Breaking Ground

BEFORE WE START – MONDAY MORNING

The Pine Gallery is ours for the 11 days of the project. Took a photo of the empty pale space. More ghostly than dark, larger than I remember. How to start?

Get everything down there.

Test print with the emulsion.

Sketch the bird.

MORE STUFF

More gathering of materials today: black paint, white paint, gauze. Much of this pre-work is collection and organisation. How much of the art is this, having ideas and collecting stuff and organising it into 'new' arrangements. Moving stuff around. It seems to echo what I do at home: use stuff, clean stuff, put it away – pause, get it out again, rearrange it, wash it, move it, put it away. Maybe I am feeling 'removed' because I have moved house to Hastings four weeks ago. And I have helped my daughter move from Devon and on to London. Lifting boxes and taking them somewhere will fill my day and much of the weekend.

STUFF

Gloriously sunny today and started pulling up weeds in the garden to gather for next week. Loaded up the car with stuff already gathered and took it down to the studio in an attempt to get ready for the project.

Tested wireless connection in basement and was able to join a network which is marvellous as we may be able to work on one of our main ideas for Under Ground.

Do we need a meeting before next week?

Must have a go at drafting out the pattern for my bird tomorrow.

Took some invitations to local stores. Itsy bitsy things to do. Excited about next week and concerned at the short time we have to experiment before showing some of the work in progress.

IMAGES

Thank goodness it rained today. I had to stay in and I spent hours pulling together a powerpoint presentation to show the earlier stages of BREAKING GROUND: the residency on the allotment and ALLOTMENTA Open Day, the University of Brighton Dept. of Fine Art Printmaking Residency, the time we spent at Phoenix Project Space, Brighton and the Open Day and Discussion Event which we called OUTSIDE IN. I realised we have had 3 stages of the project already. UNDER GROUND, the residency at Pine Gallery, Hastings which starts on 13 October for 10 days will be stage 4 and our final project space and Open Day/Discussion event which will be in Margate at Crate Project Space in November will be stage 5. And we will have worked on BREAKING GROUND for 2 years.

PREPARATIONS

With only 10 days to go until the start of UNDER GROUND in Hastings, Roz & I have been busy making our preparations. We've been sending out invitations to our Open Day, which this time will include a Big Draw event – DRAWING IN THE DARK, and we already have two people booked in for the Discussion Platform at Talk About The Work.