I am in that weird headspace that having a cold gives one … or at least gives me … I should have been on a site visit on Wednesday, I should have been at a seminar on Thursday, I should have been at a meeting yesterday afternoon and a performance yesterday evening, I want to be at an opening later today and a party this evening. The cold – my third this year! – prevents all of this. I find myself in some kind of limbo. I wish that I had materials at home to be getting on … playing … with. I take it as a good sign that I feel like this – for the past two days I haven’t had the energy to do much more than doze and watch films. With the artists’ club’s annual general meeting fast approaching there have been some necessary emails and telephone calls – just as well that my cold isn’t any more serious or debilitating than it has been.
Although I have a sketchbook here I am aware that I don’t want to fall in to my habit of sketching … designing … something that I will then attempt to reproduce in material … in three dimensions … in space. The site visit that I could not attend on Wednesday was to Lövstabruk – the estate belonging to Sweden’s, if not the world’s, largest iron works of the eighteenth century where I and four other artist will show this summer. I have set myself the challenge … and it is a challenge for me … of making a new work … an installation … that has materiality rather than anything else at its core. At the moment I am working out what this means! It feels like an extension of what I did … how I worked … on the residency in Riga. I have been collecting … assembling … material – literally fabric, cloth – and I want to work with these materials to create the installation. I have been collecting … assembling … references – from the world of haute couture as well as fine art. And now I want to see what happens when I start working. I am both excited and a little scared!
I hope to visit Lövstabruk next week. The photos of the space taken on Wednesday and shared between the artists show a large dimly light room with a low ceiling and quite imposing architectural features. Having looked at the photos I am aware that I need to be on site to appreciate … comprehend … know … the room. I am very curious as to how we will work towards and achieve this show … as artists our practices seem quite distinct.
With so much going on in the coming months I really need to draw up a schedule so that I can easily see when things are happening – it’s simply too much to keep in my head. I can’t stop myself wondering what I will hear about the artist’s working grant … the list of successful applicants should be available in early April. Either I will be successful or not … it’s pointless playing it over in my mind but I can’t help it. Even if I get a grant it doesn’t alter the commitments that I have made up until the end of the summer. I guess that receiving the award is about much more than just the money … it is about being recognised as an artist by one’s peers and those in the art-world. And perhaps it is that which I really need right now. Having said … written … that I have to wonder why I don’t recognise the invitations to be involved in all the projects that I am involved with as recognition of me as an artist!
I want to say something about Phyllida Barlow – though I don’t know what to say. I guess reading about her, and having watched a few interviews over the past months, I can say that I was becoming increasingly intrigued by her work. Or perhaps by the space which her work opens up for me … rather than by the work itself – which I find awkward and difficult but perhaps that is because I have only seen one or two pieces in reality. Having known her as one of several female tutors at the Slade in the 1990s I was delighted when she ’suddenly’ gained recognition that exceeded that of many of the more arrogant male tutors that were her colleagues. I was becoming increasingly intrigued in how she spoke about her work – its materiality rather than its meaning … its process rather than its product. I have watched her Louisiana Channel films a number of times and will probably continue to return to them. Something definitely resonates … I see … hear … certain similarities between our concerns, and there are even some visual similarities between particular pieces. She was not one of my tutors and because of the general animosity towards Stuart Brisley’s department I didn’t have any real contact with Phyllida while I was at the Slade … I wonder what might have happened had that been different.
