a possible place in the same village that I live. This obviously would be a massive blessing, but I'm wondering how I have gone so long without knowing about it.

Thursday and Friday was Uni and Friday we had our first introduction to the critical practice lecture series. As a taster of things to come it did certainly get me salivating. 'The Terror of Neutrality' is the title and some of the ideas discussed were definitely getting my cogs turning in anticipation.

Also got allocated my personal tutor and have my first tutorial session in the diary for 2 weeks time.

After the day I imagined myself flaking out on the train coming home, chilling out to a bit of music and quietly digesting the days bombardment of new information. Instead I got a cancelled train, an unexpected change over and my face squashed against the window as I clung to the rail trying not to head butt the window or get a face full of an armpit for an hour. Oh the joys of commuting!... that said, a small price to pay for such a stimulating day.

# 1 [5 October 2009]

Finally I can start my new blog. I have been suffering from a mental block lately. Revving my engine just a little too long and somehow managed to stall.

I started at Wimbledon last Thursday, which was great. A few first day nerves were churning on the train down but they soon disappeared once the day was under way. We had an introduction to each others' work through a 1 minute showcase. Although a little daunting at first, it was an ideal way to get a first impression of what we are all into. The variety of work was exciting - being in a room with such a concentration of ideas...it was giving me belly flutters!  

It looks the next few weeks are going to be inductions and getting settled in. I can't wait to get stuck in.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bath to set up my piece for Domesticated. With so much other stuff going on this seems to have crept up on me. I hope I'm organised! Tomorrow will tell.