Keeping It Going

Today’s been a typical Bank Holiday Monday weather-wise, with continuous rain falling pretty much all day. I postponed plans to do some gardening and instead, focused on my creative work – and specifically, this blog.

It’s great to have over ten years of blog posts to reflect on, seeking out consistency and regularity in terms of the various themes in my work and stumbling across posts that still resonate after many years.

I’m reposting a blog entry I came across this morning – one from 2014, which after 10 years, resonates strongly still and sums up so much of my recent thinking: the passing of time, ageing and the changes, both physically and mentally, we go through as we become older. This potentially – perhaps, inevitably – has an impact on the work we make. It feels significant that the blog post in question, was written on the eve of my birthday, exactly 10 years ago, when I was in my 50s. A decade on and issues raised then are just as relevant today, if not more so:

April 11th 2014:

There’s a strong parallel between the ageing process I wrote about in my last post and these past few days’ ongoing finds in the boxes. It’s all about history and the passing of time; so much personal history and by association, so much political, social and cultural comment contained within the objects I’m bringing out of storage.

It’s over twenty years since a lot of them were packed away; life has moved on in all sorts of ways and I have changed. How relevant are these things to me? Here, right now, in the present? How much am I able to let go?

I wrote about the items of clothing and assorted accessories in my last post – those which, in all senses of the word, just don’t fit any more. Did I really have such a small waist! Did my feet really fit into those 1950s suede stilettos? Hard answers to come to terms with in many ways, and in any case, any amount of acceptance doesn’t necessarily make things more palatable.

The items in storage have become representative of the ageing process – they’ve aged and so have I, as well as the people around me – it’s an inevitable (but not necessarily welcomed) fact of life. And there’s that fine line again – between life and death and the fragility of human existence. Loved ones might die and yet, their clothing and personal effects still remain.

Similar feelings are stirred up by a lot of the other items making up my collections – books, photos, ceramics, letters and all their associative memories. It’s the objects as emotional containers that interests me most. After all, it’s the emotional attachment I’ve formed with the collections that’s responsible for them still being around me. Something drove me to keep certain things, just as something is telling me that now is the right time to detach myself from a lot of them – to shed some of the past, to retain the very ‘best’ of what I own and consequently, to lighten the load – to focus instead on the present and the future.

But not without some careful consideration – it’s much harder, emotionally to part with things than it appears on the surface. William Morris said :

‘Have nothing (in your house) that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.’

It’s a tall order, especially if you’re prone to seeing beauty in just about everything – and the more broken, weathered and beaten up, the greater the appeal for me.

Since the frenetic sorting of the past few weeks has calmed down, I’ve had time and space to think about the very act of collecting – what it’s meant to me over the years and what it means now. One of the positive aspects of ageing is that sense of ‘knowing’ yourself – I don’t feel I need the paraphernalia around me to define who I am as I did in my student days, for example – the CND and feminist posters that let people know which side I was on as soon as they walked into my home. I’ve experienced moments of real excitement, reacquainting myself with blasts from the past, to moments of sadness about the fast pace at which life is passing me by.

My collections define me in terms of my age and my place in the world – you have to be a certain age for Sandy (in his wheelchair) David (in his cravat) and Benny in his hat to mean anything to you. Re-finding The Crossroads Motel jigsaw puzzle is a good example of finding something that excites, amuses and brings memories of my teenage/student years flooding back. But it also raises the question of what to do with a lot of these re-found items. Yes, the puzzle depicting all the Motel’s best-loved characters is amusing – it’s retro and it’s probably quite unique. But it’s also a classic example of something I really don’t know what to do with. Maybe that’s the title of my next piece of work: ‘Things I Really Don’t Know What To Do With.’

 

 

 

 

Curtsying out of 2023 into a New Year …

 

I updated my website yesterday, on the last day of 2023. There’s still a bit to add, but it feels positive to have started the new year with at least some of the updates in place. It always feels good to get my work out of the studio and visible in the outside world, especially to new places for me this year – in the Channel Islands at ArtHouse, Jersey and in Athens, Greece via the brilliant H-M-S Projects. I’m grateful for the opportunities that have come my way this year, thanks particularly to hardworking curators/producers Rosalind Davis, Laura Hudson and Luke Merryweather.

