So it’s started! I started on Monday and came armed with a roll of lining paper, some board markers and not much else. I’d been shown previously about signing in, where you get the keys from, where the kitchen is (very important!) so I felt quite relaxed and settled in. I can only do short days because of the distance I live ( just over 30 miles) and because of the kids so I have decided to work as hard as possible when I’m there and to do work at home in the evening, if I can. (I’ve also just started a PTLLS course which runs directly up against the residency but should be able to manage both??!!) Part of the remit from the Mill was that they wanted artists, and their progress to be accessible by the public. As a majority of my work will be based on the computer until the show, I’ve decided to write my process down in the space on lovely bits of lining paper. I hope people can read my handwriting!
One of the things which I’m aware of is the fact that although this is a gallery, it’s a gallery in a museum and may not have an ‘art aware’ audience so I’ve tried to explain things in an accessible manner. I’m a bit worried that if I doing something that may not ‘look’ like art that’ll cause trouble. When I aired these worries to Nina she said that’s what they picked me for: to challenge the audience, which is really cool. What’s funny as well though is that Nina has said to me that they liked my proposal because they had no idea what I’d actually do! And there’s me thinking I’d made it really clear!
Last week I started a three month residency at Armley Mill in West Leeds. They have set up a dedicated gallery space and a residency programme and are having four artists/makers per year. I am feeling very privileged to have been chosen. The people at the mill had an open day for all interested artists earlier on in the year and I was very lucky to have a) seen the add in time (3 days before actually, phew!) and b) not have the kids that weekend. So I went up and it was lovely: we got sandwiches. We also got taken around the museum and shown into the archives. There were about 40 of us and you could feel the excitement building the more we looked around. We were inspired and I had loads of ideas swishing around! As well as being an industrial museum looking at textiles and the cloth manufacturing industry there’s also an optics collection, with a working 1920’s cinema (the 3rd smallest in the world apparently)! We had to put in a proposal saying what we’d do etc. and I cheekily asked Nina, the keeper of the mill, if I could put in 50. She must have remembered my silly excitement because a few weeks later I get an email telling me I’d got the residency. And would I like to do the first one starting in October?
I had a bit of a panic when I came to the official opening of the gallery, the MillSpace in July. It was Casey Orr’s show who’d been working with the people of Armley and had done some amazing photographs. It seemed so professional, and so busy, and so REAL!! I had to come in to the Mill a few times over the summer to check things out and to spend some time in the archives. Needless to say some of the things I’d proposed to do weren’t working out, but because I’d spent some time there and had a better look at things other ideas started to come. Over all I felt really excited and inspired. It has taken up a lot of head space though since I found out that I had got the job. I’ve been thinking about ideas and the space a lot. I’ve also not done any art work since finding out either but I’m blame that on going into summer holiday mode too and of course my fondness for lounging on the sofa!
