Halfway there

I have been busy working on my sculpture/drawing for the PAPER show at the Barnaby Festival. I am one of the two artists making a larger work – the other one being artist Phill Hopkins.

I am making a sculpture from double wall card with drawing, collage and screen-printing which will fold out across the floor. It is going well, but it is taking a long time. I haven’t made such a big piece for quite a while. I am having to set myself deadlines for each section so I keep on track, and also keep on top of the other work I need to be doing currently.

I am also working on a small piece for an exhibition in Australia, which will explore the structures of the slab huts that the colonial settlers built.

At the same time, I am also working towards a sculpture at the In Time, Over Time exhibition at Neo artists. I have now sourced most of the materials – wood and tiles. They are a mixture of gifted and bought tiles (anything bought had a discount!) I am hoping to crack on with this once I complete the work for Barnaby.

I have also been thinking about printmaking. Over the past six months I have not had a workshop to work from, so have been limited to lino printing. Last week I also bought a medium size screen so I can do stencil screen printing, but apart from that I have been quite restricted. I went to take a look at Hot Bed Press in Salford, which I was really impressed by. For each process they have quite a range of presses and facilities – it looks really good. The only drawback is that it only really accessible 3 days per week as they run a course on Monday and Tuesdays. I think when I finish the sculptural work over the next few months, I would like to join.

Over the past week, I have been planning for future projects and applying for various opportunities. I have spent a lot of time with my head down, on the computer, which feels very virtuous.

I visited Bolton last week to meet with Bethan Hamilton who is curating an exhibition ‘In Time, Over Time’ at the Neo:gallery 22 in July. I am making a new sculpture for the show, which will reflect on various features of different architecture from a range of periods. I am using ceramic tiles for the base of the work, which I am printing onto with lino print. I am going to have to print quite a fair few, so I have been looking for discarded tiles from companies. One company, Tiles UK, has been generous so far, but I am not sure if it is going to get me enough. I will be working with wood/ mdf for the upper part, so I will be looking for some discarded parts of wood and mdf, and I may recycle some older sculptures. I am looking forward to building it, as it will be quite an ambitious project for me.

The large sheets of cardboard for the Barnaby Festival sculpture have arrived, which is exciting. Again, I will using up some off cuts of coloured card for the surface. I have cleared space in my studio, where I was previously working on some experiments, so I am ready to go.