ARTISTS TALKING

# 7 [17 November 2009]

I mentioned in one of my posts the other day about a piece of writing which I read when in India.  Well, I thought a good starting point would be to share this.  The book I was reading at the time was ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ by Rebecca Solnit.  However, the piece within her book which follows here was taken from Stephen Batchelor’s ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs’.

“SHUL” (Tibetan word)         =      TRACK

“A mark that remains after that which made it has passed by – a footprint for example.” 

In other contexts ‘SHUL’ is used to describe the scarred hollow in the ground where a house once stood, the channel worn through rock where a river runs in flood, the indentation in the grass where an animal slept last night.

All of these are ‘SHUL’ – the impression of something that used to be there.

A path is a ‘SHUL’ because it is an impression in the ground left by the regular treading of feet, which has kept it clear of obstructions and maintained it for the use of others.

As a ‘SHUL’, emptiness can be compared to the impression of something that used to be there.  In this case, such an impression is formed by the indentations, hollows, scars and marks left by the turbulence of selfish craving.”

And from his website:

“A path is a ‘SHUL’ because of its essentially negative nature.  An impression in the ground left by the regular tread of feet, a passage which is clear of obstruction.

We can translate ‘SHUL’ as track which in English means path/impression left by animal or person.  To experience the track like nature of emptiness would be like recovering a path that had been lost, or stumbling into a clearing in the forest, where suddenly you can move and see clearly.  To know emptiness is to experience the shocking absence of what normally determines the sense of who we are.  It may only last a moment before the habits of a lifetime reassert themselves and close in once more.  But for that moment, one witnesses oneself and the world as immediate, vivid and vulnerable.”

# 6 [16 November 2009]

Also, just like to say thankyou for the comments a few people have posted, they are most appreciated.  I can't quite figure out just yet how to reply to anyone, but when I do, I will....

# 5 [16 November 2009]

So, it’s been a fantastic weekend, but not much work or thinking has happened.  It was a friends 30^th birthday and she hired out a haunted-house-style, 4 or 5 storey mansion that slept something like 17 people! It was awesome and I have had an amazing time.  But today is Monday and it’s now time to get back to ‘work’......

I have just been asked to take part in a Creative Partnerships project in North Baddersly , Southampton.  This will be an 8-10 week project working with 2 classes of 8-9 year olds within a junior school.  The school are extremely environmentally aware and have several ‘ecology projects’ running through the school.  It seems that they want some more of that sort of stuff but combined with a ‘multi-cultural’ theme.  Apparently there is a large tree in the play area of the school which is having to be removed, and they are quite keen to use this tree in someway within the project.  I agree entirely.  I think this is an excellent starting point and am really excited by it!  I have no idea what I might do there yet, but I am thinking that this could be a great opportunity to run a ‘community project’ alongside a ‘personal project’.  There are many cross-overs between my practice and the schools ethos (but I guess that’s kind of obvious or they would have chosen a different artist!), so I think I will try and juggle two projects at the same time but both dealing with the same thing – whatever that may be.....  one thought is something based around Japanese Zen gardens but that’s as far as that thought has gone yet!

# 4 [11 November 2009]

Chunk 4:

One thing I have done a bit of over the past year and a half is community projects.  The WEA in Southampton asked me to run some workshops with 2 of the community groups.  10 weeks, 2 hours per week with a materials budget of £30.  Yes thats right, £30.  So I did these and they were great.  On both projects I was working with groups of fun and eccentric Asian ladies making various cultural patterns – we looked at Aboriginal, Rangoli and Islamic.  They seemed to absolutely love it and produced some truly fantastic and beautiful work.  It wasn’t until the last day of the first project that I realised just how much I had the work and couldn’t wait to get started on the next one!  The groups were just lovely to work with and it was incredible seeing such a big change in these peoples confidence, perception and ability in just a few hours.  They all started out wanting to take part but all thinking they weren’t good enough.   At the end of the project they were all producing well thought out work which was of a very high standard and quality and they all left with a sense of achievement and success.  It was great.  I loved it.  I wish that was my full time job sometimes! 

I feel like I could just keep writing and writing all afternoon but if anyone out there is actually reading this then I’m afraid of boring them with just ‘background’ information.  I think maybe it’s time to get on to some meatier stuff which is more about art than about me.

Since moving house and doing all the packing and unpacking, I have gathered all my diaries and journals from the past 2 years into one place.  I am going to start looking back through those and condensing what is relevant into a new place and try and make connections and patterns and get some reading and writing done about the things it is that I am interested in.  I need to narrow things down a bit, right now, I’m sort of thinking about everything, but also I’m thinking about what I’ve made in the past.  I need to find a middle ground whereby I am re-phrasing some of the pieces, not re-making them.

