Project Me

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday dear blog,

Happy birthday to you!

10 years old today!

DOUBLE figures, a whole decade behind me – wow! And who knows what lies ahead, I certainly could not have predicted even a tiny percentage of everything that I have achieved during the period of ‘Project Me’. And nor for that matter could I have guessed most of the things that have occurred in the world around me. Is it possible that the pace of things happening (be they personal, professional, global) has really accelerated? Or is that just how the sense of time works?

This week – at the gym, which is my current space of contemplation – I realised that I have a considerable fear of failure. This fear is something that, at the beginning of a new decade, I want to tackle. It feels right to make such a positive declarative statement about it. Wanting to get better at lifting weights it dawned on me that I will only get better if I risk failure, and conquering each failure is simply a step towards the next. This is not rocket science, nor is it bad, nor a weakness.  It something that I have returned to again and again here, it is something that has been explained to me again and again on various professional development courses, and yet it remains something that needs to be re-visited not least because my point of departure is very adept at keeping up with me – how could it not be? – and failure (my own that is) is something that although I might understand I do not think that I have ever really been able to accept.

Having lived in Enköping for 18 months I feel as though I am sufficiently settled to be able to shake things up. Though to the external observer things might look similar there is a vast difference between being disenfranchised and vulnerable as the result of circumstances, and electing to de-stabilise things and take chances – to risk failure in the pursuit of success. If I only now am conscious of what I identify as my fear of failure then perhaps it is only now that I am in a position from which to engage with it. In other words it is time to move on. Over the previous ten years I have experienced ‘moving on’ literally and figuratively, I have both chosen to do it and it has been forced upon me in both personal and physical terms. And perhaps because of these (very real) situations it is possible for me to see that my moving on professionally has been somewhat in the shadows.

When I started this blog it was my intention to chart my progress as an artist and I remain committed to do that. What I could not foresee (though perhaps I should have been a little more aware of) was the enormous change in my personal life that steered me towards unchartered waters. On December 10th this year it will be ten years since John died. I like to think that I am a pretty grounded and sensible man but actually I am a bit of a dreamer and a fantasist (which in some measure is no bad thing for an artist to be). It was John who had his feet on the ground, who was able to make his flights of fancy real by creating the structures necessary to nurture and nourish them. So, with John in mind, I now (finally!) realise that being an artist is not the same as having a career as an artist. And in addition to being an artist I also want to have a career as an artist.

I think that having a career as an artist requires one to have at least one foot on the ground. Now that the ground beneath me is solid it can only be good to rest a foot on it, after all I am not in any position (especially financially) to be so free-floating. Yesterday, as I was doing my best to improve my ‘lift technique’, I was given the great advise to make sure that my feet were in the correct position before doing anything. It is remarkable how sometimes there is virtually no distance at all between the real and the metaphorical.

Time for new groundwork, new foot work. What are the things that will enable me to have a career as an artist – bursaries, project funding, shows, and sales(?): singularly, collectively, and in combination. None of these are guaranteed but if I want to “make serious gains” and have successes then I have to risk failures. I have to change my attitude towards failure and see it positively – as something that testifies to attempting progress, as an indicator of a temporary challenge rather than as a sign of permanent inability. From this point onward I am allowing myself to include failure in my process. Whether or not I achieve measurable results of this in the coming eleven months is less important than simply doing it – doing is the thing!

I can not think of a more fitting way to not only celebrate ten years of blogging but also to thank my family and friends for their faith in me. So the compass is set for this year, and with a somewhat clearer sense of direction, towards the next ten …

Now for a cup of tea and piece of birthday cake!

Hip hip!

Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!

It is wonderfully clear and (very) cold evening. After two evenings of snowfall, which I spent reading the (Swedish) instruction manual for my seldom-used digital SLR camera, I thought that it would be an ideal time to go take some photographs of Go-Go.

