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

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.

I’ve been back from Athens 6 days now but have only just got round to packing away work from  exhibitions I had in February and March.

If it had been in my studio it would have been fine, but it wasn’t – it was spread throughout the house, making my life seem even more chaotic.

It does feel good to have that day of getting organised.  One lesson I (should have) learnt this year – is to be prepared and ready. Have  works , not currently being worked on, packaged up and stored. To have tools all in their correct place (not in the kitchen drawer or under the bed ) and to have paperwork up to date. Yes, that reminds me, I haven’t touched my own web site for months. Really wish someone would do it for me :-(

Athens though…. despite the chaos of getting ready for it … (being in work up to the last minute) … was well worth the effort.  Its good to be out of your comfort zone – in a different environment. To be almost constantly with your work and answering questions about it. It really makes you think about why you’ve done something.

It was good to see so much other work too and talking to the artists about it.

I showed my ceramics , mixing them with discarded wood.  I had a lot of positive feedback  and it made me want to explore other avenues – mixing old and new materials.

Its a month till the next exhibition, which is meant to be in response to the Athens trip, but my head is still blank.  Its taken me a while to get over the trip – not just me, but the others felt the same.  I don’t know if it was the heat, or the fact that we were on the go daily from early morning to last thing at night… or maybe it was just the constant stimuli?  But we’ve all been exhausted .

I should be buzzing with ideas and enthusiasm, but I’m not and that’s worrying. Getting organised has at least made me feel like I’ve achieved something this week.  The next thing I really need to do, is fill in this request form to drop a day in work, so that I’m down to 4 days a week. I’ve had it for a month and although I desperately need more time to myself, its that fear of not having enough to live on.

Once that decision is made, I can’t go back.

Read more about the Athens trip on my other blog :

https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/connecting

There are a few reasons I haven’t updated my blog for an entire month – one, I  simply  haven’t had time and two, the cooling fan on my laptop was on the way out so I could only use it for short periods before the smell of burning abruptly ended whatever work I was doing on it.

Several times I’d be in the middle of a sentence and I had to close the lid quickly and stick it somewhere cool. On one occasion, I actually put it in the freezer.  Not sure if that was good for it or not, but by some miracle, I managed to complete the Arts Council funding application form – albeit in 8 minute bursts (you can imagine how long that took!)

I was told yesterday that my application was successful, so that was a massive relief.

As with the guidelines for funding, I will need to keep everyone updated on how I am using the money, who is involved and how it reaches the general public.  Rather than adding it all here and mixing it up with my own work, I think its best to start a fresh blog…. I’ll do that in the next few days.  In the meantime, this s what the funding is for..

https://sciartistprojects.wordpress.com/2016/04/27/sci-platforms-project-art-athina-2016/