Today I have started the process of final evaluation for the project, totting up figures etc yet enduring results of the year for me will be difficult to put into statistical form. Being able to work on a project for such a concentrated period of time has had a huge impact on my work and the way I work. It has been fantastic to be able to work without the usual constraints of space and time and I have very much enjoyed communicating my interest and enthusiasm to other people.
Coming up this month are a couple of events which relate to the project. On the 19th is a children's workshop run with Elmbridge and later in the month at the Civic Centre in Esher there is an exhibition of photographs from the year.
In theory my project has come to an end but evaluations are still to be done and some of the related work has drifted beyond the end of the residency. During February I am running an art workshop for children as part of the project and also there is an exhibition of some of the photographs of local participation and of artworks, at the Civic Centre in Esher. I am really sad to leave my wonderful studio at St George's Church although it will be good to come to some kind of conclusion about the year. I met a fellow artist a couple of days ago who asked me if it had all gone as I had planned. That, I suppose is the big question. I think that the things that one hadn't planned or anticipated are probably the things that will ultimately seem most important. Looking back over the year it is meeting people that has made the most difference to me.
Today my planning has gone awry. My son has had tonsillitis all week and I have managed to juggle things to cover my time at St George's but today I can't. I have had to put up a notice and close the exhibition for the day. Another problem with running a project as a one (wo)man band. However the cold weather has meant that there weren't streams of visitors anyway and it does mean that I will be able to catch up with my emails and starting to put together all the information for the final (dread word) evaluation.
Since the private view I have been at the exhibition space at St George's Church six days a week. Partly to make the most of the last couple of weeks 'in residence' and partly because there isn't anyone else to mind the space while the exhibition is on. Unfortunately, though the church is full of atmosphere, history and inspiring detail it is rather short on internet acess so I have found it difficult to update the blog. A recap then over the last few days; the private view went really well, lots of people came and I was very encouraged. I was also pleased with the way the last pieces of work looked in the space. One of them, the one with thousands of cast paper fragments on pins caught the light in the way I had hoped it would. You are more aware of the mass of cast shadows than the construction. However, worryingly, considering how long it took to make, I have a huge compulsion to make another one, a bigger one this time! The other new piece was an echo of my 'Storytree' series. I hung a large branch wrapped in one of the stories high in the nave of the church. I wanted to bring something from outside into the building and I was pleased with the way that the light strips of text illuminate the form. Its difficult to photograph though.
On Tuesday I had a visit from a troop of 'Rainbows' and their leaders, mums and siblings of various ages. They were a lovely lot, very interested in what it was like to be an artist and very keen on being shown everything after which we did some big drawings on the floor and some of us got very grubby indeed!
All the glitches and problems of the preceeding week resolved themselves at the eleventh hour (literally in this case as the private view started at noon!) and everything went well. Lots of people came to the opening and it was especially lovely to see people who had been involved in the project during the year.
