Home Ground
I’m not very good at this am I? My last post was in the spring when I had just embarked on the process of implementing what I had called my ‘Grand Plan’. This was so named half tongue in cheek but also half acknowledging how hard it is to make up lost ground and / or balance priorities. I’m not sure that I have quite managed the whole ‘balance’ thing but I do feel more settled in my work again.
Looking back at what I have been doing since I last blogged I feel rather encouraged. I have updated my Axis pages! (This was one of my stated aims!) axisweb.org/artist/janeponsford
I have been to some brilliant talks at Zeitgeist Arts Projects and met or reconnected with some lovely people. I would really recommend the programme of talks and events that Rosalind Davis and Annabel Tiley run http://www.zeitgeistartsprojects.com/index.html
They are very encouraging people and very open. One of the reasons that I stopped blogging in 2009 was realising that I couldn’t write about somethings because I needed to be able to work with people even though some of the things they did were so unfair to artists. Rosalind and Annabel seem to be the opposite of that and epitomise an open rather than behind-closed-doors approach.
I have a new studio with A.S.C. http://www.ascstudios.co.uk/ in Kingston which while it’s not the centre of the artworld is very convenient and therefore gets used. I have also been out and about running quite a few art and papermaking workshops hither and yon. One of the most interesting of the year was a weekend working in and near Barnard Castle in County Durham. The organisation I worked with, Teesdale Landscape Partnership http://www.heartofteesdale.net/ were wonderful, hospitable people and the landscape in which I worked was jawdroppingly beautiful and made me long for more time to just look and respond to the particular spaces and specific materials of the place.
Which brings me on to what I have really been concentrating on which is building a proposal for a project. More of which next time.
