A bit of a gap since my last post I know but trying to upload images and realising I needed to resize them was enough to make the enthusiasm drain out of me and I put it off till another day. Good news though, the children's centre got back to me and would love to be involved so we're just trying to set a date for that. With their input I feel much more confident that I'm fulfilling my ACE requirements. I can sleep easy at night at last.
For some reason (the feel of Spring in the air), I've had a real surge of resolve and focus and stormed ahead contacting people and catching up on opportunities. The recordings I've been working on are off with a friend who's collating them onto DVD. Alas the old camcorder finally packed in and I bit the financial bullet and bought a new one which I can download straight into the computer. The weekend was spent following up contacts with the Salisbury Arts Centre and Salisbury Arts Trail to see if I can piggy back onto their programme to exhibit an installation in a domestic dwelling later in the year- no answer yet – and I've even mowed the lawn and cleaned the bathrooms.
Last week I had the luxurious indulgence of leaving the children with a sitter and attending a talk by Alistair Gentry on documentary making – I also got to see Jordan Baseman's Dark Is The Night on at Artsway in the New Forest. It really helped to crystallise what I want to do with the sound recordings I've made. All in all I feel that finally my thoughts are solidifying, fed by all the extra info I've absorbed from seeing shows, chatting to people, getting advice etc. I need to do some sound recordings at night – both indoors and out and begin working to juxtapose them with the voices I've collected, but it's beginning to come together.
I don't know why today feels so good. It started at 6.30 with a smashed bottle of white vinegar to clear up while making the children's lunches and objectively you could say, continued in that strain.
Early morning I went to interview an American women for the ACE project. The camcorder packed in half way through and I'm guessing has given up the ghost for good but what she told me has provided such a contrast to previous contributers, (and I was recording the sound on another piece of equipment), that the time was well spent. In her small council house, with teenagers music blaring in the background, she shared her night time memories of a mostly motherless childhood in her homeland of Michigan, USA and of fearful nights awake as a new wife and mother in the UK.
Efforts to engage an innovative local children s' centre in a rundown area have been frustrating me since Christmas. I finally got in the door today, (emblazoned with 'You are now entering a smack free zone' in the window), offering a free workshop in return for some discussion with the women attending. Despite lots of positive noises they were so absorbed in the middle of a move to a new building that is was clear that their time scale wasn't going to fit mine. Yet another dead end.
On a positive note though Rachel, the American women, wants to put me onto more friends of different nationalities, who live in their small council estate, and who grew up in distant countries. Despite my efforts to organise the research, I love the organic way women and circumstance s are leading me from one persons story to another. Perhaps this is a more interesting and 'true' route to take.
Caught in a timeless kind of snow world this week, where normal life seems to have been suspended in place of endless sledging and a house full of wet children, wet gloves and wet boots. School has been closed for four days now, it’s too hairy to get out of the village and the shop has run out of milk. In addition to our four children we had two Ugandan children staying from www.watoto.com, who had never seen snow before! A treat worthy of stopping work for a while.
I’ve been reading Rachel Howfields blog and wondering how she gets so much done. Perhaps working with four children is just a bridge too far. But I need to do this. I’ve spent time organising my interviews with local women, chasing links given by the health visitor, fiddling with recording equipment and purchasing a bat detector. The aim being to perhaps record some sounds unheard by humans at night and overlay them with words and recordings from the women interviewed.
On a really positive note, the studio is just about finished – now the pressure’s really on to make all that hard work and funding worthwhile!
The days seem to whizz past and I often feel that I'm just about holding on, trying to live five lives at once, all worthy of focus, but all different. On a low day, I feel I'm living none of them particularly well.
Last week I went to three art events, quite a feat with the children to sort out and a car whose headlights chose to conk out just as I was leaving for one. Saw an excellent film installation piece at Salisbury Arts Centre. A bit like being trapped in gloomy stone warehouse with Edith Piaf, – screens on all sides, murder, passion and dark french music. Actually it was just what I needed on a Thursday afternoon. While there I was nabbed by staff to fill in for their 'Smarties' workshop the following day. Participants were one to two years old, read the fab book, 'Mouse Paint', dipped our wellies/feet in paint to mix, stomped around the papered room, spun paper plates with blobs of paint in my salad spinner, generally created paint mayhem, only to find they had shut the water in the arts centre off for the day and we had one basin of water to do children, equipment and room!I don't need to say more.
Anyway, money must be earned – one of the five lives. Went to the opening of the latest A Space studio work at the Bargate Monument gallery, also to have a quick look at the space again as there is a possibility I may show there next year. We talked about the lack of critical input when you are no longer part of a group studio and I discovered they are hoping to set up a monthly crit group. I left quite happy about that.
Saturday I attended the Artsway Open and award ceremony. A very slick exhibition with everything interestingly from the same palette of dark colours. Had this been announced prior to application it may have saved some poor soles with bright and jolly submissions their £25. A very high standard of work but no surprises.
January 4th, the school year means the start of my year. Today is day 2. Still gathering. Research and relationships are leading me along this process. A single mother came for Christmas, I recorded her story. I have found the women that have contributed have come to me in a way. Some I know, some I don't. She put me onto a poet, Eavan Boland, and her many words about women and night, particularly Night Feed.
As I write I can hear the plasterboard walls in the studio go up. There have been many times with a studio and many times without. Pieces have been patiently produced in many parts and constructed in galleries in many places. But I need a studio now – for some reason now I feel stifled and constricted without one.
