Keys, Object & Loss

Time runs away with you when your brain is for hire…

I can’t believe its been so many months since my last blog. I’ve been working hard on various Creative Partnerships projects, a friend of mine refers to it as renting out your brain which I think I have to agree with. It has reduced all my thinking time for my own work to near negligable amounts. Don’t get me wrong I love working in the schools with the pupils & teachers, but every penny earnt is hard work, and the weekends and evenings disapear.

Its a hard choice for artists to make, some artists I know refuse to do education work in fear that it will water down their professional practice, and there is always the fear of being ‘sucked too far in’ to the world of education. You can easily take on one project after another to discover that you haven’t been in your own studio or looked at your own work for months sometimes years. After doing 3 solid months of educational projects I can see how easily it can happen.

But all is well, I have managed to squeeze in an exhibition, the keys have moved to Manchester and the project has changed names…

The project has been renamed as Object & Loss as much of the work is about the relationship between objects and ourselves, as well as the piece being a vehicle for an exploration of loss.

400 or so keys are now hanging from the ceiling in Nexus Art Cafe, a wonderful warm supporting space, a fabulous place to exhibit, and a great place for lunch. I have loved hanging them (with wonderful help from Kirsty Lou Jones). The keys had started to turn into a homogeneous group for a while, but hanging each one brought the back the resonance of individual stories, each referencing a life once lived and a journey now past… i feel very attached to each one…

I’ve had a fabulous time at Nexus and staying in Manchester, maybe I’m enjoying the time more after spending so much time in schools away from the keys. Maybe renting out your brain gives a fresh approach when you get you it back? I’ll try and keep that in mind when I’m back in the schools next week…

Collecting More Keys

While running last night had a minor epiphany, LOCKSMITHS! surely locksmiths the people who remove locks and keys should have a supply of old ones just hanging around… its a thought…

Bright and early this morning yellow pages in one hand, tea in the other I set to work phoning all my local locksmiths. Explaining what the keys are for was fun "you want them for what love?" " art? old keys?" After some laughter, a bit of consternation, and a flea in my ear about calling emergency locksmiths with what was definitely not an emergency, I happened across a couple of very friendly helpful guys.

Apparently the problem is we're all too green these days… all old keys are recycled, as brass is worth a bit of brass. Steel keys, they are the ones sat on shelves going dusty. One lovely chap is going to collect keys for me and give me a call when he’s got a box full, and the other has 30 for me right away… Its not quite the 200 I need but its another move forward.

Keys, An Exploration Of Loss

I've been working on this piece for the last 6 months, and I seem to be thinking about it constantly.

I love the keys and their secret lost lives, in creating their narratives I feel a connection to the people who once owned them and the lives the keys once held.

After a fun and engaging experimental process its now down to the logistics;

Hanging the work

Collecting more keys

Web presence

Places to exhibit

Hanging the piece

This is the difficult bit, I need to create a ceiling system which is flexible enough to work in different spaces. After a myriad of ideas including individually attaching each key to the gallery ceiling (this would take weeks!) steel tensile wire, spokes… I consulted an engineer/design friend of mine who said “the problem is you want the bloody thing to float!” I have now decided (for the moment) on a polyurethane pegboard which unfortunately seems to be available only in the US… do I get some made? Or shipped over..? hmm..

Collecting More Keys

The joys of freecycle; Freecycle has been so good to me, I’ve advertised a few times now and received a couple of hundred keys, but I need at least that number again, so I’m going to try gum tree and the Creative Industries Network before I advertise nationally. I hoping to discover that people have been hording keys and are desperate to give them away… one can only hope…

Web site I've just applied for funding, fingers crossed…

Exhibition talks are going well, a few galleries are interested I’ve said it will be finished for summer, so here goes…