TO SEE A PROJECT SPACE
Roz & I travelled to Portsmouth & Southampton on Friday. We went to the Aspex Gallery for a 1-2-1 with Sarah Palmer to talk about our BMPD professional development project, then we went on to see the Millais Project Space at Southampton Solent University. We wanted to look at the space to see if it might be a suitable venue for the next stage of Breaking Ground, where we plan to work in three different project spaces along the south coast for a week in each space, inviting selected artists and arts professionals from each area for a private viewing and a discussion about the work we make at the end of each week.
PREPARATIONS
This evening I’m preparing for another day’s printmaking in Brighton tomorrow. I’ve got a stencil ready to print from – an outline plan of the allotment showing the “boundaries” which were understood, but in reality, almost invisible. More and more, the focus of the work I’m making is on the relationships which became important during the allotment residency, and the territorial issues which I was interested in as a visitor feeling the need to make a space for myself which would be my “safe base”.
THIRD DAY
Spent the morning cutting paper to size, taping the photostencil window to the right size, setting up registrations – then I began to print grey backgrounds, large and small. The light cartridge paper stuck, but the heavy canaletto paper worked well. Now I have 7 large and 14 small backgrounds to print on next Monday.
Began to draft out some of the things I want to print: names of vegetable seeds. Who named a climbing French bean 'District Nurse' or a pea as 'Gravedigger' ? How were those names handed down? Who wrote them down?
SECOND DAY
More layers added to the bird prints, more browns too. The thrush looks rather angry. Some on paper but also printed the pair of yellowhammer and thrush outlines onto thin canvas. The plan to is cut them out, sew them together using thorn stitch and stuff them with allotment leaves, dead stems or sheep wool – people grazed their sheep on Tenantry Down before the allotments were laid out.
DAY 2
Made my first prints today using a screen-printing technique I hadn’t used before.
I wanted to do a quick mental re-cap of my thoughts & ideas about the work we’d made on the allotment. So working directly onto the screen, first I made lists of “Allotment Words” and “More Allotment Words” – a sort of brain-storming session, printing the lists from the screen with transparent printing medium. Then, still working directly onto the screen with water soluble crayons and pencils, I began to try to transform my thoughts into quick & spontaneous drawings – a new way of working for me. Predictably, the process of printing began to get the creative juices flowing. Now I’m making plans for tomorrow.
FIRST DAY
This morning I felt apprehensive as I packed my bag for the First Day – we are two Artists in Residence again – this time in Fine Art Printmaking at the University of Brighton.
However I walked home with a smile. I enjoyed today. I printed 3 layers of 'the missing birds'. There are few birds on the allotment. I am looking for them.
