crossing the river

I am kicking myself! I completely forgot about the Antique Textile Fair on Sunday. I’ve been waiting for 3 months to get a chance to buy fabrics that I can use for my next body of work. I can’t believe I forgot! I’ll have to get back on the internet and see what other possibilities there are, but this one was so convenient, cycling distance from home!

I guess I am preoccupied with the installation at Platt Hall, which is going well, we tried out some new ideas yesterday and the whole thing fell into place. Now it is just about building and small decisions. We decided we don’t need the full week so Christine can do her paid work today and can I have a day off. Back in tomorrow and Thursday and hopefully we won’t need Friday. We had a great volunteer yesterday from MMU’s Embroidery degree, and have a couple more tomorrow. It helps to share out the heavy work of moving the sheets around.

I’ve just discovered google analytics where you can track who visits your website. It is well worth a look, mainly for me it is a reminder that there are potentially interested people out there. You can track what route people come to your site from, how long they spend, which pages they look at, and what national or international location they are in. It is a bit geeky, and slightly voyeuristic, but even for a not very business-like artist, it could be useful.

www.google.com/analytics/

I can’t get over how much having a studio has affected me. I am so excited about it, so happy when I’m there. It represents more than it’s dimensions!

I had the space at home. That’s not what I needed. The studio represents time, not space. I set aside time to go there, and if the work is difficult or challenging, or if I am stuck or have no ideas, I have to stay with it, because I am there.

Mostly so far, I have been organising and setting up my work area. But yesterday I got out my watercolours and the photos I took in the snow and began to do a sketch. At home, I wouldn’t get beyond that initial resistance, but at the studio I keep on going.

I won’t have much time there this week because we start to build the installation at Platt Hall on Monday. I have some MMU students coming in to help, which is great, because the work is physically demanding.

Christine and I sampled last Monday, trying out ways of getting our two materials to work together, and I came away feeling very anxious that we would not be able to do it. But after looking at the photographs, I can see a narrative emerging about the role of the gallery which is about conservation as well as display, and the installation could be a metaphor for the attempt to hold back the creep of decay.

Christine’s big crochet pieces are quite sinister when seen against the sheets, which create order and structure. So I think there needs to be a tension between the two materials, rather than an attempt to make them work together.

Surprisingly, I feel pretty relaxed about it. It is an experiment and some people will like it, and others not. But I hope the gallery like it!

I had a couple of very useful meetings this week about how to find opportunities to get my work seen. One was with Mark Devereux from Blank Media collective, who champion emerging artists.

www.blankmediacollective.org

He had some practical ideas about on-line portfolios and using social networking sites. I am going to start looking into that. I’d be interested to know what other people are doing. Perhaps I can raise it at the skill swap that Emily Speed is organising.

www.a-n.co.uk/p/497389

I just can’t wait to get into the studio! I pick up the keys on Friday and my palms are itching. Since I finished my residency in January, i have been frustrated by my lack of production. I am not disciplined unless I can get out out the house. I’m definitely not one of those people who can work anywhere. I need a bit of physical distance between me and the distractions of the rest of my life.

I will be sharing the studio with Mia, who I met on Foundation and who also did the Embroidery degree. We know each others work and working style very well, and I am really pleased that we can carry on this connection and mutual support. We are showing work together a couple of times this year, including the Stroud International Textile Festival in May. Mia has been working on huge stitched portraits, and will be back at the sewing machine as soon as we move in getting new work ready for an exhibition of Scandinavian artists later in the year (she’s from Finland).

Cow Lane Studio www.cowlanestudios.com is part of the Casket Works, which includes Hotbed Press www.hotbedpress.org , a truly fantastic resource, so I expect to be doing more experimenting with print. I’m also looking forward to starting on a new body of work that came out of the residency.

But before any of that, next week Christine Evans and I start working on a collaborative installation for the reopening of Platt Hall Costume Museum on 13th March. It is my most important commission so far, and I’m nervous, but I have a lot of faith in Christine, and we are both working with very interesting material, so I’m confident it will be ok, or even good!

www.manchestergalleries.org/our-other-venues/platt…

I want my blog to be part of my reflective process, a way of recording my development, and also a way to make links with other artists. In writing this first post it already strikes me how much collaboration features. Here’s to much more!