A London Persuit (Hatch Space, events and the long haul)

Its been a long time since posting in this blog. There has been a lot going on. It takes up a lot of time working on a mentoring project. You have to co-ordinated dates, book tickets in advance, work out bugets in the hope of receiving funding. Over the moon last month with being awarded a grant from the RC Sherriff Trust, I now have to make sure the other grant is successsful otherwise it is back to the drawing board.

My more open practice has had some development of late. Last week I attended Make Something You Woludn’t Normally Make at Utrophia gallery, headed up by Jack Brown. I had invited some friends along, some of which had not made work in a long time. After taking a recent introductory workshop at Artsadmin I found that personal histories and objects that hold significance in these contexts can create interesting work – pieces suddenly make you feel more vulnerable.

So, my task involved asking some friends to bring personal objects. Then, with the aid of Jack I asked people to draw these while lying with their eyes closed lying on their back. We were amazed at the strangeness of what came out. The drawings were devoid of any judgement in their making which was great, some went off the page too. When was the last time you drew off the page without even considering it?

After, myself, Lauren Heaver and Sabina Stefanova made our way around Deptford market, for cake making ingredients which Sabina put to work in the space on the stage. We all made our own icing decorations, that was the work: by the end of the day we had a tray full, they all were eaten of course!

During that day I also made some oblique collages, we hung them in the space from lumpy blue thread. They came from a stack of photos I had acquired over the last three years of photographing anything that took my interest. Since then I made a trip to Silverprint at waterloo and came across these things called photoclips: mass of ideas! After fiddling around with the awkward things and buckling my prints I came up with what you can see on the top right. I think it resembles a fish. I hung it with fishing wire. I want to make more, and I have a lot of photos to get through

Time is slipping away quickly in the run through Summer. I have not been doing much art recently. I have been earning a living to survive. Good news is that I have been preparing for a new performance in July, on the 7th for Ultra Cave, a show set up by a friend of mine. Reworking the press release for the 220 word limit on AN’s listing, it is finally up. It looks like a good show, however I have agreed to work too much this week: 65 hours. Too much, it is not productive for work. I have tried to work full time for two weeks, it is getting in the way of things and I do not have the co-ordination yet to work around 9 hour days. The work is completely unrelated to art as well. I think in future I will stick to working part time so that I can put more energy into art.

I am also disappointed that I have missed some amazing performances in London’s LIFT festival, I am too congested with the work that I need to by basic things like clothes and haircuts: I am putting everything into the coming months. Hopefully I will be able to take some space to concentrate, hopefully there will be a time where all of this work will pay off.

It is the middle of June, and the rain has finally settled after quietly falling outside. Inside I am hot, wearing two layers. Strange summer. Many events. Since the last blog I have met Fiona Baxter who is based at Farnham Maltings.

The topic of discussion: my practice. What am I thinking at this stage? Where do I stand, what do I want to do, where is my practice going? How do I fund its progress?

Experimental theatre and performances I have seen recently confused me, made me hungry to be part of a different scene. Speaking to Fiona made me realise the line between the gallery and the theatre – how do I collaborate choreography? I do not even know what to do. I have to be sure of my final work if I am to say that I want this or that money, but I am not sure where to begin and the deadlines are closing in. I have to focus.

Song Dong at the Barbican on my Birthday, a gift: humbling and potent. I will review in more depth at the weekend.

I won a non-arts related competition for which I used my writing. If we can write powerful stories we can make ourselves more successful. People want stories, Art is no exception.

I am currently reviewing my priorities. I need a plan. I do not know if I am ready to make something more like theatre. If I want to lie on the floor of a corridoor outside a gallery staring occasionally into space where is the audience? I have used art to leap into new ideas: I can’t play music, but I can still make musical performances. I feel like I am still on the corridor on the floor, outside everybody is waiting. My work takes time. The most important thing about my work is that it takes time.

It is nearing the end of May and I am currently taking stock for a short time on the month as it is shaping up. The good news is that I have a mentor interested in developing my practice! The mentor is none other than Sylvia Rimat. Sylvia is a supported artist of The Basement in Brighton and Director and Co-Producer of You & Your Work Festival in Bristol, which looks like well worth seeing. (I am listenting to the sound of ideas forming, thanks Alan Dunn). The plan is for Sylvia to guide the progress of one of my performances which will be shown somewhere, although I have yet to find the venue or the funding. This will hopefully become clearer after a talk with Fiona Baxter from Farnham Maltings. I am obviously very excited. I am also interested in involving some form of digital interactivity in the work. But this might or might not happen.

