We had a student text seminar yesterday where we had to bring books that have influenced us and read short texts from them, discuss why and how they were of influence.
I found this really difficult, not sure why as I read incessantly but not necessarily art related books. I had so many to choose from but wasn’t sure what was expected.
As it happens the other students didn’t use art books really either, it was more to do with their lives, mainly memories from childhood/young adulthood. Very interesting.
Mine were whittled down to three and then changed at the last minute.
I chose a poem from Trees be Company,An Anthology of Poems, A passsage from Womans World by Graham Rawle and a passage from an essay by Gregg M Horowitz in Arguing About Art;Contemporary Philosophical Debates.
The poem primarily because though I don’t really understand poetry, I read it to relax me if I feel down. This book has some beautiful poems in and I have always loved nature and though I have never been a lover of (or able to produce) landscape art, I have always loved trees. Now working at the Butterfly Park I feel like I’m working within a landscape painting and this little poetry book is apt.
A Womans World, is an amazing work of art, it’s not a bad read as a novel either but the way it is produced is fantastic. Rawle cut each and every word of the book out of 1960’s womens magazines and is visually fantastic. The patience of the man leaves me in awe. I think it was about this time I started using recycled materials and this book was a huge infulence on that.
http://www.grahamrawle.com/womansworld/index.html
The essay was the old argument about Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc but was primarily what gave me an interest in Public Art. I had read this not long before I applied for my job at Liverpool Biennial and was one of the reasons I applied. Some of the statements in the essay got me fired up enough to want to be a supporter of Public Art. Working in that field now I realise that not all public art is good public art, indeed there is some truly dreadful work out there in the Public Realm but I am still a big supporter of GOOD Public Art.
Felt pretty dire all day today, off work and had to give away my tickets to the Alphonso Lingis talk, one of the Biennial ‘Touched’ talks. I couldn’t have made it as I feel so poorly but was really looking forward to it,so I’m annoyed with myself for feeling crap!
However, I did finish writing an article for a-n on my career since graduating and what I’ve been up to so far. I did manage some reading too.
I have to read excerpts from some texts that have influenced me/my art over the years. I am having great difficulty choosing and if I am really honest, it’s not always the intellectual art books that have influenced me over the years.
Certain novels have probably had more influence on me, I’ve never claimed to be an intellectual and really enjoyed reading fiction more than fact but now I’m feeling maybe I should only put those type of texts in. I’m sorely tempted ti include some Calvin + Hobbes though as it definitely influenced my teenage years and I’m sure there is some deep philosophy in that text.
I’ve decided to set up a new blog specifically for the Butterfly Park and keep this one for the ret of my MA and any other art projects that come along.
I really want to give the park a visual web presence and so will hopefully set up a webpage, facebook fan page, maybe even start tweeting, if I can link all these into a specific blog it will be more professional than people having to also read my ramblings about the rest of my life and artworks that may be of no relevance.
So from now on there’ll be two blogs running alongside each other on here. Lets hope it works and doesn’t prove too confusing for me.
So I have spoken with the butterfly park team again and I am officially an artist in residence now. Plans are being formatted. Great news.
Busy researching at the weekend, lots of varieties of plants and butterflies.
One body of work that I will be producing might be in the form of Botanical Illustrations but etched into (found) plexiglass sheets and hung from the relevant plant that it represents or the plant that that insect pollinates/breeds etc.
I am attempting to etch the plexiglass with a dremmel tonight, fun fun fun. Not sure I want to go down the laser etched route as the Park is so ‘rustic’ for want of a better word. I feel that if it looks too neat it will react against the setting.
Met with the head of the New Ferry Regeneration Action Group (NFRAG) yesterday, they once had use of a shop in New Ferry back in 2002 he thinks and it’s still abandoned now, so this could be a good place to set up shop. I am going to go have a look tomorrow, see if I can see any to let signs for contacts. He was a helpful guy and a good contact within the community for sure. They were producing an emergency newsletter last night about the potential demolition of a local pub that has a great history. I asked for my May event to be put on the newsletter to give people a ‘save the date’ for their calendars. That goes out to the whole community so was a bit of free advertising.
Not that I want the pub demolished at all, hopefully the outcome of a petition will be really positive but thanks to the developers for helping me along my way – bizarrely.
This week should be a really interesting time.
What a month – all is taking off and it’s with a flurry of excitement that I’m writing.
I have secured a residency of sorts with the New Ferry Butterfly Park in that they are really on board and I can start work with them straight away, I’m even getting my own key to the Park to come and go as I please.
I will be curating a Temporary Art Trail of Contemporary works during the summer. I am now researching artists whose work will compliment the site to invite them to exhibit work. There’s no money involved but I’m hopeful that some will see the benefits of being able to use such an amazing space. If the work is for sale we’ll have to organise a commission fee for the Park as it’s all volunteer run and low on funds.
I’m also looking into using an empty shop in the local village to use as an artists studio/visitor centre for the Park. There is no visitor centre of any kind on site so it would be fantastic to be able to get them a space that could run artist workshops and also hold all the information people would need and then be able to direct them to the Butterfly Park when it’s open.
I have arranged meetings with Merseytravel (the