Threads

In post no 74… or thereabouts… I was talking about sketchbooks and how mine had been left open at random pages after an assessment, and how I had never considered looking at them in this way, just opened and placed next to each other, to see what associations might arise. In doing this, and taking pictures, I am also questioning who this blog is for. Obviously people are reading it. I’m reading it. And looking at the pictures. It is as much for me as anyone I suppose, a record, hopefully of growth and development rather than stagnation and repetition. It’s a way of reconsidering my thoughts.

And so is this…

I’ve taken my last 6 sketchbooks (I always work in these Muji A5 ones, spiral bound with a ribbon, because they fit in my bag, tied up so the pages don’t get runkled up, and so you can safely tuck things into them… bits of knitting, fabric, leaflets, photos). I opened them at random, then if it was just a page of twaddle, turned to the next page. I put them all together and took a few photos that I post here. So… is it a waste of a blog post? A bit navel-contemplating? Self-absorbed and selfish? For you, esteemed reader, maybe. For me, MOST interesting… shadows, sheds and secret exits? Freud and shirt collars and confessions? Oh yes. I’ll be doing this again, but next time, I may just do it for myself.

Just spent about 4 hours in The New Art Gallery Walsall. For those of you who’ve never been, it’s fab, well worth a visit… I urge you to look it up and make the time. Stop in the Midlands instead of zooming through with your eyes shut.

I am rather lazy, and have a bit of a dodgy knee, so I always get the lift to the top and work my way down on foot. In the lift I encountered two quite scruffy, grubby, sticky looking lads, about 10-11 yrs old. One of them sniffed wetly and noisily and said “Like yer shoes” to me (Turquoise converse, yes, very nice, my current favourites). I said thanks and asked them if they visited the Gallery often… “We come every Sat’dy when us mums are shopping… or if we’re bored on a Sundy… and in the holidays cos they do stuff.” I asked if they looked at the art or just hung about a bit… “We always have a look when they put up something new, then if we don’t like it we just hang about a bit. I like the animal drawings though (in the Garman Ryan permanent collection). We likes this that’s up on the 3rd floor now though. There’s drawings of places done from by where we live, and under the motorway, and they’re done in biro. Anyone can draw in biro can’t they? You can get a big bag from the pound shop. My mum got me some last week.” There was another big sniff, they got out at floor 3 to have another look at “There is a Place…” I carried on up to the fourth floor with the hugest smile on my face.

On the fourth floor (Blue skies, nothing but blue skies) were two arty types complaining that they couldn’t go out on the terrace to take photos of the Blue Skies of Walsall. There was a force 10 gale going on, and it might be dangerous I suppose. The sky of Walsall was far from blue, but it was tempestuous, the view progressively murky shades of grey and static, apart from the sharp glints of moving light reflected on cars on the M6. Stunning.

Whenever I go to Walsall, their gallery is always full of families, lurking teenagers, all ages, ethnic groups, classes, educated, not-so-educated, all engaging with this space. I don’t know how NAGW do it, but they do it REALLY well.

Oh… he was right. Laura Oldfield Ford’s works in ball pen and acrylic were wonderful. They depicted areas of dereliction and neglect with a care that was captivating… and beautiful.

http://www.thenewartgallerywalsall.org.uk/

This being a student lark, at my age, is a strange beast. I’m wondering how I might cope after September, without the structure of course tutorials to hold me on track. Yesterday I had a short feedback tutorial after the assessment. I was very gratified with my mark, and was happy with the work I had submitted. It’s a real boost to hear complimentary comments about the work from people I respect though (yes of course I respect my fellow students too, but you know what I mean). Especially when the comments are concerned with more recent work I’ve been worrying about. My Liberty bodice and Lullaby were considered “an interesting departure” from previous work, and it was felt I had reached a “watershed” in my work. It was this feature that enabled me to squeeze a distinction out of the marker. I mention my age, because at times I feel I have some of the inexperience and naivete of younger students, but with this old cynical head on. I have a huge gap in my life as an artist, and feel I have to work like stink to catch up. I don’t know how I’m supposed to go about things. There are loads of things I don’t know. Sometimes I’m brave enough to ask, sometimes my panicky blank face strikes pity into people and they kindly tell me. Sometimes, I scribble things down on a bit of paper and look it up later. Then I promptly forget it.

In the weeks running up to the assessment, I felt more student than artist. This week I feel like an artist again. I have ideas to work on, songs to sing, stitches to sew. My final show is more than 7 months away. My life/work/attitude have changed so much in the last 7 months, I don’t dare think about how they might change again before then.

Exciting times! My heart beats a little faster, and sometimes there’s a lump in my throat. Occasionally I get over-stimulated and need to sit in a darkened room.

Oh, the photograph is of the place I set up the player and headphones for Lullaby. I was worried that I hadn’t given enough thought to this siting, just throwing a black cloth over everything, aiming the lights away, so that the listener sat in a dim corridor at the bottom of the basement stairwell, looking at the spotlit dark panelling, black and red tiles, and the cupboard under the stairs. They seemed to find it interesting… but I’m not sure still.

Have a look, listen to it again if you want (please ignore crappy accompanying video) and let me know. Song number 2 is half finished and I need to resolve some installation and listening issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmo4KSz3Nsw

I’m well chuffed. Just got marks back from assessments… both better than last set of results and practice mark has nudged up into the distinction category. Encouraging, and still got plenty of space for improvement for finals. Big smile on my face, proper feedback tomorrow… or next week.

Jo Farnell recommended I read “Evocative Objects: Things We Think With” (ed Sherry Turkle, MIT Press 2007). I hot-keyed it over to Amazon and ordered it. I’ve only flicked through it a bit, and read the introduction, but felt I needed to record my initial thoughts before I carried on and forgot what I was thinking… this happens a lot, I’m convinced I’ve found the answer to all the world’s problems, but have forgotten the miraculous solution while trying to find a pen.

These are the phrases I’ve jotted down as I read:

“attentive to the details of people’s lives might be considered a vocation”

“made me feel connected”

Objects connect people with other people “serves as a marker of relationship and emotional connection”

“…a dynamic relationship between things and thinking”

“For Freud, when we lose a beloved person or object, we begin a process that if successful, ends in our finding them again, within us. It is, in fact, how we grow and develop as people. When objects are lost, subjects are found. Freud’s language is poetic: ‘the shadow of the object fell upon the ego’”

This little lot of words is almost shouting at me from the page. When I was looking through the objects in my favourite shop last weekend. I started with a visual idea of what I wanted, but as I went through the clothes they spoke to me, I established an emotional attachment to them, something that I had lost and found in myself, either from my parents, my childhood, whatever. THIS is why I chose those particular clothes, and abandoned my original thoughts in favour of them. The shadow of my mother falls upon me as I sew.