Today I received Franny Swann’s work for our exhibition. There will be 35 additional artists to the COLONIZE NY exhibition who will all be producing A5 works ( there were meant to be 36, but with them being spread over a huge area – NY, UK and Sweden, we kind of miscounted ;-/ ) I’ve only seen a handful so far, as they still have till the beginning of March to send in the work, but so far, they’ve all been quite fabulous!
I love that when we gave the brief for the work to be a certain size and weight, the images recieved were so diverse.
It really has shamed me into thinking I must produce more work myself for the exhibition, but having the god dam time is a major problem. It’s all in my head at the moment, so as soon as the ACE application is done, I’ll get there.
Don’t even get me started about updating my website. It’s got to be six months since I last did it.
Sigh. Oh for a month off!!
I ended my morning dog walk writing a grumpy email to the local council about fly tippers. I manage to dispose of my own rubbish in the correct manner, so I don’t understand why just a minority of idiots find it so difficult. I love where I walk the dogs, it’s peaceful and countrified and volunteers have put in a huge amount of work to encourage wildlife back into the area. So it really annoys me that for the second time in a month, I’ve come across a pile of rubbish that could have easily made its way to the local tip – just one mile away!
Stupid idiots (on both occasions) have left their contact details inside too.
Anyway…. what’s this got to do with my work anyway? Well, with working in a city and in a public building 5 days a week, I need the silence, the open space and the comfort knowing that if the dogs want to run off around the fields, they are not going to come limping back because of glass cuts.
Rant over.
I posted my work to the US on Tuesday. As it was only the paper cut out flowers, it was of ‘no value’ (in terms of the customs) so I was able to send it by surface mail. I’d been asking around how long that would take and everyone seemed to be under the impression that it would be 2 – 6 weeks. So it put me in a bit of a dilemma then when the box was taken off me with the words ‘oh it’ll be a minimum of 56 days’. WHAT?? ARGH!!!
A quick check on my calendar told me that we would arrive in the US around the same time (hopefully) but if it doesn’t, I’ll have to stick a bundle of flowers in my case so that I can at least start the installation. 56 days though….. it hadn’t even occurred to me how close the trip was getting.
Had given up with the ACE funding application out of sheer frustration, but I suppose I’d better take another stab at it before it’s too late. (And while I’m in the grumpy form filling mood for the day anyway!)
So I find myself on this Sunday afternoon, sending out a reminder to 36 artists about getting their work to us for the NY exhibition.
It wasn’t on my list of things to do, but after receiving 3 emails in the week saying ‘er…what are we meant to do again?’ I thought it would be best to contact all – before they ask!
At least I had a proper day off yesterday – with just a smidgen of cutting out paper flowers (in between a long walk with the dogs and sitting in waiting for the rain and hail to go off so we could head off to see ‘Twelve years a Slave’) making me feel a bit more human and a lot less like The Bridge’s’ Saga Norén.
Although it is very tempting to instead write a review of the afore mentioned film and programme (both excellent BTW) I just need to go back to Saga mode and focus on our forthcoming exhibition.
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This morning, as it’s my day off, I sat in bed with a cup of tea and read a pile of artists talking blogs. It was good to catch up. I don’t always comment, but that doesn’t mean I don’t read posts, I just can’t always think what to say. That’s why I don’t write as often as some I suppose… I’m very much a ‘doer’ not a thinker, so I tend to get on with things and not think of writing as any kind of priority.
But for the sake of keeping a diary for myself and anyone else interested in the NY residency….
I’ve been tired when I’ve got home from work , so I’ve used this ‘opportunity’ to go back to the mindless task of cutting out the paper flowers I need for my Jamestown installation. I haven’t been counting how many I’ve done as my aim is just to fill the box so I can send it off to the US as quickly as possible so that it can be posted by the cheapest method ( which can take anything between 6 & 8 weeks)
I can’t believe how long this is taking me though – after all, it is only a small box. Maybe I’ll just half fill it? Despite how it looks, there is actually enough in there to cover a significant floor area, so I might just get away with this for now. I can stick a few more in my case if I have time to cut them out before I go, then of course there’s the opportunity to work with others over there, so they can help me. I just want to get as much of the prep work done as I can to make things easier.
Along with getting this out of the way, I want to complete the ACE application so that I can get on with other things. I’ve only done basic answers for now as I hope to go back to each one later. I’m just waiting for a letter of invitation from our hosts and then I can start pulling the whole lot together.
What else? Ah well… a little bit of a surprising turn round…. I found myself in conversation with the Art trail coordinator of the Barnaby Festival. He knew of my plight and is now looking into an alternative venue for me. Hmmmm… Interesting!
There isn’t enough time in my life……. Trying to fit in all of this admin on top of my full time job leaves no time at all for my own work. I spent a couple of hours last night making a website for the group. The old one was too time consuming to update, so I thought it would be good to change it to a blog (which is also free, so it ticks all boxes!) Obviously, I need to add more to it, but then as I said….time is a problem.
http://sciartistprojects.wordpress.com/
I’ll be adding the artists next, including the ‘new’ ones that will be taking part in our COLONIZE exhibition in NY.
Ten weeks to go…. It’s really scary how quickly the time is whizzing by now. I’m still working on the ACE application, which is pretty much my evenings taken care of. I need to get it out of the way so that I can finally continue with my own work for the exhibition.
It has been interesting filling in the form though as it has prompted discussions within the group over what we actually want to achieve when we get there. It’s far from being JUST an exhibition, as it involves so much interaction with the residents of Jamestown. Getting to the ‘Finance’ section of the form, I wonder if we can claim for payments to artists (given the ACE funding strategy – fair pay to artists etc : http://new.a-n.co.uk/news/single/ace-funding-agenda-need-for-fair-pay-for-artists-recognised )
We want this visit to be a stepping stone for other artists to go across and take part in future residencies there so it’s important that we get it right.
…and on that note… my break in work is over…
