ARTISTS TALKING

# 14 [28 January 2011]

Some concluding thoughts on the 2010 residency from Helen Scalway:

I was astonished by the very well attended  closing event. The drawings were inspired by sounds past and present hovering together in the church and Jane Ponsford, the imaginative co-ordinator of St Georges, happened to remark that it would be good to hear them being sung. Once these  words had been said I knew I just had to make it  happen so the closing event should echo the performativity of the drawings.

So I had invited the talented early music soprano, Sophia Brumfitt, whom I had heard sing in another church, to ‘sing the drawings’ for this one. To my great relief she expressed interest and came to spend time to lookand to reflect. What might  ‘singing the drawings’  mean?  How might she combine a phrase from the composer Purcell , whose music would have been new just about the time when some of the church’s finest memorials were erected, with sounds such as the clickings of the thoroughly twenty first century central  heating system in the church and the  rattle of the current keys to its doors, while also making reference to my own visual use of the contemporary recycling symbol on dustbins just outside the church?

Sophy’s  response was intelligent, fresh and unexpected. I hope eventually to give a url here to the video which came out of it. In the mean time here are some images.

# 13 [11 November 2010]

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:

Many artists have contacted us at St George’s arts to ask for an application form for our ‘Early Career Residency’ for 2011. This year we haven’t posted a call out as we have been restructuring our art programming. I apologize if you have seen it posted as an opportunity but can only say that we haven’t advertised it ourselves. Where I have seen it advertised (Red Squirrel etc) I have asked them to take the advert down. Rather worryingly I have just noticed it posted on the Opportunities section on the a-n website too and have contacted them to ask for it to be removed as I don't want to raise any hopes or waste anyone's time over something which isn't available this year. If you have asked for an application form or sent us any information I will be contacting you with my apologies and to assure you that when we post an opportunity you will be the first to know! 

For 2011 St George’s Arts is proposing to run a series of shorter ‘Mini’ residencies, events and exhibitions. For the first year the artists are mainly being approached directly by us because during the last few years of running our three to six month ‘Early Career Residency’ we have had contact with so many wonderful artists who for one reason or another didn’t slot into the formula of the longer residency or were unavailable to carry out the outreach programme required by our then funding structure. 

When we have an open opportunity we will post a call and if you have asked for information about our residency programme now or in the past you will automatically be sent information about the opportunity and how to apply for it.

# 12 [13 October 2010]

Helen Scalway's concluding exhibition at St George's Arts, 'Pattern and Place' opened yesterday evening with a well attended private view that became something rather more than that. Helen had asked early music soprano, Sophia Brumfitt to 'sing the drawings' (this in response to comments that the 3d drawings that Helen has been working on during her residency look like musical notation). The beauty of Sophia's singing and the appropriateness given St George's original function as a place where sacred music was at home made the evening into a magical event with very different dynamics from the standard private view format. 

I'll leave Helen to reflect on the exhibition and residency in subsequent blog postings but would like to say that it has been a real pleasure working with her and we would like to thank her for her commitment as well as her ability to show us the everyday reality of a place reflected back to us transformed.

Over the past few years while St George's Arts has been the base for residencies we have been privileged to work with the artists who have taken on the role.

St George’s Arts: http://stgeorgesarts.wordpress.com/ 

Helen Scalway:http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1750_scalway/blog/

Sophia Brumfitt: www.sophiabrumfitt.co.uk

# 11 [29 September 2010]

It's coming up to the closing show of the residency - hard to believe, it's gone so fast. I tried to make an animation, my first ever, but soon learned the hard way that this really is a whole new ball game. Still, it's been great to have the time and space to experiment, even to make instructive mistakes. Animation is for another time!

But this phase- which felt very frustrating - has produced an unexpected outcome: the possibility of projecting some images as a sequence with sound, alongside the drawings. So for the private view for this show, the talented soprano Sophia Brumfitt will be performing, improvising with her beautiful voice around  the visual patterns and rhythms of the drawings as though they form a musical score. This seems a fitting event  in this church which holds so much music of the past. I'm nervous and excited, but I know Sophie is a complete professional and the event will be extraordinary.
Now it's just hectic as we are also putting on a Big Draw event in the space just a few days before the show opens - it's whirlwind time.
Here are some details of the work. Even now it's changing so I hope to show it as it ends up, in another posting. 

# 10 [27 September 2010]

We are coming towards the end of the residency now. Two more public events and a workshop to go!

First up is the Big Draw on 2 October. Our theme this year is 'Seeing Stars'. A user-friendly introduction to a day that we hope brings together local families, artists, interested visitors and anyone who would like to join in with a day of drawing. It is hoped that the resulting drawings can become part of the final exhibition on 12 October as the aim is to incorporate elements of these drawings into a bookwork (working tille: 'Leopold's Stars) that Helen Scalway is making now. 

So if anyone is in the Surrey area do come along and join us!

