I wrote this in draft form a few days ago and forgot about it. Life takes over… or rather – work… proposals, fixing and painting broken fencing while the sun is out… you know how it is.
Rather aptly though, I was looking at the Woolgather short listed artists this week. One of the nominated artists – Bruce Davies, is part of ‘Sci’, the collaborative group I set up to start overseas projects. Bruce’s group ‘Peripheral’ collaborated with ‘Soup Collective’ during the 2008 Liverpool Biennial. We set up something like 15 venues between Leeds and Liverpool during the Biennial and we seemed to be forever travelling and taking work down. Never again.
Anyway – Woolgather : http://www.woolgatherartprize.com/ I like the theme: Each artist was asked to produce a video responding to how they sustain their practice and support a creative lifestyle.
Fitting in the creative lifestyle with everything else AND make a living. Hmmm… yes…..
So back to Monday’s visit to the community centre…
So much unused space and so many staff, but the only visitors we saw were two lads having a meal and an elderly woman enjoying a cup of tea in the cafe. Nice food by the way.
The Community centre was actually quite a find in terms of space. Upstairs had several unused offices – one in particular was quite large and had a sink in it – having been used at one time for a hairdressing course.
A very good space for an artists in Residence, but not so great to exhibit in. Needs a bit more planning.
Small projects have been to Estonia this week – linking again with other artists. It was only a few weeks since they went to Finland. Funding seems so much easier there.
If any of our proposals get accepted – we aim to be self funded. Great if we’re not – but we’ll keep it realistic.
