The battle for the computer starts early in this house so I am writing this while everyone else is still sleeping to avoid the rush. I am finding it so tough working without other artists around me I was really looking forward to the Artus meeting set up by the John Hansard gallery in S’Hampton yesterday. The first meeting was promising with a loose crit group structure encouraging anyone involved in creative making/discussion to come along.
The second meeting (yesterdays) was unfortunately less inspiring. Few people contributed actual work for discussion due to the fact that few seemed to be working ‘artists’ as such, (although there’s nothing wrong with that, it was the remit of the group after all) but people, as one woman described it, who are not artists but like to surround themselves with artists who can stimulate them and articulate their ideas. She then produced a file full of images of local historical figures, gave a brief history of the Bargate monument lions and then seemed to encourage us to produce a piece of work on peace which combined these, rather random elements. I’m sure this made sense to local people but I was left bewildered. We then spent a long time discussing what was a trace and what was a mapping and why one couldn’t be the other until everyone had tied themselves in intellectual knots. This is all fine if you’ve got the time to while away an afternoon in discursive contemplation but with free time away from the family on limited supply and a long trek to get there, perhaps it’s just not what I’m looking for.
One piece of info however, did come up that was valuable. The John Hansard gallery has always seemed to me a very remote and detached organisation, showing excellent big name shows with little or no involvement with the life of artists in the area, offering none of the support etc which other galleries such as Artsway or the Bargate Monument gallery see as part and parcel of their work. Due to the forthcoming closure of the Bargate they obviously feel the need to step into the breach and open their doors up to these possiblities as a meeting is coming up where artists are invited to put their needs forward to The John Hansard team. This should be interesting.
