I went to a meeting last night which was organised by someone from firstsite (visual arts organisation). The aim of the meeting was to keep artists up-to-date with their plans for developing their artists’ support programme, and to invite comments and suggestions. We heard about a short-residency series in Hastings some years ago, which sounds wonderful… The artists doing these short residencies were expected to do something that would move their practice on in some way, doing something new and different. I found myself daydreaming about what I might come up with, given a few days in such a space… I had a taste of it in December when I was part of a firstsite project called ’15 artists, 15 days’ and found it really did move my practice on; that was just a single day, so imagine a series of four or five days… What would I do? This week I keep having a mental image of paintings/drawings on huge sheets of translucent paper hanging across a space, so that people move between and round them…
One of the unanticipated side-effects of doing this blog has been that I often read the other artists’ blogs too, some of which are really interesting and thought-provoking. I’ve just been reading Judith Alder’s blog this morning, and I’m reminded of how enriching it can be for me as a painter to connect with the work of artists who work in other media. Maybe one day I’ll even find myself collaborating with another artist, imagine that…
Okay, now I’ll head off to the studio to see what happened yesterday in there with ink and charcoal. It seemed to be working at the point when I left it, but looking at it with fresh eyes could be painful. Or exciting, of course – I must keep hopeful!
