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

Yesterday, I received the most bizarre ‘Rejection’ I have ever had.   I have received rejections before (many) but most were because my work didn’t fit with the current exhibition or they just didn’t like it.  Fair enough. It happens.

This one though…  hmmmm

If they’d just said that my work was rejected, end of. I could walk away. But to read this AND see many artists posting on social media that they had been accepted THREE WEEKS before the deadline, makes me think that my work wasn’t even looked at :-(

Read it and let me know what you think  (copied and pasted exactly as in appeared in my inbox – including all of the annoying â€“ ‘s !!)

Bear in mind that I applied within a few days of the deadline and I did not actually receive a reject as stated in the email below.

Hi,

I am writing to all of those who submitted an entry for the 2015 Book Prize and were not accepted for the exhibition to explain a little bit about the process from our point of view.

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone for their interest and for taking time to make a submission – again, we were overwhelmed this year by the response and quality of entries.

As many of you will know, the 2013 Prize was a huge success – we exhibited over 450 books, featuring them all in the catalogue – but ultimately the exhibition was too large and the whole event put a tremendous strain on all concerned. So we conducted lengthy research process before deciding upon changes for 2015 and also adopted a bit of a wait and see attitude to entries this year as we were not sure how the changes would affect numbers.

In the end, we had nearly 400 entries. So, in the interests of properly hosting the event, we have decided to restrict the exhibition to around 200 books. This is still a very large exhibition! Unfortunately, more than half of the entries arrived in the last two weeks and this caused us a further problem. Had we left the decision on which books to accept until June then we would still have been reviewing entries in July! Effectively, this meant that we accepted up to two thirds of the books entered in the first two months. We did not decline books but left the rest pending to see how many entries came in. As entries grew in the final two weeks we realized that we could only accept a few more. At that stage, only the books that really stood out for whatever reason were accepted. Of the 200 entries then left we could then only accept about 40 – and the process became quite arbitrary.

So next, we started to decline entries. Firstly, those that were not books. Secondly, where the rules were not adhered to – books made before 2013 or multiple entries from the same artist. Next, where we had insufficient to judge – only one photo, no photos of contents, photos too dark or no description. Next, we tried to accept at least one entry from all countries, so preference was given to some books for this reason. We also discounted the larger entries because they would be harder to show. In this way, accepting and rejecting entries eventually left about 40 books – which were rejected simply because we had no space left.

Was I happy with this process? Personally, no. One of the key features of the Book Prize has always been to be open and available to all. So, for me personally, it was a great shame to have to select books in this way. In retrospect, maybe we should have opened entries in January until April and then had May to select. But it is easy to be wise in hindsight. Equally, it would be better if artists entered earlier where possible and did not leaving submissions until the last minute – most of the books entered were not made in 2015.

I hope all of those who entered will consider entering again if we run the Prize in 2017 – we will try to improve the process again next time around.

We will also try to organize an exhibition of some of those books rejected, particularly the larger entries, at a later date this year or early next year, so may get back to some of those who entered.

We also have a huge programme of book related activities, which offer many more opportunities for book artists in 2015 and we hope to build on this next time around. You can see the programme developing at – openingupthebook.com

Finally, can I apologise for the length of this email – I have tried to offer some explanation with respect to the process. You will appreciate that we cannot respond individually.

Thank you again for entering and for your understanding. The Book Prize has been a privilege to be involved with over the years and I am sorry whenever it falls short of expectations.

Best Regards,

John Clark

The best exhibitions I’ve been in over the last few years, are ones that have emerged sort of organically. You meet someone, work together and then suddenly a collaboration is born.

This is how I’ve found myself preparing to exhibit in Sheffield in a couple of weeks. A place I’ve never been to, I’m ashamed to say, even though it’s only about 60 miles away.

The theme of Flux was bounced around, which didn’t really fit with my recent Tea work…  though actually, thinking about it now, the tea I’ve been using has considerably changed, morphed, moved on, whatever you want to call it…  hmmm…

It’s that sort of feeling you get when a theme is thrown at you but you have no time at all to actually just sit, think and work things out – damn you paid work, taking up all of my time and energy !!

But then, it was good to reach back to the safety of older ideas and re work them to fit. Also, I had to think about transporting the work again, so the tea would have been too fragile.

So digressing apart, I took the theme literally and made a little paper truck, filled with map aeroplanes. A mixture of past ideas.

Castlegate Festival has also decided to run a ‘Find a mouse’ trail and my initial thoughts were ‘I am absolutely not doing that!!’ but then you think ‘Oh whatever…sometimes doing something completely different throws out new ideas’. 

… so I found myself making a papier mache mouse. Ho hum.

Collaborating with Soup Collective and Exchange Place studios , I’ll be part of Castlegate Festival Sheffield from 19 June.

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