Getting publicity for an art project sometimes seems like a continuous slog. Although I’ve been very lucky in getting two local papers interested, it will take a lot more to get people down to a vastly underused Community Centre.
I did mention last week that the LDT website doesn’t have an address or ‘how to get there’ details on, but I suppose they feel there’s no need for change with the building having been there over ten years now.
Having said that – it’s just 15mins on the motorway run from my house and I didn’t know about it : /
This last week, I’ve mentioned the residency on this blog, facebook, LinkedIn and a little on Twitter (which I’m still trying to get my head around) but I have noticed that my website: www.wendycwilliams.co.uk has had a lot more hits recently.
This is great for me obviously – but the ultimate aim to get people over to Leasowe to start working on AND enjoying, art projects.
I’ve had a nice weekend off, but this afternoon I think I’d better start working on it again.
Building the Installation
This has been such a tiring week…….
I only had one day off – last Saturday, then I spent four days in work and two days at the Centre building my installation of boats.
I’d put the majority of the boats together on Monday – after saying that I didn’t want to take any workshops this week as I really wanted to get on with the project. I needed viewers to see what the finished item would look like and then they would get an idea of how they could contribute to it.
After all of the effort that had gone into the making of these boats, I was horrified to find that 200 of them barely filled a quarter of the room.
So every night after work this week, I cut out and painted as many as I could so that I had a nice stack to take with me today.
I do have a lot of boats to add – including the ones painted at my workshop last week, but for this week anyway, I feel that I have something to show for all of the work I have put in.
First day as artist in Residence at LDT….
There was a little bit of confusion at the reception desk when I first arrived, as they hadn’t been told anything about me working there.
After Roy, the Director, was hunted down, it was eventually sorted. It was decided that I use a different space for my installation ( after explaining what an installation was ) as the room I was originally going to have, was hired out for presentations.
So the first job – after the receptionist had actually block booked the room in the diary for my sole use, was to remove the furniture and try to disguise the wall with some lengths of material that were left over from a Halloween party at the centre.
At 3.30 I was told that the kids were ready for their workshop. That was a surprise! I wasn’t really planning to do any workshops just yet, as I was hoping to build the installation so that everyone could see what my intentions were.
It was really quite stressful planning something really quickly, while trying to explain why I was there and what I was doing. It was so far removed from any residency I’d done in any art institution. The enthusiasm was there, I can’t deny that – but the chaos will take some getting used to.
Note to self: Straws may be better – less chance of them stabbing people with the sticks.
This is after a correspondence with the centre over materials needed.
sigh
On the plus side though …. I was interviewed over the phone by the Wirral News today. They seem really interested in the project and will come and see me working at the centre shortly.
Over the weekend, I’ve been doing a little more research on Vikings. As I’ll be working with a variety of people and age groups at the Centre, I want to be able to plan some workshop sessions that will appeal to all.
Also, as I can’t be there every day, I want to make sure there is something visually appealing to view and hold their interest until I get a body of work together.
Over the last month or so, I’ve been making Viking long boats out of paper. The aim is to fill an entire room with them, giving an invasion feel to the installation, so realistically I will need about 300 to make any impact. It really has been hard going cutting them out, adding a wash of colour and then gluing them together.
It sounds so simple when I put it into words like that, but because the paper is fairly thin, each stage has involved pressing the boats back into shape before I can move on to add another wash of colour or whatever.
I emailed a template of the boats to the centre today so that the children already attending classes can start colouring their own boats in. These can be added to the installation.
I just hope I have enough of them together before Friday!