I made a new piece of work for the group show in Athens but otherwise, ‘Sweet Nothings’ and 10×10 were work from the past Here’s a link to the NEWS page on my website if you’re interested in reading more about where the work’s been shown in 2023:

www.katemurdochartist.com/news

I’ve managed to hang onto my Creekside, Deptford studio for now, but moving – or rather, being forced out – is still on the horizon. I’ve spent a lot of time fantasising about there being some sort of glitch in the planning process that throws up a clause, stipulating that the 70 or so artists involved in this latest cull are allowed to stay there. It’s highly unlikely that this will happen, of course, and so March looks set to see us moving on – hopefully to another space in the local area.

There’s no doubt that the ongoing uncertainty has been disruptive and affected my work output. But my resolution for 2024, though very hard to do, is to be more accepting of what’s on the cards. That said, this will be the third time that I’ve been forced to make a studio move because of property developers taking over prime locations in the Deptford/New Cross area in SE London. It’s an absolute travesty that the current building, a beautiful Art Deco building housing some 70+ artists, is to be reduced to rubble to make way for yet another block of soulless, high priced flats. But there we have it – there’s little any of us can do to prevent this happening. For now, it’s a waiting game – hoping that the promise of alternative accommodation will come through for us and we can regroup as a community of artists. Another regular fantasy of mine is to imagine having a studio space on a permanent/for life basis. Imagine just how brilliant that would be!

I’ve been acutely aware for some time that the ‘latest’ page on my website has been in need of an update. My blog posts had slowly started to take over the task of updating any news and I suppose I felt I was keeping the communication going through them. But I don’t post on my blog as much as I used to, so there have been a few gaps for quite a while with regards to what I’ve been up to. Admin, whether it’s art or life, has never been my favourite thing but I know that maintaining an active, up to date website is an important part of being an artist. It’s bothered me that mine has been neglected for so long and so, I’m now on a mission to address the issue – get my entire website up to date and then try and discipline myself to do so on a regular basis.

Today, I’ve finally started the process of updating the long neglected ‘latest’ page. It includes an image of my studio by painter, Graham Crowley. It’s one of three versions he painted as part of his Workshops series. I was delighted to be contacted by Graham a while back, letting me know that he’d painted them and that the yellow version was to be included in his solo exhibition, ‘Workshops’ held over the summer of 2022 at The Printroom in Sweffling, Suffolk.

​Kate Murdoch’s Studio, Graham Crowley

 

Like so many of Graham’s paintings, I could look at them forever – the attention to detail and the amazing way in which Graham manages to capture light in his paintings is mesmerising. I am so pleased to have such a personal record of a studio space from the past and am both delighted and flattered that it became one of the work spaces Graham chose to paint. Subsequently, Graham’s painting ‘Light Industry’ has been awarded the John Moores Painting Prize (2023). To quote Graham: ‘I have entered at least 16 times, been selected 10 times and shortlisted for the first prize three times.’

I guess the lesson is – keep going!

To see more of Graham’s work visit his website here:

​www.grahamcrowley.co.uk

The very act of bartering adds an emotional reality to the process of exchange that currency somehow lacks: ‘What is an object worth to you? How much do you want it and what are you prepared to give in return?’ is one of the questions I asked at the very start of introducing 10×10.

The concept of exchange was particularly pertinent in the year 10×10 was launched: 2008 is a year synonymous with one of the biggest financial crises in global history. In the wake of a monumental financial crash, with top banks & financial companies folding, I posed another question: how long would it be until people resorted to bartering?

Yesterday, October 10th, 2023, marked 15 years since I first brought 100 objects for exchange to the Deptford X festival, responding to the year’s call for artists to make work answering to the theme of barter and trade. On the 10th day of the 10th month from 10am to 10pm, I gave up 100 objects which were precious to me and invited people to take one, leaving an object of their own in exchange. For purity’s sake, I wish it had been 2010 but there we have it – I’d been waiting long enough as it was to make work expressing my fascination with the pack rat, a small, North American mammal, renowned for taking things but leaving something in its place.

And so, 2008 was the year 10×10 began, a year in which my twin sons turned 10 and my Nana, the grand age of 100. Fifteen years on, with numerous objects exchanged, it returned, this time as part of a second Deptford X arts festival fringe event – to the exact same place it started, at ArtHub Gallery, London.

