I am having a rather frustrating time right now. Things are good but everything seems to be achieved after huge efforts and in slow motion. Yesterday was a case in point. I had an important meeting and set off in good time (I have a bit of a problem in that I hate being late so I always set out early). It was a complicated train journey with about three changes so it takes a bit of time. About halfway through the journey there was an announcement that someone had died on the line and so the next two hours was spent traveling around south London in orbit around the point I was aiming to get to; always in motion but never getting there. Today I have overcompensated and have done huge amounts of phoning, emailing and general arranging and being busy but feel that I have in some ways also been in orbit around the point I wished to arrive at.
I want a day in the studio doing work just for me. Who would ever have thought that one could spend so much time doing office work and commuting while being an artist?
There seems to be a bit of a go-slow on the Creative Communities project at Caterham. There is due to be a rescheduled meeting with interested parties before Christmas but I haven't heard anything yet. Thank goodness I have some (unrelated) workshops in the pipeline. One in fact is tomorrow; which I am looking forward to.
Some of my work has been selected for a group paper exhibition and coming up is a meeting for artists from the south east selected for 'Visual', the Art and Business organization but apart from that things are rather flat.
Well I hope yesterday wasn't a sign of how things are going to be on the Caterham project. Late on Monday I was phoned to be told that the committee meeting was cancelled as there were too few people able to come along to make it worthwhile but could I come along anyway, at 3.30 rather than at 6.00, when it was originally scheduled; to discuss things with Becci and Katy from Tandridge and the Arc and Celine the project co-ordinator . During Tuesday morning there was a further call to ask could I make it 3.00 p.m. instead? And once we got there we had to wait till 4.00 anyway.
I feel a huge urge to try to find a nice, comfy ivory tower and just concentrate on making my own work.
It will all work out I am sure.
I have been feeling at little guilty for presenting a rather one-sided view of events yesterday (above) and would also like to say that everyone at the meeting was enthusiastic, focussed and supportive as well as slightly late!
Tomorrow I am finally to meet some of the interested parties in the Caterham project as I go to the Arc for a meeting of the Caterham Arts Festival committee together with Becci Kenning and Katy Potter from the Arts Team at Tandridge. I am really keen to get started as it does seem to have taken a long while to get to this point. http://www.tandridgeleisure.co.uk/thearc_home.php
Other news concerns the project to develop St George's Church in Esher as a venue for artist residencies and exhibitions. I went to Brighton on Friday to meet Frances Lord, a source of much good advice, to see if she could suggest any strategies and useful contacts regarding the research and development application that will be required to get a long term programme established. She was very helpful and I'll post as things happen.
Research for my Caterham Project:
What makes the place what it is?
In the beginning it was the sea, which stretched across all of what we know now as the south of England. During the Cretaceous period, over almost unimaginable lengths of time, the calcified remains of minute algae and other fossil debris drifted slowly to the sea bed eventually to form the ridges of chalk that make up the North and South Downs.
Rather comically, the image looks like a bunch of buttons.
