Well, I thought my last post about the vandalism at a public residency was hard enough, but I just read the comment from Franny Swann about her experience. (See comments on my last post) She is an incredibly brave artist to go through that!
I remember years ago when Tate Liverpool hosted artist in residence schemes….. Marion Coutts, Neville Gabie and Paul Rooney were all there at one time. Yes, their studios were very nice and well presented – but I distinctly remember then how quiet and how few visitors they had.
I’m still adamant that I will look for projects in more ‘unusual’ places so that my work reaches a wider audience.
The question of space to exhibit our work seems to have reared its head again over the last few days.
I’ve just read over Carol Ramsey’s blog about her residency at the Butterfly Park in New Ferry and was horrified to find out that it had been vandalised. It is such an awful thing to find that there are people out there with total disregard to someone else’s work.
The butterfly park is an area similar in nature to Leasowe. Quite a few people have asked me whether ‘it is safe’ to even park their car near where I have my residency at the Millennium centre. It is after all, set in a less salubrious housing estate. To describe where to find it, I’ve often referred to a pub just a few doors down, but I never knew the name of it because most of the letters are missing from its sign. For some reason – this puts people off visiting. This is a shame, as everyone I have encountered there so far, have been an absolute delight. As I’m sure are the residents close to the park in New Ferry.
So – should we only be looking for ‘quality exhibition opps’ as someone stated in a recent posting? I personally don’t think so. Paying for exhibition space is not a guarentee that the work will not be damaged.
Nor does it mean that the work will be viewed by more people.
Think I’ve managed to wangle my way out of running a ‘food related’ workshop at next week’s fun day at LTD. The theme of the event is ‘Healthy eating and Fitness’ – a topic that Roy, the Centre’s director has been trying to drum into the local residents since he started working there. He had the cafe stocked with great vegetarian options with plenty of fresh fruit, but now the fry ups and chips had slowly crept back on the menu.
After a week of thinking up everything from fruit filled hats to apple footballs, they realised it wasn’t going to work and I am off the hook. I am free to sit in the studio on the day and continue with my own work. Phew!
‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’…. is not only exactly how I feel at the moment, but also what looks like a great looking exhibition opening in Manchester next week. Will have to find the time to make a trip over there.
I feel like I’m doing a long distance residency at the moment, as I’ve spent so many of my days working ( as in paid work) just so that I can afford to make my own work. Fortunately, I have constant access to the internet, so I’m emailing left right and centre to a) interested parties at Leasowe Development trust b) staff at LTD to keep them informed on what I’m up to ….and c) Local media – to try to get them down to the event we are having there on 5 August ( to which I still haven’t thought up a workshop theme)
In the meantime…if there is any meantime, I’ve been working on new ideas…. I’m layering mass produced texts, with contrasting images on the reverse side. It still needs more thought – especially on how to bind them together, but I took some test shots last night to see how it will look.
Interesting that my last post had sparked so many responses – directly from the blog or by personal email and discussion. I was going to respond to everyone individually, but I needed to think things through. I seem to have made a 90 degree turn around since having a moan about the a-n ‘Trade off survey’ as mentioned in my blog #14 and I wanted to go off and think about why.
I do envy Kate Murdoch for taking an entire year off to concentrate solely on her work. Me – I’m just taking some time off from the exhibition frenzy, I don’t know how long for.
I don’t think I will go back to the competition circus. I also think I will continue to avoid the hastily put together exhibitions organised by disparate groups of artists just for the sake of exhibiting. It is a really good feeling just doing things for myself.
