Yes, I know it's Saturday, but Gresham's is a boarding school and the art department is open every day of the week. Well, actually I'm being let off Sundays, and I'm taking up that offer, as there is still so much to do here.
It's very much like two separate worlds that I'm existing in at the moment. The art department offers so many opportunities to paint, draw, print, sculpt, cast … and if I think of any extra materials I'd like to use, I just have to ask Charley and he will happily get them in for me. I have to pinch myself!
But that world is far removed from the world of my computer and printer – not forgetting, of course, a fine selection of cupboards – that I've already invested a great deal of time – and money – in working with. While I'm at school I try to think about the stuff at home and work out how everything might fit together in the exhibition, but it's only at home that I can get more of a perspective on the necessity of being true to my own practice when push comes to shove.
Meanwhile, I unmoulded my plaster relics this morning. Some of them have potential, while others needed to be remade slightly differently. So it was out with the squidgy clay and gooey plaster again. Fun! And in the way that these things often happen, when I peeled the clingfilm off the moulds I suddenly found I had the makings of another piece of work …
This afternoon Dan was running an adults' etching workshop in the department. Like everyone else I encounter at Gresham's, he was incredibly friendly, and I felt able to ask him for a few printmaking tips. I'm thinking of working with candle wick on a soft ground, using my own body measurements.
But not tomorrow. That's a day off. Sort of.
