Growing up in Newcastle, most journeys began with the Tyne and conversely, the river represented coming home. For 12 years in Manchester, a city of railways and canals, the culverted and brick-bound Medlock, has been the only river I’ve seen. But from now on, I will be crossing the Irwell twice a week on the way to my new studio in Salford.
This will be my final post from this blog. In the last few months I have moved out of Salford, back across the river into Manchester, to Rogue Artists’ Studios, where I was lucky to be offered a studio in their recent expansion.
http://www.rogueartistsstudios.co.uk
So it’s a good moment to reflect. I was pleased to have the opportunity to show work last year, mostly existing work, but also some new. I started a long project called ‘107 garments’ based on research I did at Nexus in 2009, and showed it at Rogues Open Studio as a guest of Jackie Wylie. I also made my first Artists Book, after doing a course with Lucy May Schofield.
http://www.lucymayschofield.co.uk/
The book, ‘Cow Lane, Salford’ was shown at the Manchester Artists Book Fair, and it was selected for the Latitude exhibition by the Manchester Modernist Society.
I’ve restructured my website and lately have put most of my writing energy into a blog that is linked to that site, where I write about exhibitions, books and sometimes even my own practice!
http://annieharrisonartist.blogspot.com/
As for upcoming projects, I’m working with Jane Lawson on a new installation, ‘Flood’, for the Chorlton Arts Festival in May. And I’ve just accepted a 2 year Artist in Residency at Lime – an arts and health project. This will be the subject of my next a-n blog.
Jackie Wylie, Jude Macpherson and I have started to collaborate, and have already submitted two proposals, the first was not successful, and we are waiting to hear about the second. We see it as an ongoing relationship, and it’s a great opportunity for me to work with two more experienced artists.
I’ve also decided to do start a part time MA in the summer, and am in the middle of applications. I hope to learn how to locate my work within a fine art context and root it in a solid theoretical framework. I also need to learn how to balance the very time-consuming site specific, research-based work that I love, with work that can be shown anywhere. I am very short of the sort of work that can be put into an open call.
It sounds like everything is going well, but I feel that the balance of my time has been weighted towards thinking and preparing, and I haven’t done enough making. This has an impact on my confidence, so I need to focus on hands on work in the next few months. I’m feeling a bit nervous, but I’m excited to see how things develop.
Thanks for reading.
It is so hard to judge how long things will take. And I get so absorbed by what I am doing when I am in the studio, i don’t keep track of the time. So I am always underestimating and getting behind and having to work madly to keep to schedule. That’s what it has been like for the last few weeks, working full time and trying to squeeze in as many hours as possible at the studio.
Anyway, I did manage to get enough ‘Cow Land, Salford.’ books made, but only by the skin of my teeth.
I made 4 for the Manchester Artists Book Fair, and 4 for the Latitude exhibition, plus a handling copy. I made 1 to give to the colleague at work who gave me the idea for the book, and 1 to donate to Lucy May Schofield’s Bibliotherapy project
http://lucymayschofield.blogspot.com/search/label/…
So the Book Fair was on Saturday. I was sharing a stand with some of the other Hotbed Press bookmakers, so only had to do a 2 hours shift, leaving time for a lazy morning, and some looking round the Fair and chatting. There was some fabulous stuff. My absolute favourite thing was a pocket Orrery (sort of star map) by Alex Pritchard. He had also created an amazing book showing all sorts of scientific information in graphic form.
While I was on the stand, I spent a lot of time explaining what the book was about, so in future, am going to copy Emily Speed who was across the aisle, and had a short explanatory text next to each book, including the price. It makes it so much easier for the viewer and potential buyer.
My book got a good reception, and I sold 2 copies. I am really pleased. A couple of people also suggested I should make a series about different places, which I think is a good idea.
At the end of November as well as Latitude, I’m putting a big sheet installation into the Knitting and Stitching show at the Harrogate International Centre. Fortunately I won’t miss the Latitude opening. I will miss the second half of the exhibition, but will be around for the first weekend, which is the most important bit.
I’ve been stressing about the practical problems of getting 1200 bed sheets to Harrogate and then actually into the building, but the logistics team are being extremely helpful, even offering to build me a trolley.
I’ll be so happy to get back to working part time. There is just too much else I want to do.
Have I told you about my book?
The first time I went to the Manchester Artists’ Book Fair in 2006, I thought I was going to a sale of books on art. I’d never heard of the artists’ book, and I was blown away. Subsequently I spent some time in MMU’s Special Collections looking at examples, and trying out my own versions.
But this summer, I did a 10 week book-making course with the supremely talented Lucy May Schofield
at Hot Bed Press – a fantastic resource, which by a massive piece of luck is right next door to my studio in Salford.
Lucy not only taught us techniques, but got us thinking about ideas for books of our own.
About the same time, I had a conversation with a woman at work who wanted to know why I only worked half time. When i told her I was an artist with a studio in Cow Lane, she got really excited and told me about her great grandfather who had settled in that area when he came from Ireland in the 1830’s.
