In my first few days I’ve quickly become absorbed in the making process out of a desire to create an impression on this grand historic space, perhaps to the detriment of exploration and information gathering. My usual approach of slowly layering materials and surfaces to build up a patina of meaning has to be abandoned in favour of a much faster system of tearing and pasting. Many of the ideas/approaches I was previously considering will also have to be shelved if a resolution is to be achieved by the end of the week. Early starts and late nights in the space are slowly yielding results, but I’m unsure whether I may have I trapped myself in a pattern which will provide results but not neccessarily creative solutions.
Notions of localism, civic pride, my own ambiguous relationship with the area and sense of outsider status are reflected in the Town’s self-confident, masculine Victorian buildings which often now lie derelict or are turned to more modest, less high-minded uses. I can see already that much of the unpacking of this experience will occur later in my studio.
