new PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION

FINALLY, SUCCESS.

Following my previous advice, I would like to assure you that I am dressed for success (fluroescent ‘you can’t miss me’ trousers + fluffy housewife slippers)

and am mentioning this only in that these VITAL nuggats of information come to you via well worn and proven writings from other successful women. Firstly, the wonderful Bobby Baker, whose book Bobby Baker: redeeming features of daily life, I have been closely identifying with, where in the description of her works, she lists, first and formost, what sort of shoes she is wearing.

Secondly I mention this as I have to admit, that I am an ineffectual follower (out of desperation) of FLYLADY (look her up) whose core tenet of successful home management urges devotees to ‘get dressed to lace up shoes’ as an empowerment tool.

This is all apropos of nothing – just wanted you to know I AM PREPARED FOR SUCCESS TO COME AND GET ME.

So anyway, last night I presented ‘papers’ at the EMVAN symposium ‘What is Success?’ at Nottingham Contemporary.

This was in the form of my SUPERHERO GADGET (Round of Applause). This was the debut outing of this work and many things arose from it’s showing.

1. Size matters. I was struck, as never before, that size is above all else, relative to place. My work which consists of a metre wide circle of mild steel (just about liftable) with 9 lecterns emerging from the base, looks huge when in my studio & home. In my car it takes over. In Nottingham Contemporary with lots of people milling around it, it looked small.

2. Repetition is power. To accompany the installation, whilst people were coming in, the film that shows the books in action was played on a large screen, this continued as background to the first two speakers. In total it was shown for about 20 minutes. Being only of 25 seconds in duration this had a very interesting effect of turning into a virtual ‘rictous grin’ of appreciation. An effect I think I rather like.

3. Instruction ambiguity is paradoxical. I don’t in general like to impose instructions to my work. It is more an offer, or invitation to which the audience/viewer can accept, if they realise it exists, and wish to interact, or it can completely be misundestood if they don’t, and therefore they miss a very large part of the work. I suspect lots of art works in this way and (I now feel terrible) that I have been as guilty as anyone of overlooking an awful lot of time, consideration and thought in a dismissing glance. In karmic consequence, you get what you pay for. But is there really a ‘doing it right’ way to interact? Who am I to say even as the creator of the work? There is so much value in getting it wrong.

So much to consider – but should I change myself or the work as a result of these revelations? Does it really matter? As Martin Creed has so eloquently asked: ‘What is the Point?’ – success can only be judged by the perciever.

So, in conclusion, was my work, in this context and location, a SUCCESS or as Lisa Le Feuvre would prefer, a FAILURE?

as ever, answers on a postcard…

April Fools

Back to basics:

How to tackle an impossible task

1. Define the job

2. Dress for the occasion

3. Gather appropriate materials and tools

4. WORK

(repeat)

My time on the AA2A scheme is rapidly diminishing and with it my access to the MIG welder. I am starting to mildly panic.

Last week I made something very unlike anything I have made before. It has a purpose that it has not yet reached and as it is, it is very un-me. Yet I really like it – I’m scared that I will spoil it by completetion like the scene in ‘Father Ted’ where Ted, in trying to fix a small dent in his car, ends up destroying the whole car. In making it ‘more-me’ I will lose the subtle quality it currently holds. It is very easy to miss a moment of purity and to keep going, only finding at the end that in looking for perfection, you have wrecked everything.

However, my work is always idea based. If I stop at a moment of visual or structural beauty surely I will be missing the point? Or will I inadvertantly miss something of which I am inadvertantly responsible? – it is a mid-process moment but does that mean it should be the end? Is value in the middle as well as at the end of the making?

To be truthful to the work, I cannot stop now, so – please find here, a small and beautiful pause, now gone forever.

In the past couple of weeks I have discovered TRUE LOVE…

yes – it’s welding.

I am currently on the AA2A (artist’s access to Art college) scheme at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge. This gives 100 hours of access to equipment and technical help and is a really brilliant opportunity.

With the availablity of equipment that I have never had and am unlikely to have again, I am compelled to make the most of everything and HAD to have a go with the plasma cutter and the MIG welding machines. I have endeavoured to approach this somewhat intimidating equipment with the same principles that I apply to working with discarded clothing and old rollerskates.

In contrast to my usual pace of work, welding offers an immediacy and what feels like a greater commitment, that I have not experienced before. Somehow it just seems so much more serious to be working like this. Which is something that seems appropriate when returning to crosstitch.

Still thinking about excessivity I have been trying to sort out my ‘question’ with which to apply for a phd. How do I fit in everything…… EVERYTHING that I need and want to know into one consise and to the point question? I have written and rewritten, tied myself into 50 thousand complicated crochet knots and gone completely round the houses and back through the front door to pretty much where I started.

Which brings me to the point – how do you talk about humour without

a) deconstructing things until they are no longer funny

or

b) not being taken seriously?

Yesterday I went to a very interesting workshop and as part of the ‘where you are now’ bit we had to decide where we were on the ‘Blob Tree’. Everybody’s resonse was revealing. My little blob person was the one having the most fun but was s/he getting anywhere?

How do I use the rope to climb the tree? and keep the smile on my face?