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

Saturday 5th March

When I arrived at the studio on Saturday morning, Jeff Young (one of our artists in residence) was already there, doing a sound check with Martin Heslop.

Jeff’s residency  had him placed in a shoe repair shop across the road from the studio. Frank Cavanagh was in his 80’s but had been at the shop since he was 14yrs old. Reluctant to talk to this ‘intruder’ at first, he was a completely different person on the day – handing out autographs to the many visitors to his shop.

He’d been interviewed by BBC Radio Merseyside about his involvement in the project, so this  had brought in many ‘locals’ who would never have found out about the project through the usual channels we  had used for advertising.

A woman came to the studio who had worked there in her teens, when it was a bakery. She had bad memories, but she didn’t say why.

I walked down to visit Haleh Jameli at K & N fruit and Veg store. There was already a small crowd around her, watching her videos and snacking on the food that the shop owners had generously provided.  The videos didn’t seem out of place at all, mounted on the wall above a stack of onions and potatoes. Harold Offeh, the final artist in residence, was stocking up a basket of vegetables in the shop, having wandered up from his residency at the hairdressers a few doors down.

Christine, the All Nations Hairdressers owner, was buzzing as she styled a customers hair and chatted about Harold’s photographs on the wall. At first I didn’t notice them – I thought they were part of the usual hairdressers paraphernalia , but then I realised that one of the models in the photographs was Brigitte Jurack, fellow studio member (and owner of Alternator)  heavily glammed up by Harold’s techniques.

Walking the short distance, I passed several people clutching maps – locals who had never visited the shops, but were drawn by curiosity.

I tried to catch up with my own work in the studio, but my concentration was bad. I wanted to talk to the visitors, find out about them and also ask their opinions on the project. (My job also, was to keep tweeting! @Altstudio2   )

So many people were crossing paths and talking to others that they would never normally interact with.

Just before 6pm, when all of the shops involved had closed for the evening, Jeff and Martin began their performance in the downstairs studio – chairs crammed between Brigitte’s sculptures.  They had a large crowd.

The evening ended with bowls of soup. bread and cheese being served in the upstairs studio.  It was meant to be just for the artists and a few invited guests, but there was so much food and so many people, it was served to all. Soo many people in our studio!!!

It was such an incredible day…an amazing 4 months ! I really hope we are able to do it again.

Radio Merseyside Interview with Frank Cavanagh and Sound piece by Jeff Young / Martin Heslop   https://soundcloud.com/alan-dunn/frank-cavanagh-radio-merseyside-interview-and-jeff-young-martin-heslop-a552hex

More images on the studio facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/Alternator-Studio-and-Project-Space-at-The-Old-Bakery-741308269275460/

Images courtesy of Alan Dunn and Carol Ramsay

The last week has been crazy – especially as between preparing for the fundraising exhibition and the studio event (which I’ll go into later)  I slipped and fell flat on my face, doing my back in and creating a corker of a black eye.

So…putting the injuries aside (but needless to say, making every  task, regardless how small,  labour intensive, as my American friends would say) everything went well.

It would be too much to post about the two events in one blog, so I’ll split it – starting with the fundraiser.

To recap if you haven’t read previous posts, I was invited to exhibit at art Athena in Athens, Greece at the end of May, and I will be taking my groups SCI/Soup Collective.

The invitation came through participating in SUPERMARKET,  the Stockholm art fair a few years ago.  I have to be careful how I describe Art Athena though as it isn’t an Art fair in the commercial sense – its a platform for artists. I can only compare it to the Manchester Contemporary ( with not having visited similar ‘fairs’ in other parts of the country)  at which there is a commercial side and another side which is not – a stage as it were, for independent galleries and studios groups.

OK, so it was something I really wanted to do, but there were so many financial barriers. The first being payment for the ‘Booth’. At £280, its considerably cheaper than other events, but its still an additional payment.

Rather than ask all of the artists to contribute money, I asked them to donate a small unframed A5 artwork that would be auctioned off.  We’d been given a free gallery space from a studio group in Liverpool City centre, so 2 of us spent a day pinning the works up (probably could have done it quicker if I hadn’t been hobbling everywhere, but it was done and it looked great)

Auctions are always hit and miss and many works go for so much less than they are worth. We therefore started all bids at £10.  It was slow to start as everyone was a bit nervous, but soon got into full swing.

The atmosphere was fantastic and the bidding was quite addictive. I’d highly recommended it! The exhibition stayed open over the weekend with the remaining works staying at £10. We raised over £300, which was fantastic.

I’m going to be setting up a crowdfunding campaign this week to try to raise airfares.

