Project Me

The ‘Skip Day’* at the end of July rewarded me with four doors in addition to the one I found in the abandoned in the cellar at the apartment block. These are going to feature in my new work. So far I have carried three over the bridge to the studio. I have started to wash them and realise that at least two must come from apartments where a very heavy smoker lived – it seems as though I am removing 60 years of nicotine. The doors are a completely different colour underneath.

It has been interesting for me to think about the significance of cleaning the doors. I want to use second-hand doors because they have history and yet at the next moment I am removing some of the patina of that very history. Working in a quite studio I find myself going over this. At the moment my thinking is that it is enough that I know that the doors are second-hand and are probably 60 years old (the same age as the building), and for this particular piece I am not interested in the dirt they have acquired during this time. (Though I am fascinated by the nicotine staining and the build up of greasiness around where the door handle was and the area where the door was pushed closed directly rather than by the handle.)

Washing is an important part of my working process with second-hand objects: I wash the shirts, the cake tins, the dinner plates and now I am washing the doors. I am more interested in permanent marks than in the impermanent and the ‘removable’. Washing is a good way to work out what is what!

Perhaps there is also something about the act of washing and cleansing; it seems to make the object more ready for transformation. It is a symbolic act of separating the object from its former context and preparing it for something new.

(* Twice a year the management team at the house order a skip for residents to throw out rubbish and oversized items that cannot go in to the normal rubbish chute.)



Turning Up is Paying Off!

The second week of being at the studio full-time has been wonderfully productive, it is a long time since I have felt so good about what I am doing and so hopeful about it too. Sometimes it is amazing what can happen over a week …

The sorting and clearing of last week was the start of it. Physically clearing a corner of the studio meant that I quite literally have space for new work. While re-arranging boxes, packages, tools and other stuff I realised how there was nowhere in the studio where I could see the line where the wall meets the floor. I remember how I do not like rooms where I cannot see at least some of this line – maybe it is some kind of horizon line (for me) and when I cannot see it at all I feel hemmed in and suffocated. I now have some clear horizon again.

Looking at unfinished work did not inspire me to finish it however it shifted something in my thinking. Perhaps looking at these ‘resting’ pieces kick-started my thought processes; trying to remember why I started them, what my ambitions for them were, what they were for.

The upshot of those days was the start of something new and I am very excited about it …

Being regularly at the studio I allow myself to do what I want – this week days have been a mix of sketching and note making, gathering materials, reading and looking at artist’s catalogues. This is much more relaxed than when I rush here (to the studio) and feel that I must ‘be productive’ for the three hours that I have.

Completely separately though relatedly I also had a very inspiring evening on the internet. It started with a simple quest to find the starting time of the Olympic opening ceremony. My search question somehow brought up information about the production team rather than a programme schedule. I was surprised to see Catherine Ugwu’s name, I remember her from Live Art Development Agency when I was doing performance art in the late 90s. Seeing her name as Executive Producer made me wonder what other people I used to know are up to. A search for Mark Waddell (the excellent Performance Director at Glasgow’s CCA in the 90s) lead me to his publications about Goat Island performance group who I met when I attended their first ‘summer school’ in 1996. Mark, and his assistant Lisa Kapur, put on brilliantly programmes of internationally acclaimed performance art alongside showcasing experimental and new artists – they gave me my first opportunity to show performance in a truly professional context. Next I searched the name of a performance project I did in 2001 in London. I was really pleased to find that the project director Nic Sandiland has a short recorded excerpt of the performance – Frozen Progress – on his website. It was the first time that I have seen any documentation as after the live performance we all became busy with other things and despite attempts to keep in touch we did not manage it. I watched the three minute clip at least three times.

I returned to Goat Island’s website and looked at the documentation of several of their performances, I really like them. Their summer school was amazing and is till very clear in my mind. I liked the way that they worked as individuals and as “collaborators” (their term).

After that I looked at Desperate Optimists’ website (they studied theatre at Dartington when I studies art and our paths used to cross) and Five Andrews’ website (I was a performer in a project run by two members of the group). All of which reminded me of how much I enjoyed being part of that performance scene and how much I enjoyed working with other people to produce something.

Perhaps that is part of my attraction to working with Ingrid and Anna both of who are involved to differing degrees with the Stockholm performance scene. I would be very happy if our Sandcastles in Greece project becomes live art/ performance …



For the first time in a long time I have been in the studio everyday this week. I am having a hard time making anything at the moment so it has been really good just to be here and to allow myself to feel awkward and frustrated – I tell myself that it is part of ‘the process’.

