ARTISTS TALKING

# 1 [15 March 2010]

We are pleased to announce that Helen Scalway has been selected as our artist in residence for 2010. She will be based at the studio at St George’s Church in Esher working on her project until the autumn. More information about her work can be found on: http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1750_scalway/blog/

We are really please to welcome her and think her interest in making connections and finding links to things through drawing will be a very good thing for St George's Arts which is itself going through a period of making connections and adjusting to change. We have worked with Helen to alter the conditions of the residency for the better, redressing the balance a little more in favour of the artist and we are looking forward to what the residency brings.

# 2 [17 March 2010]

On Wednesday next week (24 March between 4.30 and 6.30 pm) there is a low key launch event at St George's to introduce Helen to some of the people who have supported the project; trustees, funders and councillors and some of the Friends Group who look after the building itself. After that we are officially embarked on this year's residency. 

If anyone is in our neck of the woods at tea-time next Wednesday do pop in for a cuppa or a glass of wine and meet Helen.

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

# 3 [6 April 2010]

St George’s Arts is based in an ancient, beautiful and curious church in Esher. It offers a residency inviting artists to respond to the building, its locality or history. I applied early this year and wrote in my proposal:

‘I am interested in making multiple drawings specific to place, seeking to work outside the frame, inviting the viewer in, sometimes to participate. I explore the way patterns in a place can overlie and interact with each other, suggesting movement between different layers of time, interlacing rhythms, memories, meanings. Drawing is a way of thinking and responding, so exploring through sketch books is important to me.’

In the week before the launch of the residency I spent time just being in the site, before beginning to draw anything. I also took numerous photos as these often yield up different and surprising treasure. Creating an initial display from the images to try and communicate my visual concerns to the visitors who attended the launch event has been a very good way of getting into the residency. The warm welcome and interest of the many people associated with St George’s Arts has also helped greatly. Jane Ponsford, the Arts Co-ordinator for the venue has been particularly helpful and, as an artist herself, very insightful.

# 4 [7 April 2010]

Some symbolic ornament from St George's.

# 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. 

# 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.

# 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.

# 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,) 

# 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...

# 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