Bare Bones

Can’t type much as carpal tunnel is playing up. Had a really positive portfolio crit with Artsway gallery though – so pleased. It’s given me the oomph to keep going so am booking Ireland to meet up with curators there. It’s going to be a mad two months as my grant period comes to an end, squeezing the last drop of it out. Saving my hands for the report writing.

The playing out of a memory from 2002 – recording that action through drawing.

Have just got back from a rather hairy photography session. Late last night, when pondering alternative sites to photograph work I had a flash of inspiration. Helga, a patent lawyer, unstoppable socialite and, whenever we do meet up, good friend (I’m much too poor  to move within her circles on a regular basis), has recently bought a crumbling farmhouse to be transformed into something wonderful. Aha, I thought, a photographic opportunity so a quick call and we were booked to meet this morning. With her BMW 4×4 crammed full of my work and bits and pieces we set off through the snow, Helga impeccably turned out and me in my rather scruffy, poor artist attire with Bertie, her spaniel on my knee.

 When we got there work men were busy on the outside while the inside downstairs was deserted and almost demolished. Helga set off with Bertie in the snow while I hawked my stuff upstairs and set to work. There is something achingly beautiful about an old, deserted house, and it was all I could do to get on with work and not just stand and stare. Time was short though so I got to work pinning up my origami butterflies, folded from the many lists gathered over the last year. Collections of things to do, items of shopping, family obligations etc, the worn and discarded records of an ordinary life. Pinned to the faded, flocked wallpaper they whispered of passing days and endlessly repeated tasks, the measuring of an everyday existence.

I can spend hours attempting to get good results with photography but Helgas toes didn’t hold out long in the cold and soon I could see her in the distance,  hovering around the garden, ready to pack up and go. I called for ten minutes more and began to grab as many shots as I could. Before long there was an almighty bang downstairs and the ceiling began to shake. Not knowing I was upstairs, workmen had come in to finish the job of demolishing the building and I realised the wall below me was about to go. Racing around grabbing my things, I just about managed to stay upright, pull the last butterflies off the wall and stagger down the shaking stairs to the ground floor. The workmen stared amazed through their respiratory gear as I left with my collection of oddities.

Not quite the unhurried session I would have liked but I was pretty lucky to get in at all before all that once busy, family home disappeared. Helga dropped me back, refused a coffee as I could see from her face my kitchen was way too dirty and cluttered for her to cope with, and we returned to our rather different lives. To her credit though, Helga went out of her way to help this morning, as she would at any time, and I am very grateful.

Everyday I wake up with great intentions and seemingly swathes of time ahead but no school and snow everywhere seems to have a kind of soporific effect, trapping us in a weird kind of suspended dream world. The day has to be punctuated with monitoring sledging until our toes can’t bear it anymore, but in between times I am attempting to be productive.

Organising a crit group with a tiny group of brave souls who are spread widely apart geographically, not too mention under pressure time wise, is kind of tricky. In a splurge of enthusiasm I decided to set up an online group – ‘artconnector’ – so that, rather than constantly email back and forward, we could discuss dates etc together online and perhaps even host discussions on local issues and share advice between meetings. Still grappling with this though as the hotmail group doesn’t entirely have the ‘functionality’ ( a word I loathe but has suddenly for once become applicable) needed, I am also trialing a few others in case we have to change. For anyone in the Wilts/Hampshire area though, who may want to become a group member please let me know. It could just be a really nice thing to keep in touch over local developments, possibilties for collaboration and mutual support, and may make it possible to keep the ball rolling in between and in addition to physical meetings. I’ve also got to grips with Twitter finally.

Techno developments aside, I spent a bit of time developing drawings in the studio today. I was pleased with the results but disappointed that it is so diffficult to photograph delicate pieces. This is such a pain in the neck for me as my work is often very fragile and depends largely on the surrounding space to give it scale and context. Walking around it, the experience is very physical but trying to capture that on camera is almost impossible. Trying then to relay that experience to a curator with only phographic images to go on is extremely difficult. Perhaps I should try to film someone in the space instead. Does anyone out there share this problem?

Thank goodness for New Years and a chance to kick yourself up the ass and get going again. Christmas was a touch of meltdown for me as all that rediculously busy period leading up to Christmas just piled on the stress and tipped me over the edge. Although I coped at the time, afterwards, once the pace slowed down, I literally felt I began to unravel.

After some really difficult days where I questioned everything I was doing with my life things began to fall into place once more. Regretfully, I have pulled out of a job in February and have withdrawn my services temporarily from the local council driven community art programme for the following term. I have never been anything less than one hundred percent committed in my work and I was saddened and frustrated to withdraw at this stage, not to mention the financial hit. I just know I must get some balance back in my life for the sake of my health and the family as a whole.

Now that it’s sorted though I feel back on track again. In between trips to the ‘cow field’ for sledging (schools are shut again) I have managed to clear out the whole studio and put up some shelves, ready to get back to work. It’s time to get applying and I wonder can anyone give me any advice. It’s years since I applied for anything that won’t take CDs/email and insists on photographs of work which is fine but has anyone got any good ideas on how to present photos in an appliction for exhibiting in a way that looks professional? I’d really appreciate some guidance.