I shall be doing a residency at Château de Sacy in France for one month. This will culminate in an exhibition in September as well as an extended project in October. This is my first art residency yet i hope to move my work forward during this time of focus and exploration.


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A FEW THOUGHTS

13.10.09

It’s been almost two weeks since I was in France. Coming back to England has felt a little frantic and I have been a little panicked as of late (mainly due to monetary matters), however I have decided to throw it up to the Gods.

In terms of my artwork I have been questioning my practice a lot. What is it about? Why am I doing this? What is it for? What purpose does it have? The list goes on. Over the past few years I have been committed to this notion of trace, in particular the human trace ie, what humans leave behind. Usually the human presence is not necessary but sometimes it is. Working with the Madame Noel butchers in France gave me real food for thought. I couldn’t help but marvel at their skill, precision and expertise. Before I had travelled to France I had become increasingly interested by lace, an age- old craft and skill. I took classes for eight weeks during the spring before I relocated to Nottingham. One would think that finding a similar class in Nottingham would be super easy however it is proving to be a little troublesome. I visited Wollaton Hall at the weekend and came across some quite beautiful lace machines in the Industrial Museum. I had read that the council were planning to close the museum as they are £44,000 short this year. This seems a small sum and I hope they can raise the money to keep this little gem open. I carried on with my quest yesterday – to find a lace class/ teacher so I decided to visit the Lace Centre in Nottingham to enquire about classes. Alas it was closed and it looked as though the building had not been open for some time. I do hope that my suspicions are not true.

The Butchers shop in Sacy-le-Petit is also due to close this December so now the inhabitants can no longer pop in to purchase their meat. Not enough customers I suppose. Instead the Noel family will drive around in their truck selling the meat via transport.

Although at first glance the butchers and lace seem to have no connection, while talking with a friend last night we managed to put the two together. Both these skills are almost dying out as a replacement for something bigger, better and more contemporary.

Maybe the absence and presence of people, objects, skills and things can still continue in my work but from a different angle or viewpoint. It is a little depressing that the drawings I have laboured over for the past few years have little/ no significance now. Maybe this will change or maybe it will not and I can come to accept this.


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LAST FEW DAYS

03.10.09

Well… I go home to Nottingham tomorrow after a rather productive week I feel. I was not expecting the work with the butchers to be so interesting and I hope this has proved to me that I can work in this type of setting in the UK too. I am not so sure that I will become a full time butcher though, (more training needed perhaps). I have a few thoughts about performances that I can do with the meat substance in the future. Maybe this idea needs to incubate for a while.

Before I started Invitations d’artistes, there was some confusion as to when I would be paid for this project, however it seems that mid October should be the date. There has been a lot of shift in this project, from my original idea of Seven Collaborations/ Seven day play where I would work with a different profession in the community of Sacy. However there was only the butcher and I had to travel a few miles to find the other professions- a seamstress and the dairy farmer.

I had not planned to do any farm filming however it was too much of a good opportunity to turn down when the farmer invited myself and two American Wwoofers Callie and Betsy to see where the milking takes place. The sound fascinated me the most. Firstly the way the farmer speaks to the herd of cattle and then the pumping noise of the machine, sucking the milk from the udders.

Since working here in July my work has moved on a lot and the residency has given me the time, space and opportunity to follow my ideas through. When I return to Nottingham I will be faced with the looming prospect of unemployment, although supply teaching may be my only real source of income for the next few months. Trying to come out of the minus financially which will (I hope) allow me to have a studio by January. Of course there is a hundred and one applications to wade through aswell. The possibility of showing the films I have made here and working on my sound library is also top of my agenda. Thanks for reading.


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TAKE A BUTCHERS

29.09.09

Yesterday was the beginning of Invitations d’artistes. I arrived at Madame Noel’s Butcher shop at 8am where I met the lady herself, her husband Michel and their son Eric. I did a lot of filming in the first two hours, Monday is the day to prepare meat for the rest of the week, Many sights and smells were caught by my camera, including the sharpening of knives and whole animal carcasses hanging from meat hooks.

There was a second room I was led into which held a walk in refrigerator. Inside of it hung a huge husk of meat hung, I think it was a part of a bull. Eric, one of the butchers got to work, armed with a knife various chopping tools. As I filmed it was like watching a sculptor carving a piece of stone, quite astonishing.

After a few communication problems the butchers were happy for me to help. I was given sections of meat where the skin and fat needed to be removed. This is an art in itself and I had to quickly learn to respect the knife. I have never come across a knife quite so sharp, my fingers have the war wounds to prove it.


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06.09.09

THE SHOW- BEFORE & AFTER

Initially I was experiencing a mixture of excitement and nervousness prior to the opening. On the morning of the exhibition I was a little worried about the clock piece which consists of a 5 inch tv scrren showing a film which would be inserted behind a glass panel in the clock. I had my suspicions that the power cables may be a little faulty so I thought it would be a good idea to replace it with a more reliable cable to rule out any problems. Richard Negre, the French artist offered to drive me to a DIY store in Pont Saint Maxence- 8kms away. The store luckily stocked the cable and when I brought it back to the chateau it seemed to be working well. I installed the piece at lunch time and it had been running for around 2 hours quite perfectly. After documenting the work I realised that it wasn’t quite straight so adjusted it. However when I moved the TV the cable somehow disconnected itself from the machine – I re-inserted the cable, pressed the power button and nothing. It would seem that the inner pin had been damaged and this had been the cause of the faulty connection all along. Now the TV was completely irreparable. I tried everything to fix this problem put to no avail. Richard even kindly offered to take me back to Pont St Maxence to see if an electronic store would stock the TV. Sadly there were no TV screens of this kind so I had to show my piece ‘Trapeze Time’ on my lap- top. This was a big compromise yet I felt that it was important for people to see the work as it was mentioned quite extensively in the catalogue. It felt as though luck was not on my side.

My performance that was scheduled for 5pm went well. It lasted for 1 hour, much shorter than previous performances yet some interesting things came from it and hopefully I can push the work forward.

I shall return to Sacy-le-Petit in 2 weeks to work on Invitations d’artistes where I will be working in the local butchers with a lady called Madame Noel. I shall be recording the sights and sounds over a 2 day period where I will be helping out in the kitchen,


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EXHIBITION, TRACE & INVITATIONS D’ARTISTES

04.09.09

Since I arrived in France I have been re- installing my work ready for Saturday. This morning disaster almost struck as I dropped one of the DVD’s on a concrete floor and of course it cracked. I managed to burn another so no crying over spilt milk thankfully. The French artist arrived today so we will have to negotiate the extension cable, we are both showing work which requires power supply – we may have to buy some more. Because the opening is quite short – 4pm-6pm I do wonder how my performance will develop, it starts at 5pm so ideally should be finished by 6pm.

I mentioned in earlier blogs an extended project that I had applied to do. It was very uncertain as to whether this would take place due to organising community members of the village to agree. I spoke to Madame noel from the butchers yesterday and she has agreed that I come and work in the kitchen for 2 days preparing the meat. I will be recording the sounds and images that occur in the shop and I shall be making my own apron in the weeks before this work.


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