Throughout the past fifteen years I’ve taken the 10×10 cabinet to a number of venues, including Lewisham College, Herne Bay and Whitstable museums, the Stade Hall in Hastings and the Firstsite gallery in Colchester. Participants were asked to share the stories behind the objects they left behind if they wanted to, but there was no obligation to do so. I’ve collected some amazing stories associated with some of the exchanged items over the past few years. My long term aim is to collate these stories in some sort of publication. I had an interesting conversation with a visitor/artist while chatting with her about 10×10. She talked about the beauty of zines for pulling together information – a cheaper, more funky way of relating the numerous stories, perhaps – definitely food for thought for the future. Thanks, Eldi, for a stimulating conversation.

10×10 is about letting go and exploring the powerful associations that we sometimes project onto objects and the emotional attachments we make to them. It is also about human nature and our response to being challenged away from a monetary system to one of exchange and barter.

‘Would it be people’s generosity or meanness that triumphed when it came to the value of the objects that were bartered? Would the piece be ‘worth more’ at the end of the process?’

It always feels like a risk, opening up the cabinet and relying on people to interact. What if nobody comes, nobody shows up? As it turned out, I couldn’t have wished for more during the two week run of this year’s Deptford X arts festival. It was great for 10×10 to be part of an ArtHub members group show, ‘Is This It …’ as it kept a steady flow of visitors coming through the door. I had some really good interactions with people who visited and felt heartened by their interest and, as has always been the case, people continued to interact in such caring and thoughtful ways.

I had some of the best conversations with people throughout the two weeks as well – curious about the story behind this large cabinet with its bizarre assortments of objects, displayed in the gallery – an alligator’s head, a beautifully embroidered table napkin, a broken pen, a paper hat, a squashed Tunnocks teacake in its distinctive foil wrapper – just a taste of the diverse range of objects left behind.

Such conversations about so many of the objects and their associated stories has left me feeling rejuvenated and uplifted – two people who’d been at the first launch of 10×10 were there on the first night of this year’s Deptford X, plus artist friend, Elena Thomas who has always been a big supporter of the project visited, to help and be a part of it. Another visitor who’d also been at the very first launch of 10×10 in 2008 visited towards the end of the show’s run and exchanged the very last of the original 100 objects – a ceramic pomander, decorated with heather and tartan ribbon. I’ve had my eye on that object for some time, wondering when the day would come when it would be exchanged. It was exciting to see it finally happen on the very last day of the Festival and called to mind an earlier conversation I’d had with Elena during her visit – about the 15 year run of 10×10 and my thoughts around when (if ever) I might bring the project to a close. ‘Perhaps once the final one of the original objects has been exchanged?‘ was a question Elena asked.

Just as I had no idea how 10×10 would turn out when I started the project fifteen years ago, so I have no idea when or how I might bring it to an end – or indeed, if I want to, even. I currently have enough room to store it in my studio and I’ve just this week packed it away again. Who knows what will happen/where it might go/whether Deptford X 2023 will prove to be its last outing and so on. What I do know, however, is that it was a complete joy to be back at ArtHub London gallery at the end of September/start of October – right back to where the 10×10 journey began, presenting the cabinet and all its objects for the first time in eight years.

It’s reminded me of the importance of connecting with others and how those connections have come to be an integral part of my creative practice. I’ve said it before about 10×10 – quoted my Italian friend, Gigi, who when I told him about my project, said it would be ‘a comment on humanity.’ And I’ve said this before, too: if, as Gigi says, it is a comment on humanity, then humanity has come out of it very well indeed. At the time of writing, it feels like the perfect antidote to the most recent atrocities taking place throughout the world.

Thank you to curator, Luke Merryweather for the installation of the cabinet, to Deptford X for including 10×10 as part of its fringe events and to the all the people who came along to the gallery – for your interest, your participation and for the many fascinating conversations.

In 2010, Lewisham College media students made a short film about 10×10. You can find the link here if you’re interested in finding out more about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO7c5aUUiwc

‘The emotional attachment we make to any given object can determine its worth in emotional terms as opposed to its monetary value.’      Kate Murdoch, 2008

Getting prepared to bring 10×10 out into the world again has called to mind various articles I’ve written about objects over the years, and specifically, in this instance, in relation to value and worth.

‘Here Today…’ Kate Murdoch  

The title was: ‘Dead or Alive; the permanence of objects versus the fragility of human existence.’  It’s a piece of writing that I often refer to, memories of my late father and the chair that survived him being particularly poignant.  This is what I wrote in 2019:

 

One silver and turquoise Art Deco hand mirror, one blue velour Parker Knoll armchair: two random items, both of use to their owners, but of no particular significance – until you’re made aware of the history and narrative associated with them, that is.

