One creative year: studio, birth and motherhood

Funilly enough I’m finding it hard finding time to blog – can’t imagine why!…

I had a great day at the foundry, being a bit of a pyromaniac I enjoyed setting light to the pan of wax more than putting out the fire :) but learnt how to hold a damp towel so my hands were protected to cover it and put it out.

I also enjoyed watching all the techniques and Ian, who I think it head of the wax department was great. He gave me another guided tour and really went into technical details, which I enjoy.

I also learnt you don’t need to use a key to put a disk on or off an angle grinder, and it is only if it really gets jammed.

Tonight I went to the degree show at the Art Academy where I sometime teach and where I did my degree. I’d spent the day in the studio with Tiny Marshall so I took him with me and wandered around with him in a baby bjorn carrier. He was very good and cooed and smilled at everyone. I thought the breadth and quality of the work was very good. And it was nice seeing lots of old friends and students.

In particular I bumped into my friend who I was sharing a studio with until the residency started in January. We were both pregnant together, and her 3rd was born about 3 week after Tiny. She is also subletting her half of the studio, also to a painter, and we both agreed how funny its been when we’ve been back to see the space we used filled with 2 painters with easles and a lot less mess than we managed.

As we were chatting Tiny M started getting fractious and hungry, so Felipe let us in to the art school office where we sat on a comfy sofa whilst I nursed him and we had a good catch up. She is busy with lots of sales and trying to do her waxes in her kitchen.

It made me realise I really need to sort out some more help so that I can start getting back into the studio full time.

I have been feeling frustrated recently that I haven’t achieved as much as I had wanted to in the first 6 months of the residency, and I need to start putting the foot down on the gas if I’m going to make the most of my time left.

I’ve been doing between 2 and 4 days a week in the studio, but not sure how productive I’ve been in that time. My aim is to be in the studio full time by september and doing good 6-7hr days of work. But the house is chaos and I get exhausted and irratable at times.

But I’m still not sure exactly what kind of help I want, and what we can afford. We talked about getting an au pair, but the house feels very small and it is very useful having the spare bedroom/spare bed to manage the sleepless nights. I’m now thinking more a home help type person as it is more keeping on top of all the laundry and cleaning and mess a family of 4 (its amazing how much mess a 3 1/2 year old can create in the time it takes to feed a 10 week old). But I’m in that catch 22 that I’m too busy to have time to sort it out – but I must…

Tiny Marshall is now 10 weeks and smilling lots, it is lovely just sitting looking into his face and making pretend conversation with him. When I’m frustrated by it all, its a guaranteed mood lifter.

Better get to bed now as its gone 12.30 and James and I are doing our first wax cast in the studio, for a mould we finished today.

On the train to foundry / leaving babies…

Visiting the pangolin foundry in stroud/chalford today to check my wax for Olympic commission and do some fire and angle grinder training. Hope not too tired for it.

I had a quiet day yesterday but have reached new depths of exhaustion and I put showergel on hair instead of shampoo. I’m being woken by both son’s at the moment as my 3 1/2 yr old (Small Marshall) has decided he doesn’t want to wear nappies at night any more, and although I ‘lift’ him (ie sit him on potty) when I go to bed, he doesn’t always make it thro night without wetting himself again. So last night I went to bed at 12.30, was woken by Small Marshal at 4, then by Tiny Marshall at 5.50 for a feed, then alarm went at 7 to finish the feed and get ready to leave the house by 7.45.

My husband has taken the day off work to look after the 2 boys, which will be nice for him to spend more time w Tiny M as I tend to monopolise his care. It was also great as I didn’t have to drop them at my mum’s before catching train.

But I did find it hard leaving Tiny M, it will be the longest i’ve been away from him yet. I left him w my mum from 10am-8pm when I was finishing a bronze at the bermondsay foundry about a month ago, but this will be aprox 8am -10pm. He is so sweet and beautiful and tiny, I just had to give him another kiss before I left.

But its nice to be out in green hilly countryside on a sunny day, and looking forward to more time at the foundry.

Back in studio with a 5 week old baby

And I feel great, really energised. I’m probaly just living on adrenalin and not sure brain fully functional but enjoying myself. I think it might be getting out the house and doing things, as have spent a lot of days recently in my pyjamas just nursing and sleeping and the many baby and mum jobs round the home.

The drive in was fairly easy, only 50 mins from my 3 year old’s nursery with the sun shining, traffic mostly clear as its half term. Although still takes a while at 9am so dread to think how long it will take next week.

So, yesterday was my first day in the studio, and James my assistant came in too. We finished the jaket on the mould of my Embriect sculpture, and I’m going to start the cast today (cold cast bronze using jesmonite). We also finished the rubber on the boys portrait commission, and I did some chasing of the bronze cast 1/16 of Nature’s Portent.

I’ve been galvanised back here as I have another exhibition opening next week: Totem Body at the Crypt st Pancras.

However, this isn’t the first time I’ve worked, I also came up to Pangolin London 3 weeks ago when Tiny Marshall was 2 weeks old, but I did find that a bit exhausting.

