Tom Lubbock, the art critic died, how sad. His wonderful, honest writing will be missed,
These blobs have nothing hidden about their materials or making. They are messily stuck together. … What could these things be doing in our lives? And what are they doing in their own company?
(Tom Lubbock reviews Phyllida Barlows work at the Serpentine)
Once again I was totally surprised to see my blog image on the front page of Artists Talking. The children were even more thrilled to see their advent calendar scene on the choice blog spot. As Rob Turner said blogging is best when it’s a two way conversation and it is so encouraging to get a response like this. Ironically the image that drew Melanie Stidolph in is not actually of me but of Rachel Whiteread. Even more ironically, I actually look a lot like Rachel Whiteread on a misty day when the straighteners are no longer working their magic, so all’s well that ends well and many thanks Melanie.
At the moment I have just completed another coat of latex on my artex ceiling and after what looks like will be a very soggy dog walk in the rain, I will head back into the studio. My problem at the moment is that I now have a constant flow of ideas, which in one sense is great, but unfortunately I haven’t got the making time to keep up with them. This results in the studio full of half made pieces of work that I begin to lose momentum on as my mind is racing three ideas ahead. And this is all punctuated with paid community based projects which also take up a lot of mind space. Over the next few months generating more paid work will have to be a priority as losing this house means losing the studio and I cannot allow that to happen.
Happy new year and despite the thumping in my head, a reminder of last night’s frivolities, I feel really positive about 2011. In the new year I will be introducing two new and very focused blogs. One of them is a complete launch into the unknown for me, the other tracking the progression of the proposed project in Salisbury. Just before Christmas, myself and Laurence Rushby held meetings with both the city council and the county council. It appears that our idea which started off as a small scale local show has grown into something much more ambitious and exciting for us and, we feel, potentially for Salisbury. The space offered by the city council is prominent, central and full of potential and we hope, working with a respected curator, to exhibit not only our own work but a small selection of exciting and emerging artists whose work we admire. In addition it may be possible to commission a particular piece for one significant room.
The timescale has now been rescheduled and we are aiming for spring 2012. A number of respected professionals have offered input at various levels in the project. We aim to run phase one prior to the exhibition as a series of workshops with community groups feeding into work destined for the exhibition, while phase two, the exhibition itself, will involve a participatory open day with an opportunity for the general public to interact and respond to the work. We also aim to host a discussion event for professional artists run by a respected art organisation hopefully drawing in artists from further afield.
In addition the County Council are keen to work with us and utilise experience gathered from the event to feed into their future plans for art in Salisbury. All this of course demands a lot of work and fundraising, and the forthcoming blog will track our successes and, no doubt, in this present climate, our disappointments. It’s prooving a lengthy process and it’s by no means rubber stamped yet but we’re making progress – I’m getting ready for a bumpy ride in 2011.
I am persevering with the speech recognition but I realise that my Belfast accent is challenging it somewhat. I have found if I want it to type correctly I need to don the persona of a BBC newsreader circa 1960.
Well Christmas is over for another year, one of the highlights were sledging under the stars on Christmas day and Boxing day with my children and crazy dog Otis, the lowlights, I managed to get my husband completely the wrong present which led to a competitive battle as to who have been more disappointed over the years (doesn’t make for family harmony).
One area he does score top marks in though is that every year he buys me an art book, (he reckons he has at least another 30 years (books) left in him). This year it was a book on drawings by Rachel Whiteread. Rachel to me looks comfortingly like an old school sculptor. Understated practical clothes and no nonsense hairdo and a love of form, space and all things solid, no Gucci suits or cross dressing frills for this artist. She lost me a little in the Turbine Hall but perhaps it was more I who had lost myself. Her drawings are beautiful in their simplicity and I feel a real affinity with her approach. Like her I tend to use materials wholly inappropriate for drawing and we share a love of varnish in places it probably shouldn’t be. As such I can’t wait to get in the studio again and unearth all those little experiments than I had undervalued.
As my own critic I suppose I am at times ludicrously harsh on myself and most of my work never sees the light of day. On that painful Saatchi tv programme one young artist said she never looked at any other artists work as she felt it would make her own work boringly predictable. Tracey Emin replied that it is precisely because you do not look at other artists’ work your work is boringly predictable. An interesting dialogue but for me seeing another artist confidently present their work gives me the courage to trust in mine. In 2011 I want to be an artist who is truthful in what I aim to produce, unshakeable in my commitment to produce it and comfortable in the direction I’m taking. I’m getting closer I think.
Please excuse the rundown estates, sorry that you have wrecked, rundown mistakes, but I am using speech recognition two write this post right. To save my wrists from getting worse I am trying to teach my computer to recognise my voice. As you can see successor’s is intermittent.
My village is buried in snow and with it my sense of motivation and direction. I Trust the new year will see my artistic mole show returned.
With the help of my typing computer I would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a peaceful new year. If there is more snow we will have a tacky less and alcohol free Christmas as in the test school van the man will not get down our road. I will finish with a well known song sung by me to our computer.
How’s yourself a merry little Christmas
Make their yuletide gay
Sunday all our troubles will be miles away
So how few herself a merry little Christmas day!
Susan Francis is a Belfast born artist, now based in the South West with a past record of UK and international exhibitions, international residencies including the Bemis Centre for Contemporary Art in Omaha, USA, and work held in public and private collections including the collection of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. She often works within health and education and has instigated and managed long and short term participatory projects. Susan also curates and manages a wide range of projects and exhibitions.
