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

As I took down my 2015 wall planner this morning, ready to replace it with the new one,  I stopped for a minute to look at some of the highlights of last year ….

April: Exhibition in Sweden followed by a trip to Stockholm

May. Light Night at Tate Liverpool.  This is where we changed our ways of thinking on engaging with the public with the work.

June. Exhibiting in Sheffield. A really nice overnight stay and catching up with old friends,

July.  Exhibiting in London .. attending PV and also seeing  some great shows in the City.

August. A work trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. A first for me.

September. Curating a book exhibition at The Williamson Art Gallery – using lessons learnt during Light Night in May.

October. A trip to Leeds to see the British Art Show

November. A trip to Manchester to see the art Gallery (and the Christmas Market!)   Also having the first of the artists arriving for the Residency programme at the studio.

December. Christmas nights out. Several…and a review of the residency programme so far: http://www.artinliverpool.com/feature-translating-the-street-interview-with-the-artists/

It was a good year, though incredibly tiring.  Its only when you stop for a minute and look back over the year, you realise how many good things there were.

I can only hope that this year will be as fulfilling .

Last night, while we were at our work Christmas meal, I checked twitter to see if the Turner Prize winner had been announced.

Seeing that it had and informing the others, there was a whoop of joy and a shout of ‘WE WON!!!’, causing the other diners in the restaurant to stare at us.

Of course, we personally hadn’t won – but it felt like it. A few of our friends and work colleagues had answered the call out in summer, for artists and people with skills who had connections with Granby street in Liverpool, to work with Assemble.

Two of them had travelled up to Glasgow yesterday to  attend the ceremony at Tramway.

So , well actually Yes – it felt like WE won. We feel part of that community and are hugely proud of the achievement.

Last week, four of us went up to check out the exhibition space at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool, to work out where all of our work can be placed.

The exhibition starts on 12th January, but we’d booked it way back at the beginning of summer – and then it was only through a tip off of a gap in the programme from someone who works there.

It really is good to start off the New Year with an exhibition – otherwise, I always go into that panic mode of OMG, I haven’t planned anything (which is silly really as I thought that at the beginning of this year, but things just fell into place- as they (nearly) always do )

Of course, it isn’t important to keep exhibiting, but for me personally, it puts me in the right frame of mind for the rest of the year – I can see a body of work in a different setting, so I can visualise which direction to move on to.

This one does cause a few problems for me though… because as I’m taking time off (unpaid leave) from mid January, my work rota is pretty much set before then.  I can’t be there to install…and I can’t do the private view . If it was a solo exhibition, that would be a disaster, but as its a group, I’ll have to rely on the others.

The space was smaller than I’d first thought, so I’ve completely changed my mind over what to show. It was going to be a series of framed works (my new ceramic pieces) but instead, I’ll work with the quirkiness of the building – the odd little gaps and ledges, where I can install small installations.

I think this will alleviate some of the install problems too – I don’t have to compete for wall space with the others, so I can just go in one evening and put my work in away from the actual install day.

So much to think about before then…  but as always, I’ve made a list so that I can prioritise. (Should it worry me that my own work appears well below cleaning the house, getting the Christmas decorations up, and making a start in writing the cards on the list ?? :-( )

Its the first of the work Christmas nights out tonight, so it’ll be good to switch off for a bit :-)

I feel like my mind is working like one of those films that don’t start in the beginning…or the end… or the middle really. Just snippets are put together in the hope of it all making sense.

The last three weeks have just been crazy – I can’t even think of any other words to describe it.

To try to remember it all, I’ll run it backwards…

Haleh Jameli, the artist in residence for the ‘Translating the street’ project at the studio, left yesterday. She stayed at my house for the week.

Born and raised in Iran, she had been living in Scotland for a few years before moving down to Sheffield.  Although it was important that a Farsi speaking artist such as Haleh, could converse with the shop owners, the ACE funding we received, would not stretch to overseas travel.

It worked out really well. Haleh went to the Grocers daily, to document and record conversations – some of which of which she would relate back to me in the evenings.

