I’m facing the awkward dilemma at the moment, of having to vandalise someone else’s work.
For an exhibition in September, I was going to continue experimenting with ceramics and clay polymer, to create a work with a Greek Theme (in response to our time in Athens)
So yes, as what tends to happen…. I talk to someone about an idea, then an idea comes to them, they talk to someone else…..and then suddenly we all find ourselves collaborating without intending to.
To cut a really long story short, Instead of making my own work, I’ve been given a ceramic object made by someone else (unknown as it happens) and I have to adapt it .
I’ve been staring at it for days now thinking that the only way I can put my own mark on it, is to smash it and then rearrange it. That is going to be so difficult!
Think I’m going to have to stop thinking so much about it and just do it … ….
(I’ll go more into the background of the exhibition in my other blog https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/connecting )
I’m currently in love with Betty Woodman …. an artist I had never even heard of until two months ago, when I went to a briefing about the work that will be shown in the Liverpool Biennial.
http://www.biennial.com/2016/exhibition/artists/betty-woodman
My own feeble attempts to combine ceramics with other mediums paled into insignificance when I saw her work.
I went out to see a few pieces in real life when the Biennial opened – the fountain shown in the images and the large mural at Tate Liverpool. Both quite spectacular. Her work really made me want to experiment further.
She has work in many venues around the city, which is quite unusual for the Biennial. I’ll try to get out to see a couple more in the next few weeks.
I have a few ceramic / mixed media works in our Biennial fringe exhibition Moirai (see image below) But they are quite small. I think when I get some time off at the end of August, I’ll experiment with larger works in the studio.
I know this may seem a massive departure from my paper installations, but they are quite similar materials to work from. You knead and shape both to get the desired effect.
I also think its healthier to break away from your normal work for a while. It gives your brain a rest and helps get ideas flowing.
Even though the Biennial is on for 14 weeks, I never do get to see all of it. I’ve seen 6 sites over the last week and that has completely drained me. I know some people who have ‘Biennial days’, but that is incredibly hard to do. You start to feel angry and frustrated after a few hours as you just can’t absorb that much art.
I’ll try again in a week or two….
My Dog ate one of my works yesterday.
Today, that sounds slightly funny, but yesterday I was mortified.
This is the trouble with working at home …. having to deal with everything associated with it. I do have a studio – quite a good one actually, . but with working all week, I needed to catch up with the things in the home that I’d let slide.
So this is what happened…. I’d got up, walked the dogs, prepared my work ( a collage ) and left it on the kitchen table so that i could keep going back to it while I did other things.
I did a pile of washing, ate a yogurt, cut the grass, hoovered up…. I mentioned the yogurt because it isn’t unusual for the dogs to help themselves to things lying in the sink (such as an empty yogurt pot) so when I saw one of them chewing something in his bed, I assumed it was the pot.
Wrong.
I was just so fed up yesterday… I need a break, I need to go to the studio I need not to have things mounting up around me… and I need not to have to install an exhibition in 4 days :-(.
This, fortunately, was not the work that was eaten. I’d been experimenting with clay polymer that can be ‘cooked’ in the microwave, as I wanted to explore ceramics further, but didn’t want to waste time making and waiting for it to be fired. This way, I can try lots of ideas cheaply and quickly, before going back to clay for the finished pieces.
