19/01/08
Rain all day today. The river has burst its banks it is wide and brown and fast flowing. I spent a lot of time filming a piece of polystyrene with a face drawn on it as it sped downstream. I must have looked a bit odd charging along the bank trying to get ahead of jetsam while trying to shelter my camera from the rain. After a mile or so it washed ashore and I headed damply back to the studio. This isn’t really a piece for the Bedford residency. I’ve got a solo show, Little Deaths, at the Salt Gallery in May and I wanted a few more options when I come to hang.
The coach journey home was dull and wet .
Mother to son:
"Stop it,
Stop it,
Stop it,
You're being very silly,
Stop it."
18/01/08
In the morning I go shopping. I arrive back at the studio with: a towel, some paper and pencils, polystyrene balls (I accept now that I have a problem), a polar bear and a clear plastic box. I’m really pleased to have found a polar bear in Bedford and although it is not truly a creature of the Antarctic it was cheap.
Filming is continuing and I make a concerted effort to edit the clips together into a cohesive whole. I think this will be the biggest struggle of the residency and I am more than a little worried about it. While I am worrying I accidentally tear a blue bouncy ball in half and glue a drowning couple into its icy depths, this cheers me up no end. I also make a balsa wood sailboat with clockwork motor, which I hope to launch on the river with a camera in it.
In the evening we make a BCA excursion to Wysing Arts, which is reopening after a 1.7 million pound refit. I catch a lift with Katie who doesn’t know the way but makes up for it by driving as fast as she can. We arrive to find a glowing space station full of undercover arts council operatives (I forget to wear black again). The new studios are hugely impressive über-clean loveliness some containing living spaces, kitchenettes, double beds… Franko B is there, handing out plastic bags and jellybeans as we file awkwardly through, trying not to touch anything. Matthew Collings does a speech in which he worries: about his eye (runny), about the forward looking nature of the building and art within, about his own 70s painting and about the need for artists to look back at the Greeks. He says art is about stress or pain or worry which makes me feel part of things. Later the talk is of funding cuts and I drink too much champagne.
17/01/08
Word keeps ‘unexpectedly quitting’ actually now I’m kind of expecting it. My brain feels similar, I spent most of today staring at the stuff I’ve done and wondering what to do with it. All of the bits work ok on their own and I could imagine them displayed on separate screens but my original intention was to use the time to make something a little more narrative. I have to keep telling myself that its only day four and that if I don’t relax a bit I might go pop. I’m still reading bits of Scott’s journals and thinking vaguely about Moby Dick, which might not be helping my frame of mind. Today I started work on a machine that will reproduce the Aurora Borealis in my studio.
I was also feeling slightly guilty at my lack of research; this has never been a strong point. I love the story that Raymond Roussel wrote ‘Impressions of Africa’ after seeing the coastline through a telescope. Three minutes on Google revealed two interesting people with Bedford connections.
1. Commander Frank Wild (1874-1939), Polar explorer
2. Charles Wells, (1860s), Brewer.
Wells was a sea captain who abandoned the sea to marry the woman he loved. Unfortunately he suffered from depression and committed suicide by slashing his wrists.
It rained again today, heavily. I'm at home again sorting my life out before returning to Bedford. My morning was spent hunting for my tax calculation so I could pay it. Joy was unconfined when I finally discovered it filed under 'oh my god'.
Later I showed the films I had made to my wife. "what do you think" I said. There was a long silence and a far away look in her eyes. Perhaps its time I went back to Bedford.
12/01/08
It was freezing this morning; the Travelodge car park was icy underfoot. There are no footpaths at the Travelodge you are expected to arrive by car and are considered freakish if you don’t.
On my walk in I have had a sudden urge to buy snow globes. Usually this would not be a problem as lack of time forces me to filter out bad ideas, they die of natural causes. But now I that can do everything how can I tell which ideas should be put down?
I made a wave machine in the morning and filmed an ice flow breaking up while eating a packet of biscuits.
Later, in order to slow myself down, I went for a walk down the river. While I was filming bits of floating polystyrene, queues of rowers shot past shouted on by old men riding bicycles.
In the afternoon I did some editing and James and Christina popped in to offer me a room in their house.
I’ve had another urge to fill the studio with polystyrene balls and electric fans.
The journey home was largely uneventful, though I was pleased to see a Husky at Bedford station.
However, travelers at Stratford should note that platform 10A is nowhere near platform 10. In fact it is down the stairs, turn right, run 50 yards, turn right, climb the stairs on to platform 11, catch breath, continue past some blank hoardings, turn right again down an unlit alley and left round a blind corner where you will see your train pulling away.
