I’ve been leading a double life for the past month as the Lincoln residency overlapped with my year long University of Nottingham residency.
I can now confirm that I have moved into a studio in the old Dairy on Jubilee Campus. I’m in the Red Room, although thankfully it’s not red. It’s nice to have a studio away from home. The sun pours in as I look out onto the Co-op Funeral Care opposite. At least the neighbours will be quiet. I shall enjoy it here.
Unfortunately it is not true of the neighbours the other side and as I sit there working, the ground is shaking. I wonder if I’m having a Jurassic Park moment or is it the opening scene in Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’?. Whatever it is it’s measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale. I rush out and find Gavin the technician who assures me it’s just the earthworks for the new building next door. Gavin can fix most things but what if the building falls down?
I get on with my work, making three wall hangings for my next exhibition ‘Stream’. They have now been installed in Deda in Derby and went up without a hitch. The hangings are made from unravelled jumpers bought from charity shops in Derby. I decided to unravel them into piles of different colours, cut them into shorter strands and tie them back together introducing more colours.
It’s a simple idea but I haven’t seen it done before. Sometimes the best ideas are the ones that no one else would want to do! The colours are graduated and I’ve since thought of various other ways to do this so I might continue and develop this work. The unravellings become metaphors for unravelling minds as well as ecological concern for rubbish in the landscape and the streams of floating debris in the seas. I wasn’t planning on doing 3D work for the exhibition but there was a spare wall! This was a last minute addition to fill the space.
I’m now looking forward to the P.V on Saturday night.
