Richard:
I have decided to throw myself a little further along this thought path before my laptop beds down for the night. I had forgotten what Ross sounded like; we have just had out first Skype conversation about a possible exhibition/outing for our project. Two strands of thought rang truer than others. One of which being Ross’s idea to produce a wall drawing in the gallery, the wall drawing would act as a piece of work in its own right, depending on the amount of time we have to install the exhibition, and it would also be a framing mechanism for a series of my own drawings on paper – themselves unframed and instead simply mounted on to the wall. The ‘working’ together would come from a direct conference between Ross and me: a forwarding of pattern arrived at through his drawing process and the more figurative embellishments of my own drawing process.
The second strand of thought that we both chimed upon, is that of setting out Ross’s other framed drawings – themselves being larger in scale than my own pencilled arrangements – in and around and upon the collective objects I would otherwise use in an installation.
So at this moment I envisage up to five small drawings of my own somehow framed and sequenced by Ross’s direct wall drawings. I also envisage Ross’s framed and larger drawing propped against the wall and arrived at curatorially by the object I arrange in the space.
Concurrently then, both myself and Ross will bring both a set of planned drawings to the exhibition setup and also a working process that we will apply to the space during install. Objects/plinths/barriers/pathways and Wall-drawings/frames/strands/labels.
Hope this is enough of a list for you Ross. No images with this post as I am on someone else’s computer and do not have access to my library.
Richard:
Ross, I like your sense of line, especially pink line.
I have just received a well received email from Ross with images attached that document my four photographic collage pieces in situ at ‘Abandoned House’. The work looks good and the colour of painted walls and ceiling matches the colour-way of the photographic content – and here referring to Ross’s comments an my work below – a little bit of my working process, enclosed within a snapshot/collage, is now embedded ‘permanently’ in to the same location as his work in Aberdeenshire. The location of the Abandoned house is, and I hope will remain, unknown to me. There’s something interesting and accomplishing about sending your work off in the post and getting back a photograph of it in another space miles and mile north of your studio.
I remember putting these images together in accepting that their permanent state in a holy, damp and dishevelled house. A permanent collection indeed, but not as far as the conditions go – give it a few weeks in to autumn and there will be nothing left of my oil paint, my photographs on cartridge paper and my private view cards turned over-leaf and used as backing for the collage. The idea may stand the test of time but the works themselves will not. I like this dichotomy – it dispels any preciousness in the work and accepts that the work itself is fleeting. The work itself is therefor a catalyst for the collaborative exercise?
So, I now sit here in my front room, looking north in fact to Fife over the river Forth and up to the clouded hills. I type and I respond in some way to what Ross has written below. I also anticipate a package in the post enclosing some of Ross’s work, which I will mount in my studio alongside my own work. A library as such of ongoing process, a place for reference as well as progression.
I have also just polished up an old steel frame that I do not mind being damaged or rusted by rain and by damp in the coming months of autumn and winter. The frame encloses another collage, this time multilayered: first a drawing on newsprint paper as backing, then another PV card turned over-leaf, another two photographic collages, an old drawing in pencil and coloured pen on old non acid-free paper lined with red squares (sourced from my Grandfather’s old house). The old drawing is similar in shape to Ross’s find during a sculptural trail near Scottish Sculpture Workshop. Next to this drawing, on the same paper, is a fine liner drawing of three leaves taken from the cheese plant that sits behind me.
