I had no idea it had been so long. Fifteen days. Far too little work is getting done round here.
I am up to my ears in admin. for things and facilitating everyone else as usual.
If I could only find gainful employment doing that all would be well and my work /life balance would be sorted.
My work on ‘Massacre’ is done; working with the moth wings from under a bat roost. It was slow, tiring, concentrated and very time consuming but I do feel that I have memorialised them and marked what happened in that space.
I am hoping the title will allow the viewer to find their own way into humanitarian parallels…………
Now just to organise photography and framing…..this time I aim to employ a photographer. I want to see if a professional photographer can help. My work tends to be delicate and repetitive. I aim to draw my viewer in to approach right up to the work itself.
Photography is always an issue for me. Details are great but the overall image can be hard to read and certainly tends to have limited visual impact.
The biggest problem is that when entering open submissions it isn’t always possible to offer a detail.
Will be good if he can offer me some ideas.
An ‘oh bollocks’ day today – no snow, no work done, elderly mum not so well again……….
High spot; Mischa and I walked our short walk in the crisp wintery sun as the temperature began to fall.
We saw a pair of lapwings.
Only thing I have done today in the studio is empty the waste paper bin.
To London, to London to look at the Queen; or in this case Grayson Perry.
What fun………I fell for this guy when I attended a V&A talk he gave as his alter ego Claire several years ago. His honesty and integrity and his willingness to make a fool of himself in his search to portray what he wanted were disarming, and his work ethic extraordinary.
All of the above came through again today. The show is in places laugh out loud funny, silently sad, fragile, vulnerable and wise….and massive in its scope and in the work.
My only concern was that it was maybe too much, maybe ten minutes or so too long. I would have cut half the last gallery.
No slightly sadistic or elitist withholding of information or intent here – his voice comes through clearly in the labelling…a running commentary on the artefacts he chose to use from the collection and his own work. I have rarely seen an audience so intently engaged with a show. They were also smiling and talking to each other, plainly relaxed and comfortable.
Suddenly the man himself arrived on the scene, trotting though with some friends, laughing and chatting with visitors and signing the pencil drawings [his suggestion] of a group of A Level students.
What a rare thing this was – an exhibition without airs and graces that dealt with Life and Death and Sex and everything in between that left me with as many questions as answers and with my horizons broadened and my heart lifted.
My vote is for that gallery to be retained for a constant rolling exhibition of museum – led work by artists from all disciplines………….
And then a visit to the wonders of Falkinders and their beautiful papers……..
What great way to clear ones head.
If it snows tomorrow I have the perfect excuse to shut the studio door.
Shouldn’t really be here- late and I am knackered.
I have been thinking about my wasp nest work all day while attempting to paint a pile of moth wings. Truly hard. The wings are mostly dark and are of course incredibly thin…..even 85 of them.
I was totally unprepared for the level of difficulty and am in danger of messing up hours of previous work here.
One would hope that my brain would be focused on the job in hand. Not a bit of it – it keeps sliding off back to the wasps.
No idea how I set up the wasps – on wire or rigid plastic maybe. Not sure. I do know I don’t want to hang them. The nest has been in and out of the bell jar. The jar distorts the nest which I like but it also reduces the impact of the wasps – which is a pain.
I do have a name for the work though – Homeland Security.
That often happens, the name before the work is finished- but it makes the work easier to complete. I know what what it is now. It has a face.