I am pleased to say that both lamps are working well, however one of the motors has ceased to work and one of the mirror balls is hanging motionless. I took some test pictures that are on the right track though I am reminded that I have an amazing ability to make work that I have great difficulty in photographing. Photography is something that I have always wrestled with, at school I found it interesting to think around the theme and subject of our photographic projects but tedious to learn the mechanics of the camera – so many numbers and combinations of numbers. Perhaps if I had paid more attention to all those f-stops, focal lengths, and ISO numbers I might be better able to really use my digital camera. As it is I rely on the setting with little graphic icons for portraiture, landscape, sport, and so on. The landscape setting worked remarkably well however taking a photograph of a mirror ball that is rotating (or even still) in front of black glitter and behind a double glazed window at night captures a phenomenal amount of reflections, ghosts, and multiple layers. The reflections of the lights on the nearby Christmas tree look particularly odd as the tree itself is not at all visible in the reflection on the dark window. If nothing else it is interesting to consider how such spectral images could be used in other work.

Tomorrow is a Bank Holiday here (Monday, which was a holiday in the UK, was not), this means that I can not get access to change the motor until after the weekend. There is nothing to do but accept the situation. On the way back I made a mental note to myself to use both professional lamps and motors next time that I show the piece! Further to this I have been looking at top quality mirror balls that are handmade in the USA and wondering if I even dare ask how much they cost. While I have enjoyed my off the shelf way of doing things it feels as though it might be the right time to invest in more durable materials/equipment. It would be good to know what it would cost to produce the work at a higher quality. That way I would be ready to present a realistic budget, or even put a price on the piece!

Just back from replacing both a lamp-holder and lamp in Go-Go. I had already replaced the lamp a couple of times thinking that it perhaps overheated, however having moved and re-positioned the lamp-holder and it still burning out a bulb in less than a week I can only think that there must be something wrong with the lamp-holder. The type of ‘low-tech’ technology that I occasionally use with usually works, unfortunately this is one of those exceptions to the rule.

It could be nice to re-produce Go-Go using professional lamps and motors … though it would loose its almost domestic qualities if I were to do that. Should I ever be invited to install it somewhere that provides sufficient budget then I shall certainly try it out! It would also be good to return to the original concept of solar power – which would require making an alternator … actually to fully realise the original concept would probably require a technical consultant!

Over the last month or so I have been considering adding a ‘proposals’ section to my website. At the moment my website is a record of the things that exist, be that an installation or an object. However much of what I think up, dream about, sketch, research, and propose has yet to be realised – and it is these things that I want to find space for. In my most optimistic moments I imagine that someone somewhere will be sufficiently intrigued by one (or more!) of these ideas and ask me to make it. I want my website to be more than documentation of what has been.  I want to be, literally, fantastic – a place where I can showcase my fantasies and ambitions. I want it to be a place where visitors see what I am capable of imagining regardless of material and/or economic restriction.

Ambition and scale of ambition are two questions that have been playing on my mind recently. I have no shortage of ambition, but perhaps I do not understand scale of ambition. Or rather how to progress one’s practice ‘appropriately’. My mind has always raced ahead of my hands, perhaps one of my New Year’s resolutions could be to synchronise these two aspects of my work. As I sit here writing these words I wonder if having a ‘proper’ studio again might also be a component in this. Finding a studio is definitely on my New Year’s to do list (I am not sure that it could really be called a ‘resolution’).

In early December Klas and I went to look at the post office’s former building here in Enköping. The ground floor would make ideal studios, and there is plenty of room for an exhibition/project space as well as an education room and even a materials shop or commercial gallery. The basement, apart from what was the old cycle repair workshop, however is far from ideal with a maze of corridors furnished with curiously small windowless rooms and a surprising number of load-bearing walls. The basement not only makes the building too large for us but also far too expensive – especially as it is hard to see how we could rent out the subterranean spaces. It is very disappointing as the ground floor has so much going for it but unless a truly benevolent benefactor turns up we will have to strike that property of the list of potential studios. There are a few other possibilities and once the festive season is behind me I will get those of us who are interested in finding studios can get together to discuss some practicalities and of course how much we can afford.

Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, one that I want to commit to is making time to write something here every week. Lots has gone on since my post at the end of November and it is better to write about things as they happen rather than trying to refer to events and discussions past. One thing that I purposely did not write about at the time was seeing some of my handiwork at Lars Wallin’s Fashion Stories show at Artipelag. I decided, as my parents were visiting at Christmas, that I would surprise them by taking to them to the exhibition and letting them see the pieces before they read about it here. Lars Wallin designed the costumes for the musical Chicago at Stockholm City Theatre some of which I helped Tim produce, and quite a few of the outfits feature in the ‘theatrical’ part of the exhibition. I surprised myself at how proud and pleased I felt when I saw the pieces on show at the opening night, somehow seeing them in the context of a gallery made a greater impact on me than seeing them on the stage. And it was lovely to see how delighted and proud my parents were when they saw them too.

