For this Grow An Exhibition project, over the last month I’ve been contacting and meeting potential partners, collecting information and getting advice from various artist friends. It is all slowly coming together and I have been amazed by all the offers of help and support that people have given, even from people I’m yet to meet. All I have to do is put it all into my Arts Council application!
In my role as chairman of GASP, the Art Space Portsmouth gallery organising committee, I’m used to helping others with their exhibitions and organising ASP group shows. Now it comes to my own project it is all a bit daunting. I know I can do all the individual parts of this project: the growing, making work, marketing, organising and hanging exhibitions, etc. However, when you write everything down that you need to do in the next 18 months, right down to how many leaflets you need to print for an exhibition 500 days away, it makes your head hurt.
All I want to do is run away to the greenhouse and get my hands messy in some compost. But I can’t, well not yet. Next week I have meetings with my two major partners to firm up all the details. And anyway, the garden is not the best place to be just at the moment, getting pelted by hailstones and dodging flying flowerpots. Instead, it’s back to planning, writing the application, and calculating the number of leaflets!
