Of course glorious sunshine follows my decision to make work responding to the ghastly weather, rain and mud! Too late now, my work has taken on a decidedly earthbound approach. I have been pouring paper pulp on the ground to form sheets marked and patinated by the soil. At the weekend I am working on some large 'drawings' on Littleworth Common making temporary marks on the landscape using either torn paper strips or paper pulp. It will largely be decided by the weather which one gets carried out. its publicisised as a 'Help make art day' and anyone can join in. I predict that there will either be so few people involved that nothing happens or so many that we run out of materials straight away!
I am working at St George's Chuch today. After all the educational / outreach stuff I am really looking forward to just carrying out some of my work which after all is what it is supposed to be about! The weather is making me have to reconsider some of the work I had proposed. Rather than thinking that there will be a time when I can trace lacy, meandering, hovering marks across the landscape I am going to have to face up to the fact that mud and water and damage / change will have to be part of the work. Which luckily enough I am excited by. However I have a feeling of responsibility to my local funders who probably still have an image of the work that doesn't encompass mud pies!
What an interesting weekend! I have been at West Dean with 'The Making' shadowing artists running workshops at the Garden and Art event. There was also a series of seminars and talks by artists and makers inspired by nature. I managed to attend Junko Mori's talk and also later to assist on her workshop. It was good to meet Cas Holmes and I was able to help on a few of her workshops too. The event was very well run and in such a beautiful setting that even the constant rain failed to dampen people's enthusiasm. 'The Making' are an interesting organization initiating and delivering good quality art and craft educational workshops and projects. It was very interesting for me to compare what they do with what I have been doing. I have to say that I was heartened by the experience as it confirmed that I am on the right lines. In addition to the professional development side of things it was good to meet everyone involved and work alongside them.
This was supposd to be a studio day but turned into an 'installing artwork at a school' day instead. It's amazing how long things like that can take. Still, looks good. I hope the children feel proud of their work. Tomorrow I am doing something at a slight tanget to the project. Ages ago I got in touch with 'The Making' who do educational projects with schools etc (nice website; www.themaking.org.uk) to ask if there were any opportunities to shadow artists running workshops. This was before I started spending my whole existence running workshops! However they got back in touch recently to say "yes", so this weekend I'm going to be doing whatever they want and having a look at how a bigger organisation takes on the kind of thing I have been doing a lot of recently. Which should be very interesting. Back to the ivory tower on Monday.
OK, back to the rest of the project. Right now I am working on a couple of things. On the Saturday 14th July I am working in the woodlands with I hope help from local people. Given the foul weather that we are all enjoying there may be limited numbers, but those brave enough to come along will be helping to make work along the length of a path. If the weather is good we may be casting paper onto the ground to take back to the studio. The other thing I am preparing for is a story trail in August. I am working with storyteller Kevin Graal who will walk through the woods and tell one of the stories which has formed the basis of my 'Story Tree' work. It seems a long time off but isn't! www.papertrails.org.uk