Her story sent me to the local history library, to find out more about Irish immigration, and to look at the site of the studio, and what had been there before.
So somehow, these two ideas merged and my book became the story of the wave of inhabitants in the area around the studio, from a few scattered farm buildings in 1794, to the densely populated back to backs of the second half of the nineteenth century, and then through the post war slum clearances to the middle of this decade which saw the area completely uninhabited.
My deadline, always useful, was the open submission for the Manchester Modernist Society’s ‘Latitude’ exhibition, for which they wanted work to do with maps and mapping. Perfect!
www.manchestermodernistsociety.org
The book has been accepted and I am delighted! I’m going to do an edition of 25 and this year I’ll be at the Manchester Artists’ Book Fair as an exhibitor.
Ok everyone, the summer’s over and it’s time to get back to work.
I’ve been thinking about my studio. Mia, my best friend from college, gave up her half of the studio and now it is mine all mine! Including paying for all of it.
And ironically, this coincided with my first period of not going! Does having a studio make me an artist even if I don’t go?
Is a studio the same as a gym membership?
Actually I have been very frustrated about not being able to get there. I have so little time at the moment. From now until Christmas I am working full time, to help out in the busy period in the project I work for in my non-artist life. I’ve negotiated doing my full time job in 4 days, but that means I’m too knackered to do much on my precious extra day.
Gone are the two and a half leisurely days I used to have. Now I cram what I can into the time available, running from one place to another, snatching a few hours at the studio at the end of an already long day.
Bob’s new job in a 7-day a week project has had the unexpected benefit of giving me weekend days when he is at work. But the disadvantage is we don’t see each other and we don’t get to go to exhibitions together which was a favourite weekend thing.
Little time does focus the mind though, and I have managed to almost finish my Cow Lane book ready for a 30th September submission deadline. I am very proud of it.
Today I can’t get to the studio because I have calls to make to contacts for the Farfield Mill residency. They are already a bit overdue. I will have to put off my session with the fundraising consultant because I haven’t done my homework.
Back to the treadmill.
A couple of weeks ago I went to the lovely Bob’s graduation (1st in Art History – so proud of him) and by chance, this year’s Embroidery students were at the same time. Only a year since I was there myself!
At that time, I was still in the dark about how to be an artist, how to get started. It was veiled in mystery.
So it has been good to reflect on the year. I have been very lucky, I have had some great opportunities, and have been able to take advantage of them all so far. I haven’t been paid for anything yet, but then, I guess it is like any small business, it takes time to get returns for your investment. My investment has been mostly time, but also money and I’ve been lucky to have had some help with that from my family or I would have found it very hard.
There have been different phases during the year. I remember early on, in despair, going through the Arts Council mailings, and the A-N jobs and opps section, looking for things that I could apply for, finding very little that seemed relevant to me, and thinking I would never get beyond that stage.
But as the year has unfolded, my experience has changed my expectations of where work will come from. Some work has come by chance or through friends or contacts, and some I have generated myself, and some things have come out of other things I have done.
The residency at Nexus which i wrote about in my last blog was a gift. It came out of a chance conversation and was such a great start.
It gave me a space to work, and a structure, and a subject for my work, and some external expectation but not too much pressure, to come up with something coherent. It gave me the confidence that I could work outside the University environment and generate new ideas. It gave me a great showcase for my work – the sheet installation i made for the show I curated, was the best I’ve done.
That experience pushed me into finding a studio – seeing how much more effectively I worked when I had one. And the studio has become a subject for new work. Having just finished a bookmaking course with Lucy May Schofield at Hotbed Press, I’m currently developing an artists book on the history of the street where the studio is situated.
University contacts got me an opportunity to show a sheet installation in Stroud at the International Textile festival, and out of that, I’ve been asked to return as an artist in residence next year, and will be working on a project about the waterways.
A friend suggested me for a collaborative installation at Platt Hall, which will have been there for six months by the time it comes down, great exposure for my work.
Another friend, an artist whose work I saw and liked and then chatted to and got to know, asked me to show with her and another artist at Rogue, and is continuing to apply for group shows for the three of us. We will be meeting over the summer to hammer out what we want to do together. The other two are much more well established than me, and I feel like I’m hanging on to their shirt-tails and being taken to places I would never get to on my own! I’m very grateful.
Recommendations from people who have seen my work have got me opportunities at the Knit and Stitching show in Harrogate, and at the Farfield Gallery in Sedburgh. The Sedburgh project looks very exciting, and if it comes off, I think it could be one of those pivotal experiences which helps me orientate my work in the future.
So a year on, the mysterious question of how to be an artist is no longer on my mind, I am just getting on with it, and grateful for my good luck. But for now I need a holiday! See you at the end of August!
My work is grounded in presence and absence. I unearth the hidden and forgotten and look for traces of human stories in particular places. My recent practice has focused on the history of Manchester and the social impact of urbanisation. I work in a variety of media, most recently film, textiles, painting and site specific work.