Today I have mainly been moving things around in order to clear some space. The studio continues to be inhabited by large cardboard boxes that contain the contents of what were my bookshelves, walls and studio in London. Sometimes I feel very aware of the restrictions of subletting a studio rather than it being “mine”, of course this would not be such an issue if I did not add so many of my own things to an already furnished space! However the moving and sorting is good and it feels as though I might soon have space to breath and to make new things.

As a result of moving one of chairs I noticed something immediately outside the studio window that I had not paid attention to before – a flagpole, actually one of a number of flagpoles that run along the boundary of the industrial estate where the studio is. There is no flag flying (I don’t think I have ever seen one), I am thinking about making a one …

For three days my computer could (would?) not pick up the internet connection here. It has been interesting to be here with the distractions it offers – radio, email, Skype, internet. (An internet search on ‘distraction’ produced 41,000,000 hits in 0.23 seconds.). I am going to see if I can get out of the habit of coming here and immediately turning the computer on. Space is not just physical!

Yesterday I un-packed an unfinished patchwork and have put it up on the wall. It was packed up when I moved out my studio in West Norwood (2010). I have also started to polish the additional ring shaped cake tins that I have been collecting since my residency here (2009). I think (hope?!) that my re-engagement with these pieces is a sign that there is some untapped potential in them.

Had a really good meeting with Anna and Ingrid after Ingrid emailed with details of a residency that would give us the opportunity to develop our Sandcastles in Greece project. I am delighted that they both want to continue with the idea. It has been a long time since I worked on a collaborative project and I think it could be very successful (and enjoyable).

It is good to be back in the studio after a long break. I need to be more disciplined about coming here over the next couple of weeks and while I do not have the structure of a school timetable to order my week.

Things I can get on with:

1. polishing the cake tins that I have collected over the last few months.

2. making some banners from the second hand shirts that I brought from London

3. trying other ‘sun prints’ – the glass decanter stoppers did not make good images. I am rather disappointed about this as they cast great shadows. What would happen if I placed them on photographic paper and used an old fashioned photographic enlarger and developing chemicals??

4. more shadow drawings

5. updating my website!! This really needs to be done but writing a new artists statement is not easy.

6. BEING AT THE STUDIO AND LETTING THINGS HAPPEN …

The week in London went very quickly. It was very different being there with someone else – I am not so used to traveling with a partner …

My piece at Clifford Chance looked good. They even pressed it before it was hung! I was very pleased to see that it was hung on one of the polished plaster walls rather than the one painted with matt emulsion. The opening was an enjoyable evening, towards the end I met a lawyer (who had previously been a doctor!) and was both delighted and surprised to learn that he reads this blog. It was the first time that I have met and ‘unknown’ reader.

This is exactly the kind of ‘gay’ exhibition that I like – with work that can be openly gay or lesbian but which must be interesting and high quality. I find it very difficult to write (or even think) about ‘gay sensibility’ in my own or others’ work. I have the sense that many of the artists exhibiting would not call themselves a gay or lesbian artist, rather an artist who is gay or lesbian.

Seeing the catalogue made me realise that I really need to work out what I am going to do about images of my work. The picture in the catalogue is not very good at all. Perhaps it is time that I started to have my work professionally photographed. I certainly need to look again at how other installation artists photograph their work. My work is often an awkward size and a difficult material … maybe I should try to make work that is easier to photograph!

Henry Moore’s Late Large Forms at Gagosian was my favourite of the other shows I saw. It was wonderful to be able to be so close to sculptures of that scale and beauty. Tucked around a far corner of one of the enormous galleries was a modest acrylic wall mounted cabinet containing maquettes, models and natural forms Moore referred to – a brilliant and subtle piece of curating. Thinking about it now, it was really nice to walk in to a gallery and see the work without labels, without a press release, without any (noticeable) text.

I am very pleased to say that I passed the SFI test, and that I have found a part time course to continue with. The new course is two mornings a week which I think will suit me – I can have some full days here at the studio and I know that I am far more alert in the morning than I am in the evening! I have to find ways to keep practicing my Swedish over the summer break as I already feel that a week in London has ‘corrupted’ what I have learnt.

It was great to arrive back in Stockholm and find that the authorities here have validated my British degrees. I was genuinely concerned that the lack of documentation regarding my Art & Social Context degree could become a problem, thankfully my own account of the course content and the few traces I found were enough and now I have an official Swedish document when I apply for work and funding etc.

Staying with an artist friend in London gave us the chance to talk in way that I just can’t/ don’t on the phone. We have been talking about art, in one way or another, for the 15 years we’ve known each other. I also visited an artist friend who was my tutor over 20 years ago. They are both wonderfully inspiring and interesting people (in very different ways) and I want do more to keep in touch with both of them. I am starting to make friends here however I really appreciate chatting with people who know me well.