Last thursday I went to a crit outside the uni as one of the Q-art seminars. Annabel Tilly was there. And presenting. I went first, showed my video An Anthology over a hastily put together PA which distorted on the lower frequencies. Everyone seemed to think the bad sound was part of the work. Thing is I had the perfect set of speakers/projector combo lent to me short notice. Oh well. The speakers I did use belonged to a very interesting Goldsmiths grad named Rachel who calmly talked through her piece (using my speakers of course) and her upcoming show. Unfortunately I had spent so much time packing away all my equipment and swallowing my pride that everyone had bolted by the time I was ready to leave. No business cards handed out there. But I did go away with some ideas of how to get people to participate in other works. I am eager to try these ideas out in future projects.

I was dicussing this with a uni friend and she told me that I was too selfless. However I am not sure that the cut throat competitive first-come-first-serve method of organising is that effective overall. I have been in exhibition scenarios like that before, my third year studio spaces were chosen like that and to be honest it left me feeling a little cold. Not enjoyable at all. I would rather assist. I think there is this drive in some people to strive and make work and get very worked up about ideas and values along the way. I have met ‘artists’ clearly in it for the fashion with nothing much to give except attitude and they spread this pressure of appearance over the whole experience which no one benefits from. Surely artists face enough pressure from people in our society who see little value in our life choices no?

We also discussed the idea of charging people for tutorials with more successful artists. We came to the thought that those who are in need of advice are not usually in the position to afford these sessions. It is a productive idea of course and worthy of merit. However it still propagates the idea that art is a game for people who have money to spare. It also sends out perhaps unrealistic expectations on the session and the artist resquested to offer advice. I can imagine the worst case scenario of ‘I just spent x amount of money on that and wanted more’ occuring in these situations. Perhaps the answer to this is to offer bursary schemes for those in financial difficulty so that those people less inclined to attend from lack of funds will be able to go. I know that a-n does this with a number of events, perhaps institutions could also provide this. It might be difficult in terms of funding of course, but it could have a other benefits like higher attendance and incusion of groups not usually exposed to the arts which would assist with future funding applications.

Okay we are getting into May now well and truly, my birthday – the big 25 is around the corner and as I am looking to grow my creative enterprise following my residency at New Ferry Butterfly Park things are starting to look up. I have approached an artist who I am very fond of to mentor me in the run up to a project, and last week they emailed me back to confirm their interest. I am very excited, this is topped off by a conversation between myself and Fiona Baxter from Farham Maltings about my funding for the mentorship. I also have another avenue in the form of the the RC Sherriff Trust. These guys do great work in Surrey, founded by the famous playwright who gave us the eponymous World War One epic Journey’s End.

In the meantime my friend and author, performer and general collaborator Will Kherbeck has roped me into perform on a couple of dates in his various projects. These include: a current group show at The Hardy Tree Gallery just off Kings Cross and a future show of the work by expert painter Paul Desborough. The first will be a collaborative between myself and a writer who goes by the name of Golosh The Fox. Former writing group compadre.

Also I am hopefully contributing as part of Sarah Bowler’s incredibly successful project Q-Art at their last convenor of this year. I will keep the work I want to show underwraps for now but I will say that it will be shown in a different form for the first time as intended.

Also in the works is another opportunity for a Hatch event in the mid June weekend. Lots to be getting on with! I also want to design a way of bringing foot fall to Hatch. Some sort of trail is in the air – or hanging sulpture. Everything has to be collaborative. Everything has to be interactive. Everything is about this need for people to form communities in objects, on the net, over space and through involvement. Everything is about reaching out. Together we are stronger: lets get together.

Oh! I have also just found out about the Camden Roundhouse’s Emerging Artists scheme.

http://www.roundhouse.org.uk/

If you are 11-25 its £15 for membership and then pounds to rent out equipment, £2 per hour for the editing suite! Cheap! Good news :)