Finding the thread

I’ve been busy doing some new drawings over the last month. They’re obviously very sculptural and mentioned in a previous blog I’m getting urges to start to make things again. I’ve been debating how I could make these, whether I need a studio, where this is taking my practice and it’s still not resolved yet. I am really pleased with the way its going though, doing these drawings has opened up a lovely dialogue in my head about material and spatial concerns. I have been in conversation which a local Sheffield gallery about doing a residency there, but following on from a meeting there I’m not sure that we have the same ideas and needs to what a residency is. It was useful though for me to decide exactly what I want and its just some space to work in. I would like the networking and social aspects of a studio but not sure that I can afford it. We’ll have to see.

It’s interesting thinking about sculpture because it has such a weighty history behind and presently the definitions of sculpture can mean anything. I was interested in the article in Feb’s Art Monthly about feminist performance art and how the artists wanted alternative sites of production and presentation for the work. As well as sites for performances, other places where ideas could be exchanged was in feminist journals and publications. An interesting debate at present is how the artist can use social networking sites. I use my blogs to document my practice and my work, and by putting them on Artists talking I hope they get looked at by an understanding (and knowledable) audience. Using twitter is a different matter. I was initially repulsed by the idea as the only experience was hearing about bland celebrities every move. But now I’m starting to warm to it and I think today I’ve started to utilise it to my own way. By using the twitpic extension I’ve found a place for a series of photographs of readymade sculptures that I’ve been working on.

You can connect with people too, doing the residency in Leeds has made a few new followers, and I even got to meet some of them at the opening. It seems a very useful tool to network and keep in touch with things that are happening. The only thing I’ll have to watch out for though is getting a bit obsessed with tweeting and telling people what I’m having for my tea….!

twitter.com/sarabrannan

The reason I go to exhibitions is to get inspiration (and to nick ideas) which hopefully will kick start something. It also reminds me why I’m an artist because I forget. Juggling single parenthood and my creative practice is something which is a constant battle and as my boys (always) come first I sometimes don’t have lots of energy, time and motivation to deal with my artwork, and after a while of not doing or making, this can becomes ‘normal’. And weeks can pass. What usually happens then is that I’ll see some work, preferably in a gallery but it can be on the internet or in a book, and I’ll have an aesthetic connection, a non verbal dialogue that lights me up again and I need to respond to it. This usually means that there’s a flurry of activity and I make some work, until the energy runs down and life takes over again. It’s kind of cyclic. What I’m trying to do this time is to keep the connection active, to keep stimulated and to keep producing work.

It’s funny though as I’m writing this, I’m remembering that I’d denounced the work created on the recent residency as I didn’t feel it was right and I think that it’s because I had to respond to the archives and not to any artwork. As I said in the blog the value in this is that I’m beginning to understand what kind of artist I want to be and I think that it’s really important to think about that. What’s the point of doing something (even if is paid) if that’s not the right thing for you, or you don’t produce work that’s valuable to yourself? Yeah I know, a very noble stance when they’re repossessing your home but really? Just have a think what kind of artist do you want to be? I’ll never be a socially engaged artist because I like working on my own, and I don’t see myself working with other artists because of that same reason (but never say never!). On my MA I really personally questioned the value of art and what the process of making meant for me, and I stopped making art for 8 months after because I didn’t know. When I started up again, after feeling wrong for months, I felt like I’d found a long lost friend and it was wonderful. I’ve spent the last few months trying to refine and balance the relationship so it’ll continue.

It’s always similar sort of art that wakens me up which I find really interesting; simple and honest with a sense of integrity and a kind of essence that comes from the artist which I think must be imbued in the artwork. And it is a very personal and powerful thing. This relationship, for me, is the true value of art.



(Continued from previous blog)

Obviously we know who won by now but I was determined not to like Susan Phillipz work, (I’ve never really been able to get my head around sound art) but it was better than I thought. I even sat down to listen and it made me feel calm. I always like straightforward simpleness and it worked in the space. Couldn’t be bothered though to get involved in the debate about who should have won; or if these artists are representative of art today. I did enjoy the publics’ text messages about the show though, which were shown in the corridor, and which were mostly negative. I love the way some people get really irate by art.

There was loads to see in Tate Britain; Fiona Banner, Gerard Byrne and we got stuck (and a bit scared) in an installation about religion and ideology (I stupidly didn’t take a note of the artist’s name but it was ace) and thought the stuff shown in the Art Now section was a bit pretentious.

After we’d come back from London I noted that an exhibition ‘Undone’ at the Henry Moore Institute was on its last day (I had ventured North to Leeds to see it on the 28^th December but the galleries were closed!!!On a bank holiday!!! I couldn’t believe it, what art gallery closes on a bank holiday?). I had a personal interest in this as the premise of the exhibition was concerned with ‘sculpture that lies somewhere on the threshold between the made and unmade’ as I’d focused my final show for the MA on this very subject. I ended up being a bit disappointed as there didn’t seem to be any work that was situated between the made and unmade; everything seemed to be a finished piece of work. As per the blurb, the work was made from materials not usually associated with sculpture but that seemed to be the main thrust of the exhibition. The artists were only engaged critically in the materials they were using and not actually the process of making and unmaking. The making of sculpture using non traditional materials and everyday objects is not a new subject and has been addressed a few years back in ‘Unmonumental’ at the New Museum in New York. Although the majority of artists in this exhibition were from the US, the diversity of the work shown was much more exciting and inspiring. The tension, which was completely over looked here, is how do we address the notion of making/producing artworks in our consumer, throwaway society? As The Otolith group had spoken about the world having too many images, do we have too many objects already without artists making new ones?

