I’ve been a bit full steam ahead with my head down concentrating on work and now I’ve got a deadline in a few days to name the show and come up with some text for the info board. It’s got to be a bit about me and a bit about the show approx 250-350 words. I find being objective about my work quite difficult and steer away from any sort of curating myself but now I’ve got to pull all my work together into a cohesive show. Blimey.
Another thing I’m working on at the moment is copying some printing negatives from the archives, which were used to print up a commemorative brochure for a company. The brochure called ‘Cranes a Sequence of Progress’ and was printed in the early 1970’s uses archaic techniques for the process. The actual negatives are very low tech, handmade with a sheet of tracing paper of each page with loose felt tip drawings of the shape of the images and also blocking out the text. As I’m unable to use the originals in the space, I’ve decided to re-make the full set of 10 which will give me something ‘hands on’ to make. I’m going to try and make them as near as possible to the originals, including the handwritten printing instructions on the edge of the cards. So currently I’m having thoughts on how I can make new sellotape look 40 years old!
So after much deliberation (and reading lots of Wikipedia!) I’ve decided to call the show Transience. I always shy away from ‘properly’ naming work, I’m not brainy enough to come up with something clever, usually it’s a literal title or recently for the animations ‘Work no. 17’ etc so having to come up with something collective has been a bit odd. Luckily is something that has been at the back of my mind when making work and I feel like it all fits in with the theme really well.
The theme is more about being sensitive to the passing of time, a slight leaning towards lamenting about it but also being objective enough to see it as being inevitable. Which is quite relevant in a museum of obsolete objects. I’m also interested in how some items will always be in the archives as they are not deemed interesting enough to be put onto display. There’s also a question of how museums document history and how they can construct ideologies and identities by the way that they put things onto public display. The boxes and cabinets fit well in this as they are part of the archiving and display process.
I also had one of the other artists, Simon Whetham coming in last Friday. Simon’s a sound artist and his residency is in July, part of his work is to record the other residency artists working. I was a bit pessimistic about this at first, especially as I know I talk to myself when I’m working (!). I was worried that I’d be a bit more self conscious when being recorded but it went well. I thought that the sounds produced by me drawing on the window were quite amazing, lots of very subtle squeaks and other indescribable noises. Of course it was half term and Max & Tom, my kids, were supposed to be drawing at the other side of the MillSpace but ended up arguing and stomping about. I quite like that though, a very true representation of my practice! I look forward to hearing what Simon comes up with.
I’ve been thinking today how much I’ve started to enjoy coming into the mill and getting on with things. It’s also a bit weird to be classed as an artist, having spent so long as an art student (7 years), I’ve always had a bit of a problem with defining myself as an artist, I’ve always been a bit ‘Oh, I’m not one of those yet…!’ but to be in a professional situation, getting paid and doing artist talks, must make me one? Musn’t it?
