11/03/08
Today I visited The Exchange Emporium, a shop on the Woodbridge road in Ipswich. The place is so full of stuff that entry is impossible. An enormous spoil pile of tools presses against one window and all manner of objects are stacked to an improbable height throughout. Luckily the brown overalled man who devotes his life to the shop is willing to climb out into the street and fulfil your every wish. I was looking for a high kitchen stool, a desk lamp, and some pictures of boats. He quickly found me a low table, a super-8 film editor, four aeroplane magazines and some wooden toys. Happy and twenty pounds poorer I said goodbye promising to return next week to look at his collection of trucking magazines. I was left thinking about my powerless in the face of an expert salesman and that maybe I should hire him as my agent.
08/02/08
Making slow progress homeward. As planned I broke my journey in London by going to see Artfutures at the Bloomberg space. I met up with Lawrence and Anna without whom I would have been nervous entering the forbidding corporate space. Typically Lawrence immediately struck up a conversation with one of the Contemporary art society people while I wandered off feeling shy and inadequate. Things were literally being sold off the walls. Technicians were removing one piece and screwing a new one up as I walked through the first room. Although the emphasis was on the art object as commodity, not something I have anything against, there was still a range of rather unsaleable objects. What looked like a big stuffed Morris dancing suit by Juneau projects was nailed to the wall in one room and in another was a large carved twiggy thing screwed to a bit of chipboard. Apart from a few odd people: Michael Craig Martin, Julian Opie, art futures? I thought the selection was really interesting, all artists I have been staring jealously at over the last year or so and others I have shown with, though I fear I was the poor country cousin. Ruth Claxton, Rachel Goodyear, Sara Mckillop, Darren Banks, Marcus Coates. It was a shame I didn’t have longer or £1000 knocking round in my pocket. Later with Lawrence and Anna’s help we found Store in Hoxton. I was relieved to find it was behind an unmarked steel door with ‘store’ written in 1cm high letters at the bottom of a row of buzzers. To be honest the Bedwyr Williams show was a bit disappointing after all that effort. There was a cool distancing of the works from the wonderful ideas and stories that surrounded them.
07/03/08
Nothing is working. Last night I set my flag-planting machine loose in the gallery. The first film was totally black as I had failed to set the cameras’ exposure back to automatic then the mechanical arm fell off and when I returned to my studio to fix it I managed to stand in my dinner. This was a microwave chicken curry, which exploded under my foot covering one camera in korma sauce. I scraped the remains up and stopped to eat what was left (I was hungry). Afterwards I filmed the machine again as it totally failed to plant any flags.
Today I sailed the Eva. She had a new keel and advanced waterproofing but after last night I was not confident. Happily she did not sink. However, neither did she glide gracefully downstream. In fact at one point she managed to sail upstream and against the wind. I’m thinking of patenting my physics defying boat design as I feel it must have some useful application. I will try again next week.
06/03/08
All week I have been suffering the tyranny of people, so much so that as I arrived at Bedford station I took a deep breath and relaxed. I came by train this time because I am planning to go to London on Saturday to see the Artfutures at the Bloomberg space with Lawrence and Anna. David Kefford, who I’ve shown with in the past, will be exhibiting there with other rising art glitterati. It is a sort of black flag moment but it will be nice to see him. Lawrence & Anna have also promised to act as guides to the Bedwyr Williams show I couldn’t find on my last visit to London. Once in Bedford I dived straight into the charity shops in search of a suitable bit of furniture to mount a mechanical pitching and rolling ship, I wanted something domestic and kitcheny and eventually found some sort of convertible child’s play table, which seems ideal. I’ve also just received an email from the Artists and Writers Fellowship saying they are considering my proposal not to go to the Antarctic. While I recognise that it doesn’t matter at all if they say yes or no the email has brought my competitive instinct to the fore, I find that I really want to win the prize.
On Tuesday Tess invited me on board one of the challenger yachts which was anchored in Ipswich marina, I got seasick.
02/03/08
The last two days have been spent doing Internet things and sitting on a tree stump, thinking. The Black Flag Game is fully up and running with forty-eight members who have between them invited another two hundred. Images have started to pop up on the website and I have made the first newsletter imaginatively titled “The Flag”. So far claims have been made in places as varied as New York and an alleged dogging site in Mardley Heath. I have also begun to publicise the residency by sending off information packs to any gallery that has shown even a vague interest in the past. I’ve found out that the show at Bedford is programmed for early 2009, which seems a long way away but it does take the pressure off. I’ve finished tracing images from “Antarctica- Exploring a Fragile Eden” and put them together into a small book.
