I am soooooo tired I am ceasing to make sense at the moment, life has escalated to running at 200MPH, relatives have decended in a constant stream, sports days, hospital appointments, workshops, planning meetings, village carnivals – I am so strongly drawn to running away! I try not to talk about the participatory projects I run but trust me, I run plenty and while I love the interaction and creativity, they are damned hard work.
But I have a plan – three spaces, three installations by the end of the summer. I just have to make them now. No more phaffing around with half made ideas (excuse the spelling), by the end of the summer I will have some images of finished work – either that or I’ll be found dead upside down in the laundry basket (to quote my good friend Clare).
Last Tuesday Salisbury Art Café called a meeting. I have to tred lightly now as to my amazement, I have discovered local people read this blog. Historically, they have been an occassionally discruntled bunch, attempting to consolidate some sort of creative progress in the strange Burmuda triangly (triangle would be right but I prefer the latter) that is Salisbury Art. We wrote a lot of post-it notes of how we wished it could be, then a lot more of how it should be, then had a little wine (both sorts) and went home to leave the post-it notes to be meshed and sieved into some form of plan. All good, I will await the new and improved plans with quiet anticipation.
In the meantime though, I don’t see a crit group on the horizon until I make some practical moves forward. In line with my husbands marketing advice, I will create a seperate post. Work wise, I am returning to creating butterflies from beef gelatine. Although they were exhibited before, the space they were originally made for was changed prior to exhibiting and I lost all control over their context. I am revisiting this work again with the intention of installing them in their rightful context at last.
Could anyone be so lost! I went to see the Bournemouth degree show today with the intention of driving on to Kube gallery in Poole after. All went OK until I tried to find the Kube gallery from the Art Institute. I couldn’t find my mobile this morning so thought I’d go without it – we all survived before mobiles didn’t we? I was, in retrospect,rather laid back about the petrol situation.
Anyway I got horribly lost in the centre of Bournemouth, petrol on empty, no garage in site, no mobile and no recollection of the way back. I remembered how I had turned my nose up recently at my husbands offer of a sat nav for my birthday, prefering (naively now) some romantic notion of the challenge of map reading. How wrong can you be. Anyway, gave up, found my way out, managed to survive to a petrol station while cursing my R&D proposal and wondering what the hell I was doing visiting galleries when I could be sitting in the garden at home.
Anyway, crisis over, aged ten years, I began to give the day some more thought. I didn’t like being in a college. There was nothing wrong with the show particularly but, in a moments rare clarity I realised – I don’t think I want to go back and do an MA. Not now. I looked at the controlled spaces and somehow the whole college process seemed quite inward looking. I like being a visual artist in the outside world. It is horribly tough at times, but it’s woven into day to day life – and somehow, slowly, that’s bearing fruit for me creatively. I overheard a student saying there had been six firsts and I realised – I don’t want to be marked, I want to get on with work, to engage in the turmoil of ideas out there that emerge from everyday life. Perhaps I’ll change my mind tomorrow but today where I am feels surprisingly right.
Every point in this journey through the R&D year, my return to systematic, studio based development, is underpinned with a constant shifting of position and thinking in regards to family, art, future and how I move forward with that combination.
I was really shaken but not surprised to read Rachel Howfields last post and will be interested to see where this crisis point has taken her – and wish her the best.
As for me, I have let the rope slacken a little. As the end of my funding for time (some aspects of the R&D funding are stretched to the end of the year) is just visible on the horizon I have taken up some offers for paid projects in the Autumn. Studio time will suffer but the hard work of starting the ball rolling research wise is over and I feel I can continue the momentum, even with fragmented time.
A studio visit from a good friend, a really talented maker, Clare Proctor, was just the medicine I needed and talking through the work so far with her has really given me resolve. Finding the right environment to set up and photograph installations is a priority, building a critical network is another and possibly even curating a show in an alternative venue is a third.
As parents, I think it’s just necessary to work to a more flexible timetable, developing quality work will take time, the question is, does the traditional gallery system have time for us or do we create a system that provides an environment that gives us that freedom.
I've just hit a button and lost the long piece of navel gazing I had just concocted to put on the blog. Probably a blessing and I no longer have the interest in my self-interest to re write it.
However, did you know that elephants emit a low rumbling noise from their stomachs, inaudible to the human ear, that can carry such long distances, that right now, all elephants across Africa are in constant contact with one another? Do the A-N blogs provide the same service, carrying the low rumblings of artists across the UK? Either way I'm glad, as stuck out here in Wiltshire there aren't many active herds to be found.
I explored the Art Trail thing a bit further but I still feel it's a no-goer for me. Laurence Rushby (currently blogging on this site) has a proposal in for an installation/performance so I'll let her pave the way first and see what emerges. Salisbury sometimes feels like a bit of a black hole when it comes to support for the visual arts. It's a shame as the Art Trail is an ideal opportunity to mix in something more challenging alongside the commercial crafts etc ( not undermining their contribution in any way) but it would be nice to see a mix. What grates on me though is the £75 fee to apply (I assume their is no selection process) and the £20 membership to the overseeing organisation.
I understand it's a self supporting exhibition but if the artist run BCO show in Bristol was able to produce a really high qualtity show at a fraction of that price, bearing in mind this also meant renting a large and equipped warehouse space, then surely the Art trail where artists open their own studios, should be less. Unless the cost is somehow restructured Salisbury's main local art event will continue to lose out when it comes to more challenging work and perpetuate the kind of 'no man's land' feel Salisbury carries in contemporary art.
Anyway, not much work done this week apart from the usual schools work and an interview with a new mother I am just about to leave for. Hopefully tomorrow I will catch Emilia Telese's talk at Artsway. That's the plan anyway if the car holds out as it's beginning to fall to pieces. The 'monster truck' as my wealthier fellow villagers kindly refer to my bashed up Fiat Multipla has alas seen better days!