Go-Go (for Enköping) is up and running! It has been a really good experience from my initial and very casual chat with Lovisa through to cycling by it this morning on my way to and from the gym.

The ‘opening’ on Sunday evening was fun and I spoke about the piece for probably five minutes or so in Swedish and without a script – whether what I said was understood or not is another question. When I think about how sweaty I used to get before speaking at those first Swedish evening classes in London I amazed at what I do now without a second thought.

During the week of preparations and installation it struck me just how appropriate Go-Go is for its specific location in Enköping. The piece was conceived and presented as site-specific for the m2 Gallery (London) in 2009. At that time I was one month into my three month residency at Wip:sthlm and returned to install that piece and several other works at the gallery and private house for Open House London. I had no idea that two years later I would be moving to Sweden, and no idea that seven years later I would be living in Enköping. And yet the work seems perfectly at home here not least in direct references to the history and architecture of the site. It is almost as though the work was made as a premonition of what would come to be …

I paused here to have lunch. The county radio station’s news roundup had a feature about the new cultural policy that is going to be introduced in Enköping next year (providing that there are no last minute hitches). I thought that I would have a look online to see if I had understood the report correctly, my search turned up an article in the local newspaper ….

Go-Go and ‘Joar’s art window’ are sited as examples of how the council are already making culture more accessible ahead of the ten year programme. So it looks as though my art and my initiative – made real in collaboration with the Arts Development Team – are perfectly well placed socio-politically too!

It seems a little too perfect, the timing of all of this is uncanny. From my own perspective I can see the sequence of events and coincidences that led to this, but it is still a little spooky that it has all happened. I think that I will make a flow-chart (best as I can) as I want to remember this! I want to remember that the ways things happen is a curious blend of effort, chance, fun, daring, professionalism, chat, focus but perhaps mostly the result of being open – open to new ideas, open to new people, open re-imagining oneself and one’s work, open to suggesting things that do not seem to make sense at the time, open to letting things unfold and grow.

The soil in this part of the county is known to be particularly fertile (due to vast areas previously being sea and river beds, and therefore very mineral rich). It is certainly proving to be very fertile land for me too.

There are times when there is so much going on that it is tricky to maintain any kind of distance – this is one of those time. It is great that so many things are happening but I am aware that there is little if any time for the reflection and consideration that I like to give ideas, plans, and processes.

On Saturday we had the first group meeting about establishing a collective studio here in town. It was a good meeting and I was delighted at how enthusiastic and energetic everyone was. We were four artists and one dancer and our requirements were quite different however everyone was excited by the idea of working together towards a place where we not only had studios but could also run workshops and course, collaborate with other artists and groups, have temporary exhibitions, sell pieces, and generally be engaged with both the local community and the wider (international?!) artistic community.

Yesterday I sent off my application for an artist’s award. Each year the county makes a number of awards across the art forms including visual art, music, film, dance, literature, even theory and art history. It was a good exercise to get me thinking about why I should receive such a grant, and how I would use it to develop my own work. There did not appear to be any restrictions on how one can use the grant, it seems that the most important thing was to present ten images with a clear and simple description of what I do. Reading thorough the summaries of previous years’ recipients it was interesting, and reassuring, to see that most used the ward to ‘simply’ continue with their practice, and that seeking a grant to do that was enough. There was no need to propose a project, nor to submit a budget or time plan. It is as if the people making the award understand that artists sometimes simply need financial support. As simple as that! The simplicity of the form implicitly stated that there are things (the arts) that are essential and that should be supported without having to seek justification in terms of things that do not necessarily belong to the arts: providing entertainment, tacking social problems, engaging new audiences, or increasing tourism. I hope that my application demonstrates the artistic qualities of my work -those qualities that are hard to express in words since I am not a wordsmith. Even if I am not successful I am pleased that by submission will be judged on its visual and aesthetic merits rather than anything else. I have argued elsewhere about the shift from artists being asked for images of their work and a supporting statement, to being asked for a project proposal and supporting visual material. To me the former is far more appropriate than the later. I wrote my supporting statement in Swedish and had it proofread by a friend, I am delighted to say that there was not too much red ink required! It was the first time that I tried to write in Swedish from the outset – rather than thinking about a sentence in English and then attempting to translate it. A somewhat surprising, and potentially very useful, result of this was that I was forced to keep it simple and straightforward. I simply cannot construct convoluted sentences in Swedish in the way that I can in English – I am not even sure that Swedes can, as the language works in a very different way.

