What is that image I hear you ask? What is this hastily erected structure, a shelter created from cast offs, gleaned from our greedily consumerist society, teetering on the verge of collapse, a metaphor for modern city living perhaps? This is a Esme’s snail hotel. It is one of many constructions which make up snail city and inhabit our patio. Stuffed with it’s now rotting lettuce and rather neglected grass bedding, baked in the sun beneath its clingfilm skylights, to snails it probably more resembles a Japanese prisoner of war camp rather than a utopian hotel complex. I’d like to add here that I have done my best to protect the snails welfare, at least by putting the boxes in the shade, but I fear the death toll may be on the rise. An end is in sight though, as tomorrow we will have a busload of Germans filling up the patio for a barbecue (I’m not even going to explain this) so the time must come for the snails to be released.
And so it appears to be one of those weekends. Tonight I’ve been invited to attend Display Salon, in the Bargate monument Gallery, Southampton by ARC in Portsmouth, where a group of artists and ordinary people!?! will be mixed together to be part of a discussion group during which some sort of performance/art work will be created. This always has me slightly on edge since a photographer I knew attended a performance where the artist screamed in his face and attempted to rip his clothes off (the photographers that is).
Tomorrow morning we need to be up bright and early as the twins are running the mini marathon, a fiercely competitive (and really tough) annual inter-schools event which attracts huge crowds of wildly screaming parents, press, radio, overexcited compare, the lot ( I must digress here and say that last year in the adults race the highlight was the Grandad who, 10m from the finish line with arms raised in victory, lost his false teeth which flew up into the air and bounced in in front of him to huge cheers from the crowd – seriously). Anyway, once over the finish line I need to grab the inevitably sweaty and dishevelled twins and dash to Salisbury Cathedral for the opening of ‘Made to last’ the show which was the brainchild of curator Pru Maltby and where the video I exerted so much time and heartache over is on display for the Salisbury Festival. I love to work with Pru as she is a hugely sensitive curator , a great ambassador for my work and always fills me with a sense of accomplishment and peace with what I do.
At the moment, following a visit to the Guildhall space for the potential show next year my head is filled with work I want to get started on. My biggest problem continues to be the ideas in my head backing up and overcrowding my ‘mental studio’ as it were, while the one in reality is lagging way behind in the work I can actually make due to tasks such as releasing snails, feeding Germans and all the other things life in a family throws up.
