In June 2008 Gordon Flemons and I started a second collaboration, set in Basildon with open ended timescale, focus of interest, media and outcomes. Would it work?
In autumn 2007 we formed our first collaboration "Caught in the Act" which Gordon documented on Artists Talking. Over 3 months we focused on Chelmsford's west end and our own drawing and interpretive practices. It finished with an exhibition in a pub.
Tues 14 October. Meeting at Rockfords in Basildon market, the weather was cold and damp, but their bread pudding, cooked everyday, is the best I’ve tasted for ages. It’s a café where people stay and chat for a while – as it should be.
Lots of discussion about websites and interesting examples out there. I’ve been edging towards producing one. Gordon wrote his in html but so much time involved in building and maintaining it. Thinking of producing mine as a workbook.
Gordon has signed up for an evening class in Photoshop in Colchester – run by an artist for artists. I’m beginning to make more short videos – most definitely stimulated by this collaboration.
We have almost enough material from the project to complete and publish, but it needs refining. Even so it will be some time before we meet again – work and other things.
Tues 9 September. Three weeks since we last met.
Char-Latte Bar has a silent plasma screen showing sport. There’s easy listening music. The staff are pleasant and, though the prices are above average, the café fills up nicely. We occupy the two sofas in the café window.
Gordon’s started reading “Lines: a brief history” by anthropologist Tim Ingold.
We discuss anti-narrative in contemporary practice. The world narrowed when science introduced Perspective, which became the touchstone of western art. Artists looked only in one direction at a time, took in one moment.
Creationists panic – stories from an ancient culture are nonetheless God’s word, therefore scientific truth. If the stories are not factual, it is not that God has told fibs, but that he cannot exist. Others panic because the ferocity of Creationist belief threatens to turn Creationist understanding of science (and politics) mainstream. The immutability of both sides stems from a profound western belief in the authentication of science.
We decide to drink in 4 more cafés, totalling an elegant 12.
Tues 19 August. Loofer’s Food and Coffee Place recently opened in the Eastgate mall. Very friendly and sponsors Fairtrade projects. Subtle lighting and jazz.
We’ve both seen an exhibition by students in a shop unit in Chelmsford and liked the energy and ideas. We both need temporary studio space occasionally. Wysing Arts have experimental space for their artists. Currently Basildon town centre is our temporary studio space.
Talked about the intellectual foundation for work and its “juddering” pace with production. I’ve been reading Tom Philip’s “Works. Texts. To 1974”. He describes “suffering the feeling that [his] work…is what [he does] while waiting to find ‘the way’ or ‘[his] own way’”.
There’s progress towards final outcomes to this project. Gordon has a mock up of an A6 publication – pictures and text. I’m editing short videos and sound for the internet. Ideas emerge for a further collaboration focusing on shop mannequins.
Tues 5 August. The Master Baker at Basildon bus station is small and clean. It sells bread, cakes, sandwiches etc. and its round tables attract the neatly turned out, mainly on the far side of 50. The tea is marginally more expensive than other places.
I’ve been editing sound for a short video shot at home. Showing the results on laptop, it’s kind of worked, but the editing software is clunky so adjusting video and sound together is a long process.
We are thinking about outcomes. Gordon wants to produce a printed booklet with photos of the fronts of the cafés and written documentation. Needs a reasonably priced book binder or will make the books himself. I am getting enough material for virtual work and maybe a booklet.
We walk to Eastgate mall and I take sequential stills looking down on café and shoppers from the first floor.
Tues 22 July. McDowell’s Pie & Mash. Its unusual deep green windows are open; designed by the Proprietor’s father, she thinks. Flow of breeze, flow of people. Traditional food – pie a particular shape, pastry and meat particular browns, mash and liquor their particular consistencies.
We analyse reactions of people to our photographing round town and the use of pixilation to disguise identities or even locations. We speculate on ways of using animation or building mechanised images within McDowell’s. How different to working with neutral gallery spaces?
A question arises. What relevance are etching and hand-built mechanics (mine and Gordon’s interests respectively), once cutting edge of social development but overtaken by more viable processes? Could I live in my great grandmother’s clothes or she in mine?
We look for the next café. How to chart them all? Passing through the town square there’s thoughts about creating an inflated ideal landscape.