The art work I make is often motivated by my connection and close relations with family. ‘Here Today…’  was created through assembling pieces from my late Nana’s more personal, intimate possessions and placing them on a bedside cabinet; a hand mirror, a vintage silk flower and palettes of used make up – items that she had handled and used over and over; old, well-worn objects, still in existence and now, with an even greater emotional charge, having survived my Nana by some years.

Likewise, with my late father and the continued presence of a favourite seat. How was it that my Dad’s blue armchair stood so resolutely in the living room of my parents’ home on the day of his funeral, begging the question: if the chair could survive, then why on earth couldn’t he?

Themes of loss and remembrance are present in a lot of the work I make and reflect my fascination with the permanence of objects versus the fragility of human existence – crucially, how things outlive people. The histories associated with everyday objects give the work its meaning, not solely for me, but for an audience for whom some objects will inevitably resonate.

A lot has been written on the subject of the emotional attachments made to many of the everyday things that surround us, and none more powerfully than Sylvia Plath who captured her love for objects in many of her poems, ‘Tale of a Tub’ and ‘Black Rook in Rainy Weather’ being examples.

Tisha Nemeth-Loomis in her research paper ‘Plath’s Possession Aesthetics: Visual and Object Libido’ wrote:

‘Plath employed a visual exactitude which indicated surprising states of perceptual awareness; it filled her poems and objects with curiosity and dimension. When engaged in these states of visual connection, it is possible that Plath attempted to integrate herself with images and objects. For Plath, objects surpassed the mundane; they were unique, enviable entities.’

And her late husband, Ted Hughes, noted Plath’s psychological investment in the everyday object:

‘This genius for love she certainly had, and not in the abstract. She didn’t quite know how to manage it; it possessed her. It fastened her to cups, plants, creatures, vistas, people in a steady ecstasy. As much of all that she could, she hoarded into her poems.’ (quoted in Holbrook 279)

From a completely different literary genre, I found this piece of writing by romantic novelist Erica James. In this extract from her novel ‘Precious Time’, James describes the thoughts of a character who runs a house clearance firm …

‘It was the bedside tables that invariably got to him. It was in those little drawers that, often, the most personal and poignant objects had been kept, and which gave the deepest insight into that person’s habits and thoughts. Today’s bedside table had revealed the usual old tubes of ointment, packets of indigestion tablets, buttons, rusting safety-pins, bent hairpins, and a string of cheap gaudy beads. There was a tiny-faced watch that didn’t work, a money-off washing powder voucher (dated October 1988), a pair of tweezers, a throat lozenge that had oozed a sticky trail across an envelope of black and white holiday snaps, a crumbling bath cube that had lost its scent, and a small trinket box containing a collection of Christmas cracker jokes, unused party hats, two plastic whistles and a key-ring. There was also a small Bible, its pages thickened with use.’ 

 

It’s difficult sometimes to find the words to convey the true, agonising sense of loss and the very powerful emotions that we project onto objects that are left behind. Items presented as objects of remembrance and associated with the dead, are imbued with deep sentiment and emotion.

The hand mirror bears the physical marks of a well-used object, the metal and patina worn and eroded by my Nana’s endless handling of it. My Dad’s empty, unoccupied armchair, following his death, came to symbolise his absence, heart-wrenchingly so, for those of us who loved him so dearly – his revered place within the family unit and the actual physical space he once occupied. How on earth can we ever find it in ourselves to part with such precious items?

The reality is, of course, that we can’t keep everything and for practical reasons, some things in our lives just have to go. House moves, house clearances, downsizing, relationship break-ups and other life-changing events inevitably lead to a serious rethink and overhaul about what we can and can’t keep.

William Morris stated that we should have nothing in our houses that we did not ‘know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.’ While I understand this sentiment, I know that peoples’ homes sometimes also contain things they positively hate but find hard to throw away – unwanted gifts from long deceased relatives, for example – the hideous ceramic owl inherited from Auntie Elsie who loved it and thought you would, too.

There’s no doubt that the bonds we form with certain objects are stronger than others and that our decision making about what we keep in our homes is often determined by the depth and strength of the emotional attachments we make to them. As time passes, these objects get handed down through the generations; their condition might become more battered and fragile, but their significance and sentimental value continues to grow – living on, immortal and becoming increasingly robust as they accumulate and carry with them, layer upon layer of their ancestors’ histories and narratives.

Kate Murdoch 2019