Settling in to the new studio and getting some work done in there; there is still a lot of tidying up to do but at the moment I have to prioritise making work!
I am thinking I may well take up Joanna’s suggestion of turning the gallery into a studio: takes away the pressure of making “finished” work and actually chimes in very well with my interests. I came across this the other day:
“The life of the work, the ecology of the studio is what I am interested in, when the doors are closed on the pressures of the marketplace. And in this life there is always failure, no matter how much money is made. For it is a given that there is always a gap between what the artist wants the work to be and what it is, between the original goal an the weird paths that are taken. Life continues only as long as the blind chase down the path. There is tremendous fear on that chase because the relationship between the artist and artwork is one of intimacy with the self, and intimacy is truly terrifying and can never be fully achieved. The closer one comes to something really intimate which may seem really foreign), the faster one springs back, and thereby fails.
Despite the fear of intimcacy and the impossibility of achieving completenes within and without, there can be a wonderful sense of anonymity in the practice of art. ….” (Mira Schor, Wet, p.123-124)
Thanks to everyone who has sent wishes to my husband for a speedy recovery. We got one of those foam slings today, which seems to be more comfortable.
Went to get this set of drawings framed. I am never sure about frames, but sometimes drawings just need a frame to protect them or set them off. Fingers crossed for the result.
Got the keys to my new studio space today. Very exciting.
Went to get my husband joggers, shoes with velcro closings and new slippers which are not so worn that another fall down the stairs is highly likely …..
Starting to think about my talk with Joanna Jones for the Sevenoaks Visual Arts forum which Franny Swann has invited us both to do. We will be talking in the Sevenoaks Kaleidoscope gallery, currently showing both or works in “Meeting Room”, perceptively reviewed by David Minton on Interface.
Working very hard in the studio as I have a show coming up – opening on 14 November and PV on 16 November at The Space gallery Folkestone.
The grids in these paintings are drawn freehand – either scratched into the surface or created with thread (raised surface). I’ve been reading “Lines, a brief history” by Tim Ingold and find what he says about the way lines dissolve surfaces really interesting.
The grid paintings started with drawings on Chinese character practice paper, on which one would write the same character again and again, committing the gesture used to write each stroke to memory, and trying to perfect the stroke: repetition as a yearning for perfection.
Fantastic day on Saturday running the DAD symposium except for the fact that my husband fell down the stairs and smashed his wrist while I was out being sheepdog and getting everyone on the bus to go up to the Western Heights for the tour that started the day off. It meant I was on the phone alot and the poor man couldn’t get hold of me. When I rang him he was already on his way to A&E with my dad – tried Kent & Canterbury first but they don’t have full A&E so he ended up at the William Harvey where he was kept in for an op the next day.
Talk about conflict of interests.
In between getting him cups of tea and other things, I have been in the studio doing some more grid paintngs or drawings. The grid seems a natural place to go after the patchwork quilt I made for The Voyagers project.
Despite having a very sore neck I have been back in the studio. Working on paper with ink and trying new forays into painting or rather drawings on wooden panels.
My work is often about pushing myself to the limit – quite literally; physically I will exhaust myself when working on a project and pain is almost always involved in the process of making work.
