I am so excited at the moment about the things going on with my practice and the changes ahead. I love looking ahead to things, feeling a certain amount of pressure and having plans. On Tuesday I went along to the Margaret Harvey Gallery to meet up with Matthew and Amisha, the curators at the gallery and Mark the technician to talk through the ideas, plans and dates. It was a good meeting and I have come away feeling very excited about working with them. They have each been very encouraging and supportive. This has made me feel much more composed about having a solo exhibition compared to the constant feeling of doom that hung over me leading up to the Red Gate last year.
This bit of the early planning is the hardest because things are still so open and changeable. I guess as time goes along and the date gets closer then things have to get more and more specific. For now however, I am trying not to go down that mental trap of attempting to finalise for safety. Past experience has taught me that remaining open and adaptable as much as possible right up to the date allows the work to grow and evolve in response to the show, tending to lead to much more unexpected, exciting outcomes.
After the meeting it was right back to the studio to get down to the planning and experimenting. Of course, although I want to keep things from finalising, I have to make some commitments to the routes I am going to pursue. I know that I will be constructing an installation drawing and roughly, what it will be but how is still a little unclear. I also have committed myself to a performance. Outside these two main decisions things are still fairly fluid at the moment.
On Friday I started some of the actual physical building of my drawing. This will be the most complicated thing to construct because it is going to be a 2d/3d line piece. These involve much measuring, calculating and accuracy. Definitely not something to be left until last minute, so I feel the earlier I get on the case with this the more relaxed I’m going to be about experimenting with the show as a whole. The fact that I have very little permanent physical work and that pretty much everything is made for a certain event/exhibition and then is gone, makes time and money a major anxiety factor when embarking on a new project. I find comfort in extreme organisation. Organisation and flexibility will hopefully be my strategy for surviving this show and making it successful.
