The snap traps are rubbish. We've gone high tech with some kind of electronic electrocutor mouse zappy thing. Youngest daughter cried so we said it would just stun them then we can set them free (not true).
Had nightmares all night – think it's guilt related due to knowingly lying to child and attempting to murder mice.
Huge relief to discover empty zapper-trapper this morning. Canny mice got the peanut butter from the back, thus evading the zap.
Mice 2, Masseys 0.
The bloody mice are back! mouse poo in a spoon on the draining board. nice.
I've blocked all the holes I can find with wire wool and put two snap traps down. Relieved/disappointed to see they were empty this morning.
I went on a brilliant course at the weekend – 'Crunch' video editing with Impossible Theatre. Had a great time, trying out lots of ideas and not worrying too much about whether or not it's 'good art'.
I'd like to get back to the studio and continue with this open approach. No deadline, no outcome required. That's always when the best things happen.
Not sure when I'll get chance though. Last Thursday I wrote down all the tasks I have set myself, then tried to allocate slots in my diary between now and September to get everything done. It was like a jigsaw with too many pieces and it's so hard to prioritise.
Being good at planning and organising my time is a double edged sword. It means I get a lot done, but I always feel under pressure, which makes it difficult to cultivate said 'open' approach. I feel like something needs to change, but not sure what. The Crunch weekend was a great breather.
I think part of the problem is that since moving I haven't really found any mates to relax and pass time with, so the busy part of my life fills the gap. So – I'll add that to the list – make more time for making friends.
It's about time I wrote some sort of description of and about 'What the Chamber Maid Saw' – for some reason this task has grown into a monster in my head – not sure why, but can't be bothered to dwell on it – there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason about which tasks 'bother' me and which ones don't.
My particular area of interest is around gender roles in domestic labour, contemporary roles for parents, fantasy roles, exploring private and public identities.
My work often involves a voyeuristic element, as I create environments that reveal traces of inhabitation or human activity. The space and the objects within are cast as witnesses to an event, and the audience is left to imagine their own narrative. Collections of dust, dirt, detritus and bodily emmissions are often gathered as evidence of a life lived, of feelings and strong experiences.
This installation incorporated all of these things. Room 315 in The Grand Hotel revealed the story of the absent female tenant, and was open to a lot of different interpretations by viewers. Visitors booked the room for 20 minutes, and were left uninterupted to poke around in drawers and cupboards. They then checked out and returned the key. The crumbling grandeur of the hotel also deserves a mention as part of the visitor experience.
The drawers in the bedroom each contained a pair of womens knickers with photographs of details of the room stitched into them. Some are funny – a light switch, or a fire exit sign in a gusset. The knickers range from the extremely large and sturdy to the barely there.
The bed was covered in a shiny gold bedspread, with screens embedded in 5 windows, showing videos of close-ups of body parts – perhaps an uncomfortable reminder of the many people who had used this bed.
The hotel TV played a looped video of a woman in a sparkly dress spinning slowly round, arms outstretched, interlaced with footage of washing spinning in a machine – the two images fading in and out of each other.
The sparkly dress re-appeared hanging above the toilet in the en-suite bathroom, which also contained photographs of details of the room, and blurred polaroids of the woman in the sparkly dress in the bathroom.
The wardrobe had lots of empty honey jars and a felt cone dripping honey into an oval dish.
On the desk there was a clear plastic file full of index cards. Each card held a labelled packet containing human debris – hair from the plughole, nail clippings, bogeys – with notes about when where and why they were gathered.
A handmade notebook/diary offered more insights and intrigue.
So – I think you get some idea from that?
Here are a couple of pictures of elements of 'chamber maid'.
I'm going to try to put some clips from the films onto youtube, but BLIMEY doesn't it take a lot of time to keep on top of your internet profile. My website's still under construction (Mrsite wasn't as easy as the packaging promised, so I'm going to enlist professional help), my Axis page took two hours to update last week, and still needs lots of images uploading, I've joined platform58 but not got round to actually doing anything with it, and I haven't even started with youtube.
