Counts and Nuonces

Five guineas

Twelve Pearls

Twelve diamonds

One Folly

Twelve Noon

Ten girls

Two Widows

One fiddler

Three Trustees

Much better day away from the grey. My commissions are now flowing freely and two out of the three have been given the thumbs up, so I am alot less anxious overall. Tomorrow I will be driving up to Long Eaton for the show and then onto a bit of dancing with a bunch of artists on Sunday. Another friend has just posted some fantastic stories to me about her recollection of Ickworth House in Suffolk which I am keen to indulge in in some way and I am looking forward to Venice enormously next week, particularly the Palaces and the Bridge of Sighs. Most of all, I feel that I will be able to get my head stuck into a serious amount of research allowing, I hope, a resurgence of new and fresh works.

I am feeling more and more detached from my day job, feeling little but loathing for the place and all it stands for. In turn I have been commissioned to make 3 thematic new works for a fellow artist who has previously bought work from me. Feeling slightly under pressure in working from an alien dimension, I am feeling increasingly anxious about my own practice and whether it holds its own weight from a personal perspective.

Having so many shows recently to install/deinstall/submit to has no doubt added to the anxiety as I have barely looked up to see how I am driving this thing from a personal standpoint.

In reading about whether artists are selfish in their practice perhaps practitioners should replace the ‘s word’ with ‘driven’, as I feel it is a more accurate summation of this all consuming obsession with work that we have a tendency to pursue.

Today, amongst other things I have to research an idea that I have conjured up with the curator Catherine Hemelryck. We are hatching a plan with hopefully the go ahead from Arts Council Funding to form an elaborate selection of works, writings and shows in and around the UK and hopefully beyond.

I have visited today Ickworth House in Suffolk and read extensively about the truly eccentric and possibly disruptive Hervey family enjoying most the character of the 4th Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry who had ‘a particular aversion to the tinkling of bells’.

In my excitement at finding this gem I now have my National Trust map at the ready to explore my next venue. As I will be in Nottingham next week for the open weekend at Harrington Mills Studios I may have to have a snoop around there. The following week I will be researching elements of Venice, its palaces and its prisons..and so my Grand Tour has begun…