I've been visiting artists in their studios. It is really interesting seeing how other people live and work. It's nice to see that they are scatty or uncertain or amusingly neurotic. In both cases we have been discussing putting together some sort of show. Things seem very vague at the moment which I think I shouldn't admit I find a little unnerving. I've always been given the impression that artists are supposed to thrive on organic situations and I do try to pretend that I have appropriate levels of artistic nonchalance.
Anyway yesterday I spent some time in a converted shed playing and passing ideas around, it was a slightly awkward situation as we were trying to find new ways of working together while doggedly (too doggedly?) hanging on to what we do. I did manage to find a use for some pictures of aeroplanes that have been kicking around for a while.
Today I visited an artist who lives just down the road in an unconverted Victorian school house. She is trying to pull together a show based around personal and local history and I think wants me to be involved somehow. I'm afraid I just listened and didn't spit out lots of ideas, but secretly I thought it was really exciting. Hopefully it will develop into something.
I need an entourage. There's nothing worse than doing your third solo lap of an exhibition clutching your drink with increasing desperation. Usually looking round a group show its interesting to see how the works vie for attention. In the show at Studio Voltaire all the works were rather quiet, reticent even. I really enjoyed Coleman and Hogarth's rebus like video projection and a spooky portrait by Elisabeth Lecourt.
Back in my tiny hotel room I sheltered under the leaning wardrobe and watched the Olympic opening ceremony while reviewing the footage from my morning's filming outside a pub in Stratford.
I am journeying again tomorrow. I'm going to the private view at Studio Voltaire and on the way I will try to make a protest film in Stratford. Yet again I managed to find a cheap hotel in Clapham and yet again I didn't think to check the reviews until I had booked it online. Every time I check a new complaint has gone up, and I keep going back. It's like the lure of a grisly corpse. The latest reads
Stay away, stay away, stay away!!!!!!
I got a single room and it was disgusting. I might as well of slept outside on a park bench or in nearby Tesco's car park. The duvet was dirty and had holes in it. The bathroom (I am not sure I would call it a bathroom, and the washbasin (what washbasin?!) were pretty vile. The woodwork was rotten and in desperate need of replacing. The TV did not work as the aerial was broken.
I can't cancel it now but you never know it could be ok and if I drink enough at the pv I probably won't notice. I also got an email from Joe at Studio Voltaire asking me to burn a new dvd for the opening as the selectors had forgotten to bring it with them. I'm all ready to go now bag packed, map marked, escape planned.
More adventures in Leicester
On the platform in Leicester I was sat next to a young woman. We were both watching a wasp about to fly up her skirt. I was seized by a sudden urge to slap at it with my notebook. An act which would surely have lead to a sting and my arrest.
Conversation with a toddler before he was told to face forward by his mum:
Hiya
Hiya
Hiya
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Hiya
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Hiya
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Hiya
I'm traveling back from Leicester where I've just set up a show in the Phoenix Arts Center. I say set up actually it just involved taking Rachel Cattle's dvds out, taking down her drawings and and bunging my stuff up, to be honest Eric did most of it. I decided to show three of the automatic films and one small print of a still.
The journey up was characterised by the first break in the weather. Rain clouds were gathering. As usual I managed to seat myself next to the toilet so my thoughts were constantly interrupted by the fumblings of incontinent passengers. At least this was an old fashioned toilet with a mechanical lock. I'm frequently an unwilling audience to the difficulties people have with the electronic versions whose sliding door threatens to sweep open leaving its occupant in flagrante. Seeing the problems this system causes have made me think of becoming a sort of convenience bell-hop (in cap) pressing the "open", "close" and "lock" buttons in the right order. Despite the time these trips allow me to think I am getting bored with the views from trains. I am always seeing the backs of things as if the world is facing the other way. The journey is punctuated by the same experience of back yards and back gardens which I glimpse unsatisfactorily like a peeping tom in hell. I seem like I'm in a bad mood, I'm not and my city break has gone well, I have been described as the Mike Leigh of automata film making (a narrow field I admit).
We've just gone through Melton Mowbray a place with almost mythic status for me. A few years ago I decided to cycle from my home near Ipswich up to my parent's home near Manchester. I decided to do it in a day and on the hottest day of the year. Melton Mowbray was the place I nearly gave up suffering from dehydration/heat stroke. But after a little rest in the park and several litres of water I made what felt like one of the most important decisions of my life, got back on my bike and carried on. I made it, but did have to soak my shorts off in the bath and had nasty sunburn on my eyelids.
