My work, reasons behind it and what happens to it.

This long weekend off gives me an opportunity to combine some well deserved time off, with a more leisurely approach to my work. I don’t want another stressful month like last month, in which I had to spend almost every minute of my ‘own time’ preparing for the Chapel Gallery exhibition.

So, not only was I was able to have a guilt free day out yesterday, but I also managed to fit in an hour or two of ‘sorting out’.

I’d sent off a proposal a few weeks ago and although maybe it’s too early to get a response yet, I can’t help checking the stats on my website to see if it had any hits from the region I’d applied for. Nothing……

Surely, they’d show a little curiosity? …or do they already have someone lined up and so therefore don’t even look at all of the other proposals? It happens I know, but it’s still disappointing.

Anyway, it set me in a frame of mind to ‘clean up’ how I present my work.

It’s still early stages and I need to learn how to set out the pages… but I’ve decided to put all my paper installations together, with reasons for doing each one : http://wendycwilliamsdotorg.wordpress.com/

This is meant to work with my own webpage : www.wendycwilliams.co.uk not instead of.

That done, I can now carry on working on my next installation – to be shown as part of Liverpool’s Light Night.

I keep expecting to get a phone call from the Chapel Gallery, informing me that my installation has been trampled on…. I find that the Easter breaks are generally hell in Art Galleries and some parents seem to think its OK for their kids to damage artwork. I was thinking about this yesterday when I saw the aftermath of a particularly busy day at Tate Liverpool. The slates from Richard Long’s South Bank Circle: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/long-south-bank-circle-t07159 had been moved…and the ropes from Addendum by Eva Hess: http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/hesse-addendum-t02394 twisted around completely…..

I’ll be starting on work for another installation this week and I really didn’t want to stop and have to make ships again. This is insane having to worry about my work. I wonder if other artists do this – or is it a case of once the work is up and open to the public, you can just move on?



A day off… an actual day of not going out to work, or creating any work of my own. Bliss. It’s having these periods of time that allows you to just take stock of where you are up to.

Even though my last blog was dated 30 December of last year, these last 3 months have literally been nonstop work.

I spent most of January and early February preparing for SUPERMARKET; The Stockholm Independent Art fair: http://www.supermarketartfair.com/ …. ( more about that on my other blog: www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/sing… so I won’t bore everyone by going over the ins and outs yet again – exciting as it was…to us anyway!)

After returning from Stockholm and settling back to work, I began on my installation for the Journeys exhibition at Chapel Gallery. Well, I didn’t actually begin then…. I’d sent in my proposal for the exhibition last year and found that I’d been accepted by October. As my installation was based around the novel The Cruel sea, I searched through EBay for cheap second hand books and bought several copies. By November I’d started cutting into one of the paperbacks.

I’ve seen so many book sculptures by artists, but I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to actually cut into the pages! I gave up after a week… but to be fair, I needed to concentrate on the Arts Council funding application and work to take to Sweden.

So I then had a month to make at least 280 ships ( I’d calculated the least amount I could make to fill the space) By ‘a month’, I actually mean 6 days off from work ( between other stuff I have to do )and as much as I could do in the evenings.

Oh never again…..!! I felt close to killing someone ( anyone!!) by the time it came to install my work. It is unbelievably tedious to cut out so many shapes, glue them together and then wait for the glue to dry before adding another section to them.

I’d assumed that I would be setting out the ships on a raised platform, but was a bit disappointed that the ‘base’ was really quite low – AND very close to the main entrance. It is actually fantastic that my work is the first thing that you see, but it meant that every draught from the door just blew the ships over. Two hours of sticking each individual ship down and constant interruptions from the public, who were passing through to the cafe and asking ‘ is that the Titanic?’ , I was finally done.

Journeys. Chapel Gallery. West Lancs. ….until 5 May.

www.wendycwilliams.co.uk

Here we go again……another email scam. Do artists ever fall for these?

Dear Wendy Williams,

Your artwork has caught our eye and we are keen to exhibit your work in our galleries based in Mayfair, London and Paris.

I would like to propose the following:

One week exhibition in LondonTwo week exhibition in ParisOne art opening in both London and Paris12 month on-going promotion to our clients – “SellArtOnLine”PR & Marketing of the exhibition, banners, e-invites, printed invitationsFive year presence in the Events section of our websiteOne year presence in the Buy/Sell section of our websiteNo gallery commission on artwork sales

As we have a limited number of spaces available, I would appreciate it if you could let us know as soon as possible if you would like to exhibit with us.

After you register, creating your profile and submitting five samples of your artwork online, we will get back in touch with you to confirm your exhibitions and your accompanying profile which will then go live on our website.

If you would like to accept this opportunity please register and chose a package by going to
http://www.artspace-galleries.com/Group_Exhibitions.html

If you would like any further information please don’t hesitate to contact me.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Rachel Lang
Artist Consultant
18 Maddox Street
Mayfair, London
W1S 1PL
England
Tel: 00 44 (0) 207 993 2721 / 07727 012 999

If my artwork had really ‘caught their eye’, they would know that I don’t paint canvases…so therefore, absolutely no way in the world would I pay £550 to them to exhibit just one of them!!!



Having given up on the notion of ever making a living from my own work, I went back to full time paid work at the beginning of November. I knew this would impact on how much art work I could now produce, but I’d forgotten how much I appreciated and needed my ‘thinking time’.

An exhibition I am due to be next year has been brought forward a few months and this has really made me aware of how little time I now have to think up new ideas for it. I don’t feel that I was constantly working and reworking ideas on my time off prior to working full time, but I must have been doing it ‘unconsciously’ somehow…

I have therefore had to reconsider things that I have been offered so that I can use my precious time wisely… I have already turned down two smaller exhibitions and a paid workshop as they were just creating extra work without the bonuses.

How does everyone else manage?

For 2012, I will show work at Supermarket in Stockholm and in the group show at Chapel Gallery, Ormskirk. Then hopefully a break, before I take part in the Independents Liverpool Biennial. Sadly, I really don’t think I can do anything else.