Thursday was an exciting day. I invited dancer Sophie Tickle to come and work with me on the development of my ‘Migrate’ work. It’s previous incarnation is a performative piece that I created at the Drawing Exhibition in Castlefield Gallery back in February. That work comprised a projected line mapping a route of migration where I repetitively stamped increasing numbers and arrows backwards and forwards within that flow. Following the production of the work I felt that it lacked choreography, and that the link between the projection, the performative action and the finished work was not strong enough.
I’ve collaborated with Sophie during a networking session in St Helens – a visual artist was randomly assigned a non-visual artist to work with for 4 hours in a local library – and I found it interesting to see how my work crossed over with the practice of a dancer. I’ve wanted to do this for years, but just never had the reason to.
So, on Thursday I asked Sophie to respond to the migration subject matter as she would if she were creating a dance piece. We each created gestures responding to synonyms of the word ‘displace’. The difference between Sophie’s actions that used a wide range of expressive body movements and my own, limited, isolated movement was an interesting counterpoint.
We went on to string these gestures together, and it was interesting to think of timing, variables in speed and dynamics of movement and how this can accentuate and abstract a starting point.
Thinking about the different types of movement led onto a discussion about characterisation – the different parts of my work being different characters (the projection, the logical numbering stamp and the performer)
We have all day on Monday together again when we will integrate video, projection, stamping and performance and see what happens.
Week 2 in the project space and I’ve got an assembly line for making the resin houses in place. I’ve worked out the problems with the bubbles and learnt not to mix resin in a polystyrene cup (it melts). I can make 20 houses a day, I’ve not worked out if that is enough yet, but I aim to know by the end of this week.
Some practical things to work out this week. How big to make things, how does the projector in the gallery fill the space. Will the time lapse work. What screens can I get for the work from the budget. What can I get from working with a performer. What will my publication look like. What do I want the video screens underneath the houses to do?
I think I’m also at the stage of worrying is the work going to be good enough. It feels like new ground in each piece of work, which is daunting, but I also feel as though I’m not pushing it far enough. In the end I can only make what I make by the opening of the show, still doesn’t help the little demons whirring away in the background though.
After a day back at my own studio in St Helens, I’ve spent another afternoon in the big space in Widnes. I’ve spent my time in the big space making tiny things. Which seems a waste of the space, but I plan for it to come into it’s own as the works gets made.
I’ve been casting more houses that I started while I was in southend. The first lot have come out ok, although I need to make sure that I get rid of bubbles before I leave it to set. I’ve poured the first half of a second mould as I’m hoping to make hundreds of these houses and five at a time is going to be too slow. Probably going to need another few moulds though. That’s this week’s job.
I’ve arranged for a performer to come and work with me in the space next week, so that’s going to be exciting. And I’m talking to someone about writing a piece for the publication that will be produced to go with the exhibition.
I went back to New Mills yesterday and the drawing is still looking crisp in the sunshine. unfortunately the time lapse camera had moved. So I’ve rectified the problem and set it going again. Although I’m not sure that there will be much change to the drawing by the end of the festival. A case of waiting to find out.
I’ve been back from Southend for nearly 3 weeks now, and the time and space that I had at METAL for thinking about the work has disappeared into a flurry of adult education teaching, family art workshops, supporting the local arts scene and finishing the work for my New Mills commission.
In amongst all that though I received wonderful news that ACE are supporting my Grants for the Arts application. It was turned down first time, but this time has been successful. So that means that I have funds to pay others to help me make the work for the solo exhibition, funds for materials and equipment and most importantly funds to pay for my own time. This means that I can block out the days that are left in my diary between now and the exhibition opening and use them to really push forward with the development and fabrication of the new works.
I’ve got five weeks until we start to install the work at the Brindley, and after conversations with the curator and my video editor last week, I’m feeling happier talking about what the work will look like in the space. I’ve just moved into a temporary studio space today. It’s provided by Castlefield Gallery’s New Arts Space Programme, and it’s in Widnes, which is where I went to school and lived for a long time. I’ve got a large empty shop unit, with big glass windows, so there’s lots of people walking past, but mostly they’re distracted by the new shopping units that they are building next door. I’m currently feeling a bit intimidated by the space, so I’ve put up some of the work that informs my plans and a timeline for planning the work over the next 5 weeks.
One of the pieces of work that will form part of the exhibition is the commission from New Mills, Derbyshire that was installed last week. Whlist I was in Southend I was struggling with the design for the jet washed pavement drawing, but giving it time and simplifying things has brought together a neat repetitive design that flows across the pavement. I’m pleased with how the drawing came out, the nature of jet washing is a bit it and miss depending on the surface & how dirty it is, but it’s come up beautifully and the organisers of the festival are very happy with it too. I loved installing the work out in the public space as you get such immediate feedback from people. Passers by young and old stopped on their way past us as they noticed that the pavement was different, with one young person telling me that it was ‘mint’.
I’m recording a time lapse video of the work as it deteriorates, I’ve left my camera running and think it will collect 6 days worth of images before I need to go back and check up on it. I just hope that it picks up the clarity of the design really well, and that it has started to wear away by the end of the festival, which is 2 June so that the video can capture the paths that people take across that pavement.
Right, time to crack on with making things and not be afraid of my bigger studio space.