I’ll post about the Studio / artist in residence weekend in my next blog…

Some links about the auction :

Images on our facebook page…. https://www.facebook.com/Soup-Collective-210185756241/

and a bit of blurb…http://culture.org.uk/2016/02/postcards-from-the-soup-collective-at-roadworks/

There will be a write up/ review  soon as well…

I’m now behind with the installation.

I had to spend a couple of evenings instead making work for our fundraising event next week. It was just two A5 works but I decided to make miniature warships on both (which reference an installation I made based on the book ‘The Cruel Sea’) and they were really fiddly.

I also seemed to spend a lot of time writing emails these last few days…

One of the main things was that I wasn’t happy with the venue I was given for my work at the Threshold Festival. It was actually a great venue – light, bright, well visited etc… but I didn’t think it was suitable for what I was doing.

I wanted a low light and a place that didn’t have people traffic coming in from all directions (one of the major problems of working with paper)

So I was shown images of another venue – which I love! Its perfect.  I’ll go to see it one night after work this week.

The other thing I like about this new venue  is that I’ll be working alongside people who I’ve heard of , but haven’t met, so it’ll give me the opportunity to speak to them in person. Both are sound artists, which is something I’ve wanted to explore, but don’t know where to start with it.

Now I’m awake ridiculously early as I have too many things going on in my head so I can’t sleep. I’ve been sent two lots of interview questions for various publications and the answers in my head are just mush.

I’m also annoyed that a guy I was working with yesterday was sneezing and coughing all over the place and now I’m afraid I’ve caught something.

I really can’t afford to go sick this week :-(

I’m trying not to think too much about everything that is going on around me at the moment.  If I think about it, I’ll start to panic, and if I do that, I’ll lose concentration and my work will start to deteriorate .

I will write about it briefly though. I find that if I start to back off into the shadows and lose myself in my work, people always assume that I’m not doing anything. I get handed responsibilities and lists of jobs and I end up doing things that I really don’t have time to do.

So this is happening…

As in my last blog, I’m preparing for the Threshold Festival. I’m making a large installation that consists of at around 1000 paper houses and branches. I worked out that if I did a minimum of 8 a day, I can just about do it (if I include ones used in an earlier installation)

8 doesn’t seem a lot when you just say it like that. But paper has to be prepared (and found!)  before I can start cutting them out. I’m doing this by getting up early, sourcing the paper, glueing it onto backing sheets and letting it dry while I go out to work. Then when I get home, I start again.

Its tedious and I’m going crazy, but so far, I’m still on target.

I try to do as much as I can on my break in work.  write emails, write plans, chase up things.

One of those things, is preparing to take part in the artists Platform at Art Athena in Athens. My work for that is sort of bottom of the list at the moment as I have to raise cash to do it first.  I’m thankful for my job, as I can take paid leave, but I still have to raise the cash for flights and accommodation. I want to do it, its important to me to do it.

Doing similar things in the past (SUPERMARKET Stockholm for example) resulted in so many connections and opportunities that are still ongoing. I’m still feeding of that, my work is evolving and the future is open to carry on connecting.

Sooo, yes, raising cash. I’m working with others on this one. A studio group in Liverpool are letting us use their space to do a fundraiser. In a nutshell, people have donated small works and we are aiming to sell as many as possible. I don’t expect to raise a huge amount, but if it will pay for the booth (£280) it’ll be worth it.    http://culture.org.uk/2016/02/postcards-from-the-soup-collective-at-roadworks/

I still haven’t done my own work for that. that’s today’s job as I am off.

Next its nearly time for the artists in residence at our studio to return and put up their work in response to their ‘placements’ in local shops. To be honest, getting any publicity for it has been a nightmare.  For some reason, despite the fact that its been funded by ACE,  that international artists have been working in ‘the sticks’ – where nothing like this has ever happened, that it will create new opportunities for more artists etc etc, it just isn’t appealing to the media.

I’ve managed to get this published, but very little else. http://culture.org.uk/2016/02/translating-the-street-alternator-studio-and-the-local-community/

I’ll have another go later…

Now though, as its my day off, I’ve been asked to mind someone’s dog for the day (as well as my own) . After all, I’ve got nothing else to do :-(

At last, I can now say that I’ll be taking part in this year’s Threshold event in Liverpool.

http://thresholdfestival.co.uk/alchemy-visual-arts/

I’ve known for a few weeks, but they asked us to keep quiet until they rolled out the publicity for it.

I’ve been itching to do a large installation for a long time now, but there just hasn’t been the opportunity or the space I need to make anything that will have an impact.

So…as this is such a rare opportunity, I’m putting an absolutely huge amount of effort into it.

After planning my design, (which is based on the theme of Alchemy) I’ve spent my time making x amount of objects each day so that I can reach the target of over 1000.

Tedious and tiring….but its got to be done!