What an incredibly busy week it has been! I feel as if I havent had time to draw breath let alone write anything. The trouble with doing a project like this is that as well as 'being' the artist you are also everything else as well. I am learning so much about the whole process but sometimes I just long to be able to get on with the main core work. However if I had had the choice I would have got someone else to do things like the education work and I would really have lost out on a valuable and uplifting experience. It does make putting up an exhibition difficult though. An exhibition of a project like Papertrails which has a fairly large outreach and community aspect is incomplete without reflecting that work. I have sometimes envied other bloggers who are engaged on projects where they can focus on one aspect and develop it thoroughly wheras I sometimes feel as if I am being pulled in all directions. But when I look at the whole project rather than just my 'work' I feel rather differently. In the first three months of Papertrails I worked with 355 people and had over 125 visitors to my studio. One group of children wrote poems about the work they did as a result of the project and I have had such good feedback. It has been a good thing. So those elements have to be reflected in the exhibition as well as what might be more narrowly described as my 'work'.
Back on track now. Invitations for the private view of my 'Work in Progress' exhibition at St George's on 7th June are on their way out. When I decided to put this event into the calendar some time last autumn I had no idea of course that this was going to be bung right in the middle of a period of work and therefore at a point when one could do without a hiatus but it will also be useful to take stock and assess things. I think I could do a lifetime of work here in this situation and one of the hardest things is deciding which avenues to follow and which are siren voices luring me off course.
Beautiful weather and so I was able to get outside and make some work. I also caught up with Bettina (from artsagenda) who is mentoring me and being sensible and calming at times when I feel far from it. I think we worked out that I was about a week and a half adrift but otherwise things are fine!
At last some let-up from the rain. I went into the woods at Littleworth Common today. Everything was so lush and almost underwater feeling. The air seemed green because the sky is so overcast and any light is filtered through so much growth. Even with the low light levels I was able to get some photographs and make a small start on my 'Way-marker' pieces. Just feeling my way back into the work.
To me its a bit of an irony that in the month when my blog might receive more attention than usual because it was in printed form in a-n, nothing much seems to be happening in my project. This isn't entirely true, there is much behind the scenes sorting of materials and making of work. Much of my work is made up of large numbers of nearly identical pieces and although I find the process of making them satisfying and indeed almost meditative I find it hard to believe that other people will enjoy reading about it. Its one of those repetitive tasks like darning or cleaning which feels good for the soul but would be boring to watch someone else doing. There is also the little problem of the weather. Working ouside in the landscape with paper and paperpulp in a downpour would probably be very entertaining to watch but ultimately unproductive. So picture me calmly , meditatively making small handmade paper sheets and pages and shapes, casting paper over other forms in my calm studio in the north aisle of the church all the while keeping a weather eye out for a bit of a dry spell. Meanwhile my enforced period of work indoors at the church is seriously threatening to divert me away from landscape in the outside sense and into a different sort of landscape entirely. The church itself is a fascinating building with all sorts of stories attached to it. On one side of the church is the Newcastle Pew; a secuded and separate balcony pew where the gentry or indeed royalty sat with their attendants. Its a white painted area which is by contrast with the rest of the church, filled with light yet seems melancholy and unused. I find this solitary, lost space very interesting and have been making some more work which seems to fit there better than in the main church. I know I will find myself making other things for that space.
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