Paidblog!!!
Just a quickie.. I’m back and oh a bath and my own bed were so sweet. Really enjoyed a massive pot of tea and some toast this morning too.
More importantly.. I’ve beed paid! Some birthday God must have been looking over me, or perhaps the money did go through and just took a very very long time. I don’t care and it doesn’t matter that it took over six weeks (ahem) ..I can now relax and pay some bills! Phew.
Few bits of writing to get done today and tomorrow and then my brain shall be non-art/work related for the whole weekend.
See you next week.
The birthday trip home to Liverpool begins in about two hours, so I shall see you in September…
Hoping this break will give everything a bit of clarity when I get back and see my work again. The next exhibiton is on the 8th September, so I want to think carefully about how I show things in that exhibition space. My mum is coming back to Linz with me for a few days, which will be so nice – the thing about residencies is no one else gets to see where you are or what you’re doing, so you come back talking about things and no one else has clue. It makes you dull if you’re not careful! Unfortunately she may end up getting roped into a photography session or similar :)
Some images of the work that Jens took in the attic of me.. no title yet. I also dumped all the images into an animation to see what it looked like, the answer seems to be too comical! Feedback includes, mad deranged dalek, Howl’s Moving Castle (awesome Studio Ghibli film), cardboard robot, waddling city, hilarious and well funny. This was all well meant and looking at it, I can see where they’re coming from! However, plenty of editing and displayed how I want it should look a little differently, I hope! Perhaps the dear blog readers have some other comparisons to add??
Here is the unedited animation should you care to take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE_bhNOQm2g
(The House Like Me title is temporary – from one of my artists’ books and is inspired by Casa Malaparte, a kind of self portrait in architecture by Curzio Malaparte, on the island of Capri.)
Some ideas around the work:
Inhabiting the city/being outside the city/The city as psychological space/The city or architecture as self portrait.
post #101! Should I be worried?
Applyingblog:
Battling today with my need to try and do evrything all the time in the world ever.. Currently this involves my regular load of applications plus two open exhibitions – the kind I never normally apply for (I like to go and see them, but then I also like having my work in exhibitions with fewer people and a planned connection). These two seem to be more themed and connected with my work.. but then they ask for an entry fee. Just little ones, but I don’t like that either (although I recognize the amount of admin involved).
It seems too much of a gamble to be honest. Perhaps I’ll choose just one, that’s not a bad compromise.. then I can add it to my list of lessons learned if unsuccessful.
Again, YSP comes to my rescue when I look at a lot of dates and have to say.. oh no, I shall be in Yorkshire, can’t apply for that. I quite like having some things in my diary until July next year!
NotPaidblog:
well, guess what, the money didn’t go through again. No travel money, no fee money – nothing. I am pretty disappointed, but not surprised. I am leaving for Liverpool on Wednesday evening as it is my 30th birthday on Sat 29th and I have to spend it with my twin sister (it just wouldn’t be right not to). I was looking forward to some celebrating, frock buying, champagne drinking (oh fine, cava then), not worrying.
As it is, IF the money goes through this week (international payments on Thursdays) then it will be in my account by Tuesday 1st September. One problem, all my bills come out then, rent, studio, council tax etc et… If the money doesn’t go through.. I have no reserves left now, overdraft used, credit card a goner. End of line. Except family loans of course.. but that’s horrible, I don’t want to do that, I’m 30 next week.. an adult capable of supporting themself surely?
Pah. meeting about travel money on Wed morning, so that may be a couple of hundred guaranted for the 1st, although I don’t know why this hasn’t been paid in already. But as for the rest of it, it seems I am at the mercy of Linz council or some other official body…I don’t really know what’s going on.
so for the last two weeks of my residency I may have some money to spend (see reports of drunken, belligerent artists in the cultural capital)? Or not… watch this space….
Linzblog:
On Friday we were very lucky indeed, and managed to get the keys to go into the tunnels under Linz. As the book I am making is about the surface and what lies underneath, I have been desperate to get in the tunnels and I have been pestering Holger to get me in for a while.. it was good too as everyone ended up going and seeing them. Earlier in the 09 year, there was an exhibition held in the tunnels, which I am so sad I missed, but the gallery who curated it still had the keys. This is a really good example of the things residencies can give you – a way in to things that would otherwise seem impossible. You have a middle man from the residency programme who knows who to ask and how to ask them.
These tunnels were partly built by prisoners from Mauthausen concentration camp 20kms outside the city. One of the hardest camps – no gas chambers until quite late on, but worked to death working in a stone quarry – a lot of the prisoners here were sent from Auschwitz and it was also well known for holding a lot of Russians, and treating them with incredible cruelty (5 tea spoonfuls of food every three days, enough to keep you alive, but hardly living). They worked in the dark (pitch black) and when bombs were dropped on Linz, which was often, as the industry Hitler built up was for manufacturing ammunition and artillary, the prisoners were made to go outside so the guards could take shelter.
We had about two hours in the tunnels and access to about 2 miles of them over two levels underground. On the lowest level there was the shell of a really old car, which was incredible and very puzzling! Lights only went so far so there were parts that we only saw after taking a photograph with flash.
This was an incredible experience that I won’t forget.
http://www.mauthausen-memorial.at/
