I’ve emailed the wip:stkhlm and asked if they have any studios available from August. It would be great if they did. I feels really good to think that I’ll have a studio again, and August 1st is the second anniversary of my residency there. I like the roundness of it.
It feels like the right time to do it. I have about two and a half months to get things in place; this should be achievable. There is no reason why I can’t set up my studio even if I am technically still living in London. The idea of the financial commitment is a good incentive to work hard at finishing the DIY and getting the agents to look over my flat.
Not having a studio (and not finding a satisfactory way of working without one since installing Play at MOCA London last September) has made me realise that if I don’t make something happen then nothing/no-one will. I imagine it would different if I had a gallery asking for new work, but as most of my work is self initiated or comes about from talking about what I’m doing, when I stop it all stops! I need and want to be working again and for me that requires a physical space. It is exciting to think about loading up a van with my previous work and materials, taking the ferry to Sweden and driving up to Stockholm.
DIY and the skilled artisan …
Two things have recently made me think about how I do things. I bumped into another artist in the local supermarket and was talking about the work I’m doing on my flat. He asked if enjoy doing DIY or if it is a financial decision to do it myself. Then last night I went to Michael Petry’s presentation about his new book, The Art of Not Making, which looks at artists who work with artisans to produce their art works. So as I sit here surrounded by pots of paint, tubes of caulk, spare bamboo flooring complaining that I don’t have a studio I realise just how much I take on myself. If I had the money would get in professional decorators? Would I commission someone else to fabricate artworks? I know myself well enough to know that I like to be in control, though I am now wondering if this is an efficient way to be working – domestically and creatively. I could be sitting here seeing my flat transformed while I commission new art works.
The financial side of employing people interests me. I am not in a position to pay other people (to make art works or decorate the house) so I do it myself. I was also brought up and educated in a philosophy of DIY. Does working within my own abilities and budget limit my potential? I want to know how artist afford to have things made.
Just found out ferries no longer go to Sweden, I’d have to go to Denmark and then drive and drive and drive. Freight might be the answer.
I’m starting the last of the ‘big jobs’ on my flat. Over the last two months I’ve allowed myself to be totally consumed by decorating and other DIY. Having said that I went to a wonderful talk by Dorothy Cross at Frith Street Gallery the other week. I’ve known Dorothy’s work since a friend (and former tutor) took me to a show at the old Frith Street Gallery back in the 90s. She is a fascinating artist and a great speaker (talker?). It was really good to hear how she works, especially how her focus and projects have developed over the years. I left feeling inspired and encouraged.
I’m desperate to get back to the studio – well, to get a studio! I know that everything I do is a step nearer to establishing myself in Stockholm and taking a studio there. I don’t know exactly what I want to do in the studio I just know that I need to be there.
A local print workshop runs short courses in screen-printing and I’m thinking of doing one. Some friends did a course there and listening to them made me think about what I could do. I’m intrigued by the idea of working on paper and by making something that could (potentially) be commercial. I say that because my friends are selling and have sold the prints they made … my work has never been commercial so why would prints be any different?!
One of things I really appreciate about spending time here (in London) and there (in Stockholm) is how it insulates me from distraction. It is my nature to get involved in things and sometimes this is detrimental to my own practice. It is also my nature to absorb the atmosphere around me and this too is sometimes detrimental to my practice. With all the stresses and frustrations being felt in the arts in the UK I really appreciate the distance that thinking “internationally” affords me.
I feel guilty admitting that, however I want to be honest. Of course the threats to the arts are serious and demand attention, however after years of attempting to do things about it and seeing minimal results I need time out. I also see that I need to approach it from a different perspective. With the phrase “rats leaving a sinking ship” ringing in my ears I’m making my flat ready to put on the market … and wondering why I grew up thinking those rats were wrong. Rats work damn hard to survive. They adapt and evolve but they also know when enough is enough.
Spending time abroad has shown me different ways of doing things. More than that it has forced me to focus on who I am as an artist – an artist in a broader context. As my context has broadened my practice has focussed. Shedding local concerns (distractions?) has enabled me to do what I need to do and as a result I have made art that operates at a level that seems to give people so much more than the stuff I made when I wanted it to be meaningful. The less I ‘understand’ the more I trust the creative processes. The artwork that comes out of this is more than the sum of the parts, and it therefore has more to offer. The most ‘accessible’ art is not necessarily the easiest to explain, it could be the art that’s the most artistic.
Can I really attribute this shift in approach to working outside the UK? To an extent I think I can say that being away from the intensity of the London art scene has given me space to think about what is important to me at a very fundamental level.
Good quality affordable studios
Hidden agenda free children’s projects
Equality between arts and other professions
Time and space to take risks
Faith in the process
I love art
I love art. Art saved my life. As an isolated overweight gay boy attending a tough comprehensive school in Essex in the late 70s and 80s art showed me something else. Beyond the joy of the art rooms there were trips to galleries. I clearly remember seeing work by Hockney, Judd, Caro and Naum Gabo at the Tate, I remember Anish Kapoor, Ed Allington and a huge pink tiled cone with a ring of matching pink hand-basins around it outside the Hayward Gallery. These and other artists showed me form, scale and colour. They showed me things way beyond my life. They showed me something beyond the world I saw every time I stepped out the front door. They gave me hope
Today I still want art that makes my spirit soar. Art that releases me from mundanity. Art that takes me somewhere else, that enlivens me, that challenges me. Art that makes things better. Art that believes in the future.
I want art that takes my breath away, and art makes me wonder.
Perhaps that is why I felt so flattened and disappointed by British Art Show 7. Did I miss something … ?
Supermarket Day 4
This is the first day that the fair is open to the public. It is immediately and surprisingly busy. A friend is supposed to come during her lunch-break, unfortunately she is delayed and arrives just as Michael and I are heading off to the Market fair. (Market is the commercial gallery fair held at Akademien – the art academy – a 15 minutes walk from Kulturhuset.) Going around the fair with Michael was good, he had arranged to meet one of the galleries he knows to see the work of an artist he is interested to work with in the future. I was also pleased to be able to introduce him to the galleries that I know here. As we reached the end of the fair Michael commented on how ”cool” it all was, not cool as in trendy but in other senses – the confidence, the palette, the feeling of the work. It is remarkable that this coolness is almost consistent throughout the fair. To me this is one of the most appealing aspects of the Scandinavian art scene – an alternative to so much flash and spectacular work. It’s not only the work that is cool, the galleries and gallerists are cool too. This kind of cool is something that I think (I hope) has the kind of integrity that I have been looking for.
It was interesting to see artists from last year’s graduation shows being presented at Market. I’m sure that galleries at Frieze show their new artists too, however with so many less graduates (and galleries) it is easier to spot them.
There isn’t any coverage of the art fairs in the national newspapers. Roberto’s Mosquito Choir are pictured in the local morning paper which is great however the text says that they will perform tonight, when they actually performed last night at the opening.
After Michael and I come back to the stand Roberto and Cecile go to Market and also to Magnus Karlsson galleri where an artist Michael has worked with is in a group show. The show also includes an artist from the gallery where Roberto works part-time. We play ‘tag’ one more time and when they return from the fair and show Michael and I make a quick trip to the gallery. I really liked Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings and she’s a really charming woman too! We – the MOCA London group – planned to meet with the gallery group for a drink after their dinner but the dinner lasted longer than the pub hours so it didn’t happen.