I learnt so much myself from the project….about daily life in Iran for instance, even though I was really only a bystander.

By working six days last week and taking just one day leave this week,  I was able to spend a few days in the studio with her and also have the freedom to get out and about. My short working week though was still tiring as I was asked to prepare for a Matisse talk (which I will give tomorrow) I just couldn’t get my head into that study type of mind set though with so much going on around me.

My day off today was spent running through the talk again (in my head) while trying to get through things I’d put aside  -like getting through the mountain of washing that I couldn’t tackle in the week while I had a visitor.

I still haven’t posted the work back to everyone from the ‘Doesn’t look like a book’ exhibition at The Williamson that ended a couple of weeks ago. Its now mostly packaged up and all of the artists have been contacted to say that the work will be with them shortly…  that’s all I could manage.

Before Haleh came, I had a day out to Manchester with my friend. I hadn’t been there for absolutely  ages. As well as the Christmas markets, which were fun (but way to early to celebrate Christmas!) we went to the Manchester art Gallery. What an amazing building! I just loved the glass atrium, with its Anthony Gormley figure dangling precariously overhead.

While there, I also wanted to check out the Portico Library, as they had been advertising for artists to exhibit.  The library was beautiful, smelt of burnt wood for some reason and the guy showing us around was super friendly.

I was disappointed then on getting an email after I’d applied to say that they had received hundreds of applications. I was also a little surprised and wondered how many artists had actually checked it out before applying?  It wasn’t a ‘no’ though, but now I’m wondering if it was really what I wanted anyway?

This is the problem. Too many artists…hardly any opportunities.

The rest of time preceding this is a bit of a blur. I’ve worked, I’ve had a bad cold, I’ve been sorting work for a small group exhibition in a Theatre in January…..and I’ve been tired. Very tired.

Images from the ‘Translating the Street’ project can be found on the studio facebook page : Alternator Studio

I’ve finally made a start in sorting out my spare room ready for the artist to stay. (one of the 3 that will be resident in the studio soon – http://www.artinliverpool.com/international-artists-to-translate-the-street-for-alternator-studio/  )

I do have quite a small house, so this ‘spare room’ if you can call it that, is very much used for everything – it has a bed in it for  any visitors, it’s an extra studio cum storage space for my work, its somewhere to dump my washing,  and its also an extra space for the dogs (better not mention that bit to the artist I suppose)

It was while condensing boxes and boxes of my paper installations into less boxes, I discovered older works that I hadn’t thought about for a while.  It was such a thrill taking them out and reminding myself how I had made them – but also reminding myself of the endless, tedious months of sitting and cutting and glueing and the very reason I took a break from making them.  I realised though, how much I wanted to work on them again.

Stashed at the bottom of the boxes were two hard copies of a-n from 2011. I flicked through them again and I remembered how much I used to enjoy sitting down to read them, as I don’t read so much online now.

Budget cuts I suppose…

I took down the book exhibition at the Williamson Art Gallery on Friday – 5 days after it officially finished. I have to work round my days off.

Its always sad taking down an exhibition, but this one had gone really well. I hope all of the artists were as pleased with it as I was . I’ve got into the habit now of getting a review of the exhibition published as it always draws people to the website. Its had loads of hits and is still continuing to do so after the exhibition  https://sciartistprojects.wordpress.com/2015/10/28/doesnt-look-like-a-book/

I haven’t had time to send all of the work back to the artists yet – I need a full day to package everything . It’s on my very long ‘to do’ list though.

What else? Oh yes, I went to pick up my ceramic works, which had now been glazed and fired for the 2nd time. I can’t begin to explain how excited and thrilled I was to see them . I expected them to have exploded or at least cracked in the kiln (me being such a novice at it and all that) but they were perfect.

I didn’t enjoy the process so much at the time because I felt it was all out of my control. I’m used to planning a design and having a rough idea how it should look when finished, so this was uncomfortable for me having to ask what to do next all of the time.

I know now though, so I think I will pursue it further :-)