In the light of both the EU referendum in the UK and the US election a friend sent out a link to an article about how mankind has survived previous times when it seems that we also hit the self-destruct button. In the pre-amble the academic author made a remark about the requirements for something to be considered research. Reading that sentence was something of a eureka moment for me – it encapsulated precisely the difficulty that I have with the concept artistic research – or perhaps more accurately the difficulty that I have pairing artistic and research practices:

Taking one telling of events as gospel doesn’t wash in the comparative analytical method of research that forms the core of British academia.

There it is in black and white! I have been schooled in the UK and am therefore predisposed to thinking of research in “comparative analytical” terms. Art is of course “one telling of events” and that is what I want it to be – when I look at an artwork I want to, I hope to, have something of that artist’s experience conveyed to me. Of course I see that artist in the context of their era, their culture, their world, but I want to see their singular telling of events. It is always personal with art, be it Caravaggio, Van Gogh, or Felix Gonzales-Torres.

I feel validated in my resistance to art being judged against criteria used in other research disciplines. And I feel strengthened in my determination to widen the understanding of what constitutes research.

The version of Go-Go that will be in Enköping is different to the original installation for the M2 Gallery. There is neither the time nor resources to make an alternator that would enable the piece to run on solar power here, nor is the time of year ideal for that. The relation between charging during the day and discharging during the night was a strong component in original concept. Go-Go Enköping focuses much more on the visual impact of the piece and the capacity that it has for animating the dormant local environment. I think that it is fine that this new versions is adapted to suit the particular requirements of the location. Is this me being pragmatic? I am reminded (once more) of sage advice given to me by a tutor at the Slade – ‘don’t get it right, get it done.’

Only very occasionally have I had to think about what a piece of my work might be worth – usually for insurance values, rarely for setting a price. However a question about how much Go-Go would cost if I were to sell it has raised some very interesting questions for me. The first question is what I am actually selling? By that I mean is the artwork the physical objects that make up the installation – the mirror balls, glitter, and spotlights, or is the artwork the concept – it being in a window, it coming on at dusk, it splattering light across adjacent and local surfaces, it inviting interaction.

I wondered if it is just a question of ‘marking up and selling on’ all the bits that anyone would need to make the piece. If I put them in a nice box and made an edition of three then they could almost be a type of ‘kit’. But there would be nothing in the kit that could not be bought elsewhere, and it feels more than a little egotistic and cynical to add value just because things have passed through my hands.

My mind then began to consider how it might be to sell the Go-Go concept rather than the Go-Go object. That way there would be the opportunity for it to be purchased and to be in a collection, and at the same time I could continue to show it elsewhere using identical components sourced locally. Obviously if the ‘concept’ were bought then any versions installed elsewhere would have to clearly state that the piece belongs to a collection.

The complexities and possibilities of selling a concept, or a type of contract, rather than the physical materials (though there might well be a ‘kit’ included with the concept) lead me to think about how an institutions owns one of Felix Gonzales-Torres’ stack give aways or candy spill pieces. I have read enough about his work (which I adore) to know that the institution or collector buys some kind of contract. I would love to see one of these contracts and to better understand how it works.

I wonder if there are any Swedish artists who work in a similar way -it would be great to be able to speak with them. Or perhaps speak with a museum or commercial gallery about it.

In the midst of finalising my grant application, rescheduling a meeting because a journalist friend was attacked while photographing a neo-Nazi rally (she’s okay but badly shaken), and replying to facebook messages about the next studio meeting two large parcels arrived.  40kg of glitter from the wonderful Flint’s in south London – a lot of black for Go-Go, and a fair amount of blue for making new work ….