# 3 [11 November 2009]

Chunk 3:

Reading it back, it’s almost like a list of excuses as to why I haven’t done what I know I should have been doing, but I just got swept along with life really and now here I am.... 

But things are turning a corner it seems.   My other half, David, has a 12 month residency as a Lead Artist launching a new studio complex called Chapel Arts in Andover, and I have left the gym and am now working at Peter Symonds College in Winchester as the Textile and Photography Technician.  Life has got much better.  We have a beautiful little flat which is SOOOO much nicer than what we had in Southampton and we both have jobs we a) enjoy and b) are what we actually want to do and c) are surrounded by art day in day out!!! 

I think for me, this is the only way it works.  I need it around me nearly all of the time.  I know that I get distracted and I find home, family and friends to be more important to me than art.  This is another huge discussion / argument I have with myself regularly  - As much as I love art and I enjoy it, it’s not my number one priority and I wonder all the time if I want to be an ‘artist’ should art be number one.  Should I live it and breathe it?  Should I be that archetypal artist living in squalor, spending the rent and electricity money on paints and pastels?  Should my life be dedicated to art in every sense of the word?  If the answer is yes to these things then I think I’m heading down the wrong road.  For me, the things that come first are the simpler things like wanting to be married, wanting a family and a home.  I love spending time with my partner ,my  parents and brothers and tucking up at home with candles, a cosy book and something yummy to eat.  Even as I write this I’ve got a pan of soup on the hob that I made from scratch this morning and I’m still wearing my apron!!!  

# 2 [11 November 2009]

Chunk 2:

Since the Liverpool show, I have been struggling to make any more art work.  I have made a couple of pieces  in the first year after graduating but nothing of real substance or significance.  I had one of them in Drays Walk Gallery in London which was pretty cool.  But during all the internal struggles and battles, I made a decision to give myself a break for a while and just let the things that happened on my degree settle down and percolate, and give myself time to reflect upon things and try and understand what it was that I learnt.  I continued to visit galleries and read etc but with no real direction or purpose.  That kind of worked for a while and I was able to go back to things about a year or so later.  When I was in India, I read some Buddhist stuff which seemed to finally sum up what I think I’m thinking about.  But then one distraction after another, and still no art work. 

# 1 [11 November 2009]

My first post is going to come in several chunks as I have written more than the 500 word allocation....

Chunk 1:

So, I’ve decided to start a blog in the hope that it may clear up some of the problems and worries that I have been facing over the past couple of years.  I’m hoping that by writing each day (more or less) about my thoughts and feelings, things will tease themselves out and put themselves into some sort of format whereby I can review them and discuss them.

About me; well I’m a 25 year old graduate form Winchester School of Art.  I studied Textile Art and graduated in 2007, nearly two and a half years ago.  To put it briefly I’m interested in the transient nature of things, memory and the environment.  My work usually takes the form of an installation, although I wonder if it does actually fit into this category at times, but that’s another story for another time....  You can see my work at www.louisestokes.co.uk

As I was coming to the very end of my degree I applied and was accepted for an exhibition in the Site Gallery in Liverpool (opposite Tate Liverpool!)  This was an enormous achievement for me and I was dead chuffed.  So, pretty much the day after my Degree Show private view, I drove all the way from Winchester to Liverpool to make the same piece of work all over again for ‘Demolition’.  It was a fantastic opportunity as I was brave enough to take some risks with this piece which I wanted to take with my degree work but was advised very strongly against.  And, I discovered that these risks paid off and the work really came together and I think was more successful than the Degree Show piece. 

(Maybe I should explain these ‘risks’ a little so that you know what I’m talking about....  The pieces that I made both for the Site Gallery and my Degree Show were floor based installations made up entirely of lose, unfixed white sugar.  The sugar was used in such a way that I was able to cover areas of the floor in near perfect type face which was actually built using the lose sugar.  The risk in question here was whether or not to break part of the installation up once it was ‘completed’ by passing a broom through areas of it, utterly destroying parts of the work.  I think my tutors felt this was a very big, potentially unnecessary risk to take at the eleventh hour of my degree.  What if it looked terrible?  What if it all went wrong?  What if I regretted it and needed to rebuild everything?  Well, I listened to this advice knowing that the Site Gallery exhibition would give me the chance to try it out with no effect upon my grades etc.  I think I made the right decision on both occasions.  It was a huge risk, which fortunately worked out and in the right place at the right time!)