This is just a brief update on my recent work.
For the benefit of new readers to my blog, I like to pick things up…..
The advantage of having dogs is that I can explore places I wouldn’t go into on my own, the depths of the woods for example, or places not many other walkers have crossed for a while.
So while out one day, I came across a small piece of lino sticking out of the mud. Tugging on it, I uncovered a largish section of ornate blue and white pattern. Possibly from the 60’s by the look of it.
I wondered – ‘How many people have sat at the kitchen table, with this below them, drinking, talking…?
I tried to recreate the pattern by using tea that I myself had drunk… painstakingly laid out and dried, mixed with glue and paste to bind.
A reminder of my own thoughts…
Feel like things have been playing on fast forward lately, with preparations for our Light Night Liverpool display taking over my life.
Using ideas learnt from the Swedish exhibition – we let it flow, develop and had no real rules. Despite it feeling slightly chaotic at first, it went amazingly well.
We weren’t even 100% sure which artists would be in the exhibition, certain though that several would be put off by the ‘you have to find a space and be there to hang it yourself’ only rule. There were no free walls to fix work to, the work had to blend in with Tate Liverpool’s foyer, shop and café.
Granted there were a couple of artists who can’t break away from the ‘I paint pictures and that’s what I’m going to do regardless’ train of thought, but others were amazing – creating books, toys or part of the furnishings.
The idea then, was that the public try to find them.
The response was huge.
It was really fabulous to see so many people with their treasure maps grasped tightly in hand, searching the building looking for our work – which was in fact clearly on display but blending in so well, it was quite hard to see.
I would say that the work was looked at more in depth than it would be if it were in a ‘traditional’ exhibition. Putting photos of the work on facebook later on, received well over 500 hits. Massively different than our last ones.
Lessons truly learnt!
Image is of my work…. bit hard to hide with it being in a big case, but it was shoved behind a settee.
Other work can be seen on our facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/pages/Soup-Collective/210185756241
I actually took a notebook with me to Sweden – one of my own handmades. The intention was, that I write down notes every day, ideas, lists of names, places, filling in the pages with little drawings. Then I would transfer the information to this blog on my return.
I wrote the first page on the flight over….then I didn’t open it again :(
I know it was only a short visit, but its been hard to adjust since I got home. I went straight back to work, thinking that I would appreciate saving my leave for later in the year. Maybe I will…but it meant that I felt incredible tired for nearly a week.
It was a mix of lack of sleep over there, constant stimuli and endless talking I think. No time for an hour or so on my own, as I would have at home, to re charge.
Work, then straight into preparing for the next exhibition…
The thing that connects the two exhibitions though (the Swedish one and the LightNight Liverpool one on 15 May) is that they are/were both pop up ones. Things that I wouldn’t have considered a year ago.
Its given me the ability to scale down my work considerably and be more spontaneous. No more time consuming large scale paper installations for me (for a while anyway)
Its been good to work on new ideas. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the work has become more ‘throwaway’, but its certainly less precious.
I can’t show an image of the new work yet as it will form part of a trail that’s kind of secret. All will be revealed after Friday : http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-liverpool/special-event/lightnight-2015-tate-liverpool
