Wandering around Manchester getting a feel for site and archive was far more interesting than I had thought. Not that I didn’t think it would be interesting but it was altogether different from my imaganings.
We looked at site, place, space, architecture, some public art and visited 4 libraries – all beautiful.
Manchester Central Library, The Portico (private members) libraty, The Chetham School of Music Library (Harry Potter eat your heart out) and then the amazing John Rylands Library, well worth a visit for any book lover. I could live in there!!
Popped into see the New Comtemporaries exhibition at the Cornerhouse whilst there, some fantastic work this year.
it has set me up to want to produce more art again, I have been busy in work and busy with portrait and caricature commissions(have to pay the bills somehow) but need to do some work I actually like too.
So I have started some artist books (of a kind) as I’m sharing a table with some students from Wirral Met at the Manchester Artist book fair in November. It’ll be very interesting to see other books again, I always get inspired at these fairs. Also good to share a space as I know I wont have time to produce anywhere near the amount of books you would need to fill a whole table.
Yesterday I walked…A LOT!
Not knowing Preston well but having to produce a site specific research idea this semester, I arrived early before lectures to survey the few places I had discovered via the wonders of the internet.
I found the River Ribble and a place called Aqueduct Street, just because I liked the name. I kept being drawn to a place called Winkley Square, a Georgian development with this small but beautiful ‘park’ area in the centre. It is the park I was drawn to, like a little secret oasis in the middle of town. Will research this more now and see what ideas spring out.
We had a mini mapping day, discussing the different ways of mapping a site/place/space via research, direct experience, social dialogue etc. So we all went out into Preston for an hour to find a place to ‘map’.
I discovered an amazing olde worlde book shop that was full (and I mean full) to the gunnels, so many bizarre and wondorous books. Especially when you find hidden gems like an old Limited Edition copy of Peter Pan in the foreign travel section – trip to Neverland anyone?
Bought an old map of Ayrshire which was beautiful and an old book of famous Preston people. Eavesdropped on a few conversations and made a physical map of sorts. Really interesting half day, amazing what one can achieve in such a short space of time!
I have lost my job share person in work – when I say lost, I know where she is, she is sat in her new flat sorting through boxes. She didn’t get kept on when her temporary contract ran out, I shall miss her a) as she is lovely and b) as I will struggle doing a full time job in 3 days – she was fantastic at her/our job.
Hence I will be busy busy with work as well as my MA in future weeks.
I got to Preston last Thursday only to find that the morning session had been cancelled, a misunderstanding as everyone on the studio practice section knew and so stayed home but we Site + Archive people turned up wondering where everyone was.
Instead we made good use of our time and visited the Harris Museum & Art Gallery, there is an exhibition on at the moment called ‘Quiet Revolution’ a Hayward Touring Curatorial Open curated by Chris Fite-Wassilak. I wandered around these seemingly very simplistic artworks made from household objects wondering what to make of them. At first unsure as my own work is often so complex but after a while I started to appreciate their simplicity.
In one of the rooms there was an invitation to make a work of our own which I undertook at first with some frivolity but then my artistic head took over and I worked at choosing the right pieces of household paraphernalia to work for me. I’ll add a photo of my final piece, which I actually liked at the end. I assembled it concentrating on tension and gravity not realising that that was in fact the theme of the rest of the show, when I was told this afterwards I realised that sub consciously I must have noted the tension in the other works so maybe I am beginning to master an understanding of contemporary sculpture after all.
The works we produced were photographed and entered into a competition, the prize winner gets to meet with the curator!
if anyone is up in Preston, stop by the Harris, enjoy the exhibition and have a go yourself. Much Fun.
