My work, reasons behind it and what happens to it.

I think there are two main reasons for writing a blog… the first and most obvious is to let people know what we are doing…. but for me , I feel that it is not only cathartic, but it is a way of thinking out loud and therefore problem solving.

As soon as I’d written the blog yesterday, I knew I had to ‘colour coordinate’ the houses. It took me more hours than I care to add up , but as soon as they were neatly stacked again in their own containers, I knew it was worth the effort.

I have an assortment of boxes to use for packaging – anything ranging from shoe boxes to larger ones that were used to deliver laptops or cable TV boxes. Although I’m pleased that I do recycle as much as I can, this has caused the dilemma that some of them can contain more houses than others.

Therefore, I was able to fill ‘yellow’ boxes easily ( as I’d used shoe boxes) but found that I needed perhaps 20 more blue houses to fill that given box. This resulted in another hour or so of searching for ‘blue’ images…. For anyone not working on a repetitive theme, this probably sounds hugely anal – and I agree totally. It becomes a sort of obsessive compulsion… but while I am aware of it, I am OK ( I think)

The outcome was though, that although I had reached my absolute threshold of sanity, this pushed me to make another thirty or so objects. 30 houses = another square metre of floor space covered.

Anyway… I’ve added images to the wordpress blog and hopefully I can sign this project off today!

http://wendycwilliamsdotorg.wordpress.com/

The publicity for Light Night is now out and I’m quite pleased with the section about our exhibition : http://www.lightnightliverpool.co.uk/2012/the-spac…

I’ve spent the last few weeks being totally obsessive about the amount of houses I produce, but haven’t given a lot of thought about the layout of them. I do like the swirl pattern but I don’t think it really fits with the subject.

I took about 200 of them out of their boxes today and started playing around with different configurations. It was while I was doing this that I also thought about colour …. what if I set the houses out in colour sections?

But then I looked at the neatly packaged boxes and realised how much work it would take to unpack, sort and repack…. I just don’t physically have the time to do that. Maybe if all goes well with this exhibition, I can think about a different design for the next time it is shown?

Any suggestions welcome!

My entire non working life this week has been consumed with making paper houses. I made the unfortunate mistake one night of working on them right up to bed time, which consequently led to me tossing and turning all night while mentally cutting, folding and unfolding imaginary sheets of paper. Felt like death warmed up in work. 306 houses though, means that I can take a break for a couple of days.

I keep saying that.. and end up making just a few more so that eventually I can get a day off!

It has been a good week this week though …. my work time has been broken up by assisting on the Easter workshops at Tate. I find the difference between doing a workshop there and doing one anywhere else, is that the children and families ‘do as they are told’. I don’t know if it’s the status of the building itself, the large amount of materials or the fact that the workshops are ‘interesting’, but the time just flies by. Ha ha – that sounds bad doesn’t it? I mean, the children will follow the brief but still use their imagination. Not – do as you are told or else!

There was one workshop I did last year based on insects – we were making creatures from recycled materials. One child insisted on making a robot and no matter what I said, he was making a robot full stop.

The problem with this, is that once one child does their own thing, others follow suit and the workshop can become chaotic : (

So it’s while I am preparing for this afternoon’s session that I thought I’d jot down this blog while I’m here.

I’m hoping to chat to one of the other artists on the session today about volunteers… I believe there is a database somewhere in the area, of artists who wish to assist other artists in making work. Hmmmm… that would make my life so much easier!

Preparing for Light Night on 18 May….. More than five weeks away, but I feel quite on top of things with it all – considering I fell into this exhibition almost accidently.

I’d been discussing ideas for the Liverpool Independents Biennial with artist Jacqueline F Kerr and was at the stage when a plan was almost formulated, when I saw Light Night advertised. We had no plans to be involved and worse still – no venue. It was about 3 days before the deadline to send off information to the organisers of Light Night, for their webpage, when I said to Jackie – if we can find a venue at this short notice, should we do it?

I’d heard someone mention that they knew someone who ran the units in Albert Dock ( Liverpool) so I managed to get contact details and got in touch with them. I’d had one of these units before to set up artwork in, so I knew the ins and outs ( Rules and Regs, H & S guidelines etc) ….but I wasn’t quite prepared to be charged. The empty shop units had been used for numerous exhibitions over the years and always been free.

But now, it was all under new management ….

After much discussion ( pleading) I eventually managed to get one of the smaller ones for free, but for only a week. Was that enough time? I suppose it will have to be.

Matching my work with Jackie’s – who does architectural drawings, plans and maps, I decided to go back to an earlier project that I had abandoned.

I’d made paper houses out of discarded art magazines. I was quite happy with them, but found that they travelled really badly. With just one outing at a book fair, where I had displayed them on a table next to my books, they came back really crumbled.

They stayed in a box for a few months, until after I had set up the exhibition of my ships at the Chapel Gallery. To secure the ships to a base, I had to add a small strap under each one. This not only provided an anchor , but also gave the ships enough flexibility for me to poke a pen through the hull to reshape the ones that were slightly crushed.

This was such a simple answer, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. Instead of adding to the houses, I cut a flap through the bottom of each one. This now gives me the option to staple through the flap to the floor AND to reshape as I go.

With the ones I had to rework and the ones I have made over the weekend, I have a total of almost 200 already.

This long weekend off gives me an opportunity to combine some well deserved time off, with a more leisurely approach to my work. I don’t want another stressful month like last month, in which I had to spend almost every minute of my ‘own time’ preparing for the Chapel Gallery exhibition.

So, not only was I was able to have a guilt free day out yesterday, but I also managed to fit in an hour or two of ‘sorting out’.

I’d sent off a proposal a few weeks ago and although maybe it’s too early to get a response yet, I can’t help checking the stats on my website to see if it had any hits from the region I’d applied for. Nothing……

Surely, they’d show a little curiosity? …or do they already have someone lined up and so therefore don’t even look at all of the other proposals? It happens I know, but it’s still disappointing.

Anyway, it set me in a frame of mind to ‘clean up’ how I present my work.

It’s still early stages and I need to learn how to set out the pages… but I’ve decided to put all my paper installations together, with reasons for doing each one : http://wendycwilliamsdotorg.wordpress.com/

This is meant to work with my own webpage : www.wendycwilliams.co.uk not instead of.

That done, I can now carry on working on my next installation – to be shown as part of Liverpool’s Light Night.