Yes, so on Monday 8th May, I installed ‘Emergence of Chemistry’ in the Galllery for the Women Make Sculpture Group show. It was quite a marathon. I had to wake at 7am to breast feed Tiny Marshall, then get Small Marshall ready for nursery, drop him off at 9am, then pick up my mother (who was to look after Tiny whilst I worked) and drive up to the sudio. Got here about 11 and did another breast feed. Then from 12 – 3 (w small break for a sandwich) I worked on installing the 4 hanging platonic solids before another feed, and drove home at 4. Then I did it again the next day w my dad looking after Tiny whilst I drew and wrote on the wall to complete the installation.

Anyway, its now 11am, I’ve finished feeding (typing one handed whilst BF-ing), so now need to put Tiny down to sleep and get casting.

Just over a week to go before my due date and I did 9 hours in the studio today – a bit foolish perhaps – but I had a surge of energy so I thought I would capitalise on it.

Well, I’ve been a bit quiet on the blogging as I’ve been really busy. A few weeks ago I got a call out of the blue from an art consultant telling me I’d been shortlisted for a commission by his client – a law firm. Initially my heart sank as he said the installation deadline was mid august and they were looking for a 2m sculpture – sounded a bit impossible with a baby on the way.

However, they were very interested in my ‘Dream of society as flawless as Diamond’ series, and were looking to get a large version of that.

http://www.briony.com/works/dream-II_1.html

As it is a modular work, which involves a single repeated figure, most of the work is in production, so I decided it was definitely possible and I’d always wanted to do a big version of it, so I there was no way I could say no.

I’ve been having fun designing a new work using a 3D modelling programme – Google’s Sketchup. It is free and fairly easy to use, but I have had the advantage of my younger sister’s help (she is an architect so expert at 3D visualisations).

The presentation to the selection committee is next Wednesday, so I’m now pulling together all the material for the presentation – quotes, timescales, images etc…

So – in the studio today James and I started to make the maquette of the sculpture – 1/10 size – out of brass rods soldered together. Its quite complicated and definitely a 2 person job, 1 to hold the rods at the right angle while the other solders them in place. I am so getting used to having an assistant, I’m loving it and might just have to make it a permanent way of working…

We were simultaneously also working on 2 moulds we had started on Friday. Unfortunately my pregnancy brain means I’ve done a few silly things, such as thinking I could get away with 5% catalyst in the rubber so that it would go off slowly (for the first coat), when in fact it didn’t go off at all and needed to be taken off again! I should have got some slow catalyst instead…

But it was all salvageable, just means it will take a bit longer. I’m casting a portrait of a boy (a private commission I’d agreed to before I knew I had the residency) and my first new work: Embriect. It would have been great to get it cast before my maternity leave, but it will have to be one of our first jobs when I start back.

On Friday when James and I had started the moulds, I also had the Kings Place photographer in documenting my residency. He is a really nice and interesting man and was very easy person to have in the studio. But I do wonder if it contributed slightly to my errors with the moulding.

I also had a great conversation today with a sculptor who was helping advise me on my proposal. I remembered to make the most of the RBS (Royal British Society of Sculptors) of which I’m a member and they put me in touch with him. He made me think of a few things I hadn’t considered (notably whether I should get myself VAT registered…) but also encouraged me to have confidence in myself. He had been on the selection committee for the Bronze Casting residency which I got last year, and said nice things about the way I had presented then.

Anyway, after working from 9-6 in the studio today, then an hour’s commute home, pick up my son, got him into bed (I think – although I’ve had one “mummy I hurt myself” attention call) I’m now collapsed on the sofa writing this whilst my dear husband is cooking dinner in between work calls and blackberry emails as he’s had some emergency at work as well.

All this will change when the new baby decides to come – hopefully a bit after my due date…

Month 2 of residency completed and I continue to be frustrated by my progress – however, I’ve started doing some small maquettes and today I’m going to scale one up into a decent size maquette / small sculpture.

When I say small maquettes, they are almost micro maquettes. It is a continuation of the work I was doing in Italy last year, but this time I poured molten pewter into water and got lots of interesting fragments. I’ve selected a few and just mounted them, joined a few together to create other bits, and player around with some ideas.

Two seem to be little beasts or creatures, and I’ve picked one which is about 5 cm high. It seems to be a cross between a weird tadpole and a deformed insect and is also reminiscent of early embryos. I’m not quite sure what it is about yet, but I know it has something special.

So, now I need to decide… how big shall I make it, what material, and should I try to use an internal armature or use a back iron to keep it flexible. I had a bit of a bad night last night waking twice with acid reflux (the joys of pregnancy) then again from a nightmare, before being woken by a coughing 3-year-old at 5am. Its now nearly 11am, and I’m a bit foggy, but maybe just want I need to let go of worries and just throw myself into this piece…

In other news – James my assistant is settling in, and we have nearly finished moulding and casting a commission I had to complete. It took us 3 days to make a reusable mould in rubber with a jesmonite jacket, and 2 days to make the cast (cold cast bronze), we did the squeeze (putting the 2 halves together) on Wednesday. On Monday when he’s back in, we’ll open it up to find out if it all worked ok!