After some discussion with one of the artists – Julie, who has agreed to design and compile our book, it made sense to have all the artists work come to me for photographing, save on the to-ing and fro-ing to get size, format etc right … get it the same across the board, and so we could be ‘print-ready’. Initially I thought if the first works were completed by 6th November and each artist then send me an image we would have plenty time to get pre-xmas printing done. But with everyone mad busy – deadlines slipped (last artist work arrived 16th Nov not 6th as hoped), crowd-funding as an option for raising money to facilitate the printing was ruled out etc… the cards have been shelved – for now at least.
The photographing of the work has not been easy, in fact it’s been a real headache to be honest. The lighting in my studio is not the best and trying to photograph drawings – both from the children and the artists – and capture all the pencil marks really well to do them justice has been fraught with numerous false starts: needing my tripod (forgot it in 1st instance); shooting in raw and needing software to open images, not needed since got new camera over a year ago; needing and struggling to obtain new batteries for my camera remote (to avoid camera shake); ideally thinking a scanner would do a better job, but having difficulty sourcing an A3 scanner; then finding in some cases the scanned image wasn’t any better… have all added to the delays and challenges faced here.
… To the extent that I am now just compiling the last few images to everyone’s satisfaction, and I think when you see them you will agree we have some great and eclectic works to share with you. Obviously it’s worth pointing out at this stage I have (as has all the artists involved) other work/exhibitions/projects on the go, running in tandem with this one, and can’t always give it 100% of my time, juggling everything is proving quite demanding. I’ve been uploading and sharing images via Dropbox so everyone on the project has had a view and can offer feedback, it has its quirks but so far has been a really useful and immediate tool.
At the end of October I finally got a positive reply from Mick at the Bermondsey Space and look forward to working through the detail and securing one of the venues for one of our events. I’m conscious he’s mega busy right now though with the run up to xmas getting ready for all their Crisis clients so hope to catch up early in the New Year. (http://www.crisis.org.uk/pages/support-us.html )
With regards to the Embassy, everything had gone quiet, so I started nudging them with a few emails, to find out the lady I had been dealing with was no longer there and whilst they were still awaiting a reply form their Minister of Culture in Bolivia, I now had to re-send and re-engage with a new contact. I am still hopeful that we can collaborate here and at the very outside at least be able to inform all the Bolivians living in London about out project. I’ll keep you posted.
