I finished painting a week ago. Since then I've been busy with all the other details that need to be sorted to transform the series of paintings into an exhibition. I've applied a final protective coating to the paintings, ordered packaging and booked a van.
The process of finding titles for the paintings has been ‘running in the background' throughout the project, playing with words, searching for names that work for the series as from either end and also for the individual pieces. The works will be titled as follows: [Hundreds] Refresh, Encounter, Centre, Trace, Departure.
Justin, the WHITEWALL Project Manager, is coming up this weekend to view the work, discuss installation and work on the catalogue.
On Sunday I'm meeting Anne Hornsby at the studio. Anne is coming to look at the paintings in preparation for writing the audio description.
How to describe the process of revealing through concealing? Carefully working around forms like an archaeological excavation, applying pigment rather than removing traces of earth etc.
At first, I worked on the paintings as separate entities. Sometime over the last couple of days I started to get a sense of ‘travelling' across them. I think they're now got in the order that they'll be exhibited. Working mainly on 2 pieces yesterday, started to develop colour relationships between pieces.
Looking towards the gallery from the mall, the light is much cooler – could this be designed to encourage shoppers to spend a little longer, spend a little more in the warmth and comfort of the shops?
A fine downy layer of frost collected on me as I travelled to the studio this morning.
My Dad had been in yesterday, working his magic, adapting the old drawing table to accommodate one of the canvases. Last week he made a ‘lean to' easel from three bits of aluminium sliding door runner.
By shutting myself in (dragging the drawing board behind the door) I can now work on all 5 pieces – and at roughly the same height. Last week I was fiddling around with scale drawings to try and get a feel for how the pieces might relate to each other in the space, now I can work with those relationships as the paintings develop.
The search for a writer has led to an interesting development that I'd not anticipated at the start of the project. I was thinking about how we see and how we put together an image of a place. As a result of a misunderstood telephone message I'm now hoping to work with an ‘audio describer'.