Drawing activities for all ages, no need to book. All welcome. 10 – 12 noon and 1 – 3 pm FREE

 St George’s Arts, St George’s Church, Esher Park Avenue, Esher, Surrey KT10 9RQ

# 9 [31 July 2010]

Having realised that light and shadow could play such an important part in these drawings, I thought some more about ways of playing with shadows. The newspaper cut-outs cast their own shadows, whether delicate or energetic, and I wondered if I could use another material, this time translucent which would cast a shadow if marked. I decided on clear acetate, drawing the motif on with a marker which can mark plastics; then went further and got some red acetate which casts a red light.

It was a challenge to work out how to hold the acetate at the right angle from the wall to cast the desired light; in the end , twisting it gave the added bonus of an odd, upward, angelic small reflection.

The drawing at present looks like this. It harks back to its very solid sources such as the edge of the baroque memorial greatly elaborated, the arrows from the recycling symbol on the bins in the civic car park outside the church, the arrows indicating higher or lower temperatures on  the church’s digital central heating system control panel  – all translated into motifs which I wanted to be akin to music in which different sounds which seem to come from different times are lilting, humming, clicking, clashing, thudding, whispering, all together,  but each in its different way.

These are large drawings, several  feet across. One more effort, perhaps to get them beyond the wall and down on to the floor and up and out of the windows... if possible...

# 8 [29 July 2010]

It’s been too long since I last posted on the blog – the lively workshops which have been going on in the church have kept me busy, but so also has the experimentation with drawing which I have been undertaking. This has been affected by the thought that so much music has sounded here in the past and still now from time to time fills the church.

In my last post I wrote about the choices of materials and showed some images of the cut-outs I had begun to produce. This lace-like piece (1) at once introduced another element which excited me: shadow. (2,3) This seems very apt for the work I’m hoping to produce with its layering of time, of past and present, in a place which enfolds and holds them together in its sifting lights and shades.

But something delicate in drawing as in music is often enhanced by contrast. The next thing was to try how this delicate object would be changed by translation into another material, another scale. Completely different things happened, I could not have predicted the shift in mood. Discovery really does come through drawing, through making.

I also made the simplest possible drawing of a tiny button (4) on the control panel of the church’s digital central heating system, and began to play with it, cutting it out of a shiny black card. (5) 

The small arrow grew and multiplied, the small delicate piece I started with changed,  and after much trying this and that  I found myself working on 3 separate wall-drawings, playing with possibilities, trying to to orchestrate colour, weights, speeds, shadows. This is what had happened by last week. (6,) 

# 7 [27 May 2010]

Numbers in the text relate to the numbered photos.

The silence in St George’s resonates with its past music. This late 17th/early eighteenth  century memorial in the church seemed evocative of the baroque music of that time.(5) I made a free drawing based on it (6), and then embarked on cut-outs at several scales.(7).

I also want to incorporate motifs from St George’s present day context however. Just outside at the back is the Esher Civic Centre car park and recycling bins: This is a graphic from one of the bins (8) and here is an interpretation added to  my drawing (9), making a different sound in it.

# 6 [20 May 2010]

(NB the numbers in the blog text correspond to the numbered images at the side.)

I’ve been reflecting on the possibilities for making a drawing at St George’s which would be both wall-based but also have some 3-d elements. I began to experiment with some cut-outs. The very first came from the word, ‘EXODUS’ in gold on black above the 10 Commandments behind the altar, a text perhaps from the 18^th century. (1) Here is a cut-out (2) of the first 4 letters, but in fluorescent pink bought from B&Q in April 2010, in an experiment to see how this contemporary colour might affect the viewers reception of this ancient text.

Then I began to think about Esher, a Surrey commuter town where there are some very wealthy enclaves. I liked the idea of paper cut-outs, but it was time to make some decisions about materials. To reflect the contemporary economic context I decided to work with The Financial Times, with its iconic pink paper and lists of stocks and shares.

The church’s memorials also reflect differing degrees of wealth. Here is a detail from a memorial to Prince Leopold and Princess Charlotte, created at the instigation of Queen Victoria in 1880. (3) Here is a first attempt at a cut out using the Financial Times as a material. (4)

These were early experiments. Since then I’ve also decided to use for contrast a thin card which looks as though it is coated with an entirely contemporary black glossy surface, and will limit myself to these materials as I find freedom comes with limitation.

# 5 [13 April 2010]

I’ve had time now to get a sense of the fascinating and various ornament in the church. Behind the altar are gilded inscriptions nestling amidst flourishes in gold on black wood  from the 17^th century. The ten commandments are there, and the Lord’s Prayer, the powerful words given even more status by their presentation. Elsewhere there is a baroque late seventeenth century memorial  whose exuberant form belies the sad fact that it speaks of too many youthful deaths in one family. Its vitality reminds me of baroque music, the flourishes carved in sound. Then there is a late nineteenth century memorial to Prince Leopold and Princess Charlotte, related to Queen Victoria who came to the church as a young woman. This is more static, more literal. There are many other items in the church which speak of successive ways of seeing and celebrating life and death.

Outside, beyond the churchyard, is the civic  car park. Completely different! This is full of contemporary motifs, not intended as ornament at all. There are graphic instructions on how to park and pay for parking by mobile phone, a reminder of a cctv camera, litter disposal, etc. But this is the everyday context for the church now.

The question is how to layer these worlds together in the work I hope to produce. It’s occupying my mind.