thursday was spent etching and the results felt better. i was after a familiar landscape, a faint hazy one that slowly dissapeared. i printed the plate four times until it was distant, only the imprint of the plate was present. the series of four i planned to show on friday, a bit last minute, but i was hoping they would dry in time.
i booked the room a week before, i knew i wanted to show some work as i had some from the summer that i needed to see. it helps to look at stuff outside of the studio space, to get feedback from others and to see if or how it works outside of my head.
the trouble was i had run out of hard drive just after i had booked the room so i invested some of my student money in a terrabyte, which didnt arrive until wednesday. this meant my video editing was more than a bit behind. i stayed up til the early hours of friday editing and burning, and in the end left it running. it had an error and was sitting there with an ejected disk when i found it in the morning .of course. plan b… take original edit of films and video camera to play the soundtrack.
collected projectors, etchings and keys for room, and ran around. i was planning to use two projectors running running two halves of the film in sequence, one would stop and the other would then start. the projector playing from the laptop did not want to work .of course. plan b…play one film
in the end it was worth it. i was happy with the way it worked together as a room, the feedback was interesting and useful, and although it didn't really 'work' i have more of an idea how it would.
the films and sound track burned without any errors over the weekend .of course.
tuesday was good. me and others went to see a gallery with a view to exhibiting next year. it was big and cold but a v.interesting space so we left with our mental cogs whirring.
we visited the gagosian gallery to pop in on the richard serra exhibition. wowzer. it is awesome in the awe sense of the word. the glowing colour of tt1 london 2007, the size and the way the bowing circles balance on seemingly not alot, is fascinating. they hover above a sprinkling of their own dust whilst being watched by sharply suited security.
fernando pessoa, 2007-08 stands straight and all tall, the closer you get to it the smaller it seems. the different layers of colour and texture pull you in, and it swaps its boldness for beauty.
open ended 2007-08 is magical, but with proper magic. it is dark, disconcerting and puzzling, it caves in and bows out, it makes you feel dizzy, lost and slightly nauseous, but the best bit is it makes you smile.
rusty metal. mmm…
overheard conversation, "… someone wrote 'wicked' on one of them" "oh my! i bet larry went nuts".
i watched a showing of another student's films when i got back to college and pondered all the way home.
i etched today. etching feels and smells good. what i did didn't quite work, but i think i've worked out what will.
mondays mmm…took a late rising teenager to school, came back via the co-op to avert starving the cat and kids, jumped in and out of bath, found local music shop selling the correct guitar strings – the make and size having been added to the note section of my phone so i don't have to use my failing memory – post them through my front door so the early rising teenager can go ahead with the afterschool band practice. jump on train and bus and join queue for coffee.
meeting with student union regarding elq. now this is something that has been bugging me for a bit, and it seems to be making other people i tell frown.
this year if you had wanted to do an equivalent or lower level degree you would have had to pay the full fee, with no help from student grants or loans. so if you have a ba and 10 yrs later, after you find out what you really want to do with your life, you decide to do another ba it will cost approx twentyonethousandpounds. (some courses are excluded).
my major problem with this is that the current student population does not know. prospective students in 6th forms are not being told. the attitude is go to uni it makes financial sense, you'll get a better job (?) and don't worry about the loan. they are the ones it is going to affect. the number of mature students will, no doubt, decrease and i have heard that some staff in uni's that had a large number of mature students historically have had to lay off staff and cut courses.
the su is digging
mmm…mondays
booked projectors for fri (although i may only be allowed to take one if they are in demand, this may scupper what i was planning to show, will have to remember to have a plan b), picked up strecher frames, ate a really tasty apple and pondered.
the afternoon was as hectic as the morning and i am now feeling too snoozy to tap anything sense making.
i sat on 'my' bench today. it is under some trees. i sat on it on monday. i sat on it the friday before that. in total i sat on the bench for 6 hrs. i was playing a game. i was waiting for a leaf to float down and land on me. i was trying to capture the moment on video. it didn't happen. i have now decided it is the last time i play that game with the camera.
it had happened last october when i was sitting on the same bench playing the same game. it made me feel happy and very lucky.
i left my bench and travelled to piccadilly to see lucian freud, early paintings, at hazlitt holland-hibbert. lucian freud was there. in beige and cream layers with paint on his shoe. i floated around in the same air and felt happy and extremely lucky.