I ventured across to Leeds art gallery to see the Northern Art prize and unlike the Turner prize, the winner has yet to be announced. In the corridor of the main galleries I heard sound like a sea shanty and thought that it was work by Susan Phillipsz again (it was very similar) but it was a collaboration by one of the nominated artists: Alec Finlay and whose work seemed to be present in all of the spaces that were used for the art prize. That was the main thing that struck me here: the amount of space/ or the number of artworks that represented the nominated artist. Both Haroon Mirza and Lubaina’s work had concise, defined spaces which encased their work. Alec Finlay had space similar to the previous artists’ but other work was positioned in other areas; the corridor and into the spaces where David Jacques’ work was. As the sound piece was in the corridor the sound spill crept into the galleries including up the stairs in the main gallery. Obviously small work needs less space than larger pieces or installations but to have one artist having more space and more artworks in a competition just doesn’t seem fair. If the prize was voted by the gallery visitors it could be seen as a Derren Brown type ploy to suggestively influence the audience just by the sheer amount of it!



I’ve been a serious art gallery visitor over this last few weeks, well it gets me away from eating the remnants of the Quality street tin where the only sweetie’s left are the one no one wants.

I’ve ventured to London spent a day in Tate Britain (and got lost inside one of the exhibits), got annoyed in the Saatchi gallery and got a bit misty eyed in the Serpentine. I got confused (and annoyed, again) at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and got a bit exasperated in Leeds city Art gallery.

First place on our whistle stop London art tour was the Saatchi gallery; I’ve not been before, didn’t fancy Tate Modern, it was free and lots of the other smaller galleries were closed over the holidays. I liked Richard Wilson’s oily thing but not much else. The title of the show is Newspeak: British Art Now part 2 and it’s like well…who says so? Charlie himself? I only recognised 2 of the artists in there and my God there’s loads of painting; happy slap dash painting much of it. There a few large sculptures placed in exactly the same place in each gallery but the medium’s not represented well. And there’s no video, or sound work, or performance (apart from some scary costumes from a Spartacus Chetwynd performance), or installations or drawings. Very odd that the very traditional mediums with a very samey kind of aesthetic is seen as being representative of British art now. Lots of artworks obviously inspired by other artists too which was annoying. I bet loads of the artists are from London Uni’s as well. How to be an Saatchi friendly artist: move to London, copy some ones else’s work preferably in painting, slap it all about, call the work something pretentious, wait for the man to snap up your work at the graduate show…..

With heavy hearts we headed over to the Serpentine and found to our amazement here was an artist doing something original, subtle, wonderful and moving, and also engaged the audience differently including making us move around the spaces by playing one video/sound piece at a time so we all moved around together. I’m not known for being clever and I’m sure there were lots of things that went over my head (there’s usually is) but it was just a great experience. There was a very weird moment when, without knowing, I’d emulated a very subtle work before I’d seen the actual work and then I saw the work and realised and my head went into a little strange place (it’s the piece on the windows). I highly recommend it.

As for the stuff in Tate Britain, Whiteread’s drawing exhibition was the best for me, interesting though that she had lots of work from the early 1990’s but no recent drawings. It was also quite empty not like the busy Muybridge exhibition, which was next door and on the same ticket which is a shame. There’s loads of photo’s to see by Muybridge including early landscape photos but as I’d seen the recent Yentob TV programme about the exhibition I felt like I’d seen it all.

Turner prize was worth a look; I’d had enough of paintings at the Saatchi gallery so Dexter Dalwood didn’t really get a look in. The Otolith groups’ work was a bit too clever for me although I found the artists description about the world having too many images and that you have to be careful about what you put into it, interesting. I found there work a bit too difficult to really engage with…it was something about Greeks and old TV and owls….!

I was surprised how much I enjoyed Angela de la Cruz’s’ sculptures although a few days later I was looking through a book about Serge Spitzer work’s and in 1972/4 he did some ‘Released Paintings’ and they look very very similar which made me suspicious. I know we could say that Whiteread was influenced by Nauman but she’s gone on to develop the concept (ish anyway); Cruz’s’ paintings/sculptures are exactly the same as Spitzer’s; he’s moved on she’s stayed there.

(Continued in next blog)



Since completing the work for the residency I’ve been wondering what next. Over the last few weeks I’ve had a real sense of deflation, which has led to questions about my practice and my role as an artist.

I was happy with the work in the residency but afterwards felt a bit let down because my work wasn’t a true representation of what I want my work to be about. The work I produced was a response to the mill and the archives, which they wanted and which I was very happy to do during the residency. What I want to do now though is concentrate and develop my own work and my practice. I want my work to be a bit different and edgy.

So I’ve been busy doing research looking at others’ work in books and on the internet, looking for inspiration. I’ve got a couple of days planned in London between Christmas and New Year so I can immerse myself in some art exhibitions. There seems to be some great stuff on at Tate Britain and I plan to spend a whole day there. What I want is to come away brimming with ideas so I can come home and start working. I love it when I’m busy with ideas and working on something. It seems to fill up part of me and I feel more whole.

I’ve already started to working on some stuff and I’m getting a great urge to make some sculpture again, which is a bit of a lovely pain as I’ve no space to do it but might have to just make some small things sat at the dining room table! I’m not usually that keen on Christmas but the thought of making some things, when I’ve seen too many relatives I only see at Christmas and have eaten another full tube of Pringles, could make is just about bearable.

I’ve found that one of the important things is to have a plan about what kind of work you’re going to do and hopefully things will fall into place and motivate you for a bit.

My early New Years resolution is to focus on my art and get some stuff done!