our art walk project completed last weekend. 10 days before the project went live i drafted this:
my life and art often seem very apart from each other or i’m in the moment and my life is art … oh so now i get gilbert and geogre.
in a recent introductory email i described myself as settling down after my degree, it’s honest yet counter productive to my world of art where i am needed to be risk taking and original of idea.
i’ve been troubled of late. i need to tell you as it’s been bugging me and haven’t really known where to record it. the art walk project has recieved half an application. it’s frozen me, i simply don;t know what to do. well that’s not quite true. the project has attracted many knitters and crocheters and is being promoted through the voluntary arts inspired by woollen woods. i have to admit i know very little about what the voluntary arts thing is about other than it encourages people who knit to make things to decorate their community.
my life and art, ongoing and incomplete.
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now a week on from the art walk i’m very reflective about what we did … what i did.
so why the venice to belper sub title ? earlier this month my art channel of news was full of the openings in venice. i looked and it felt miles apart from where i am, both physically and emotionally and i simply “need to get over it”.
back in belper last weekend i watched as people of belper walked through the parks and in some cases were filled with awe and wonder as they discovered the knitted works there in. we set out to create something to attract people into the parks. i had a vision that i fell short of but in it’s place another was created that seemed to acheive what we wanted to do. was my original vision not good enough ?
for weeks it perplexed me what to do about the lack of artist interest. i think of the half submission we’ll give the person concerned their money back, if they want it. this will neaten the process up as then there will have not been any submissions and i got around this by asking two artists who live in the town to get involved. one was away so only one was able to take part.
julian woodcock is his name and he responded to the space by making an installation with 500 dog poo bags.
the art walk achieved accessibilty and thought provoking work. i didn’t know that this was what we needed to acheive until we achieved it.
at this point i should publish some photos. thing is i’ve not yet processed them and today i feel mentally tired so the thought of processing images weighs heavy in the things to do list. i’m forcing myself to make this post because i want it shown that i did post in may.
i feel close to giving up. i’ve been here before and part of not giving up is admitting i want to give up. the last two saturdays i thought i would be able to talk publicaly about work i’ve been doing. in both cases the planned opportunity failed to be available. yesterday afternoon i was close to tears.
maybe this vunerability is why i expect never to be able to exhibit at venice.
before my epic art walk / big lunch extras weeknd began i submitted an application to an opportunity. i did so not expecting to get anywhere with it. i made the submission to be able to punctuate my aspects of snee research.
that research actually does feel like research for once, going uninformed into finding out what it is or might be, using what i find to inform what i do next.
on the art walk i allowed myself space to play with the core technique behind the work gravity vs bobbins made last year in belper parks. that is a pair of string with a bobbin. this year i went into making it knowing not what the title was and very much with an open mind about what the work might be.
when talking about it over the weekend i found myself very openly saying it’s an evolving work, i don’t yet know what it’s about, the thing is i like how it looks and what it does to the space. i was pleased to see smiles and nods from those listening. on the monday night when the height of the facebook interest in the whole event was at a peak i was asked to title the work. after looking through my notes and doodling and thinking i called the work intersection.
here i am on the last day of may using this post as a cathartic vehicle to rebuild my confidence in myself and looking forward to processing the images and videos from the last 10 days and placing the favourites on all the website spaces evidencing what we all did. i may not be in venice but i have a pride in what has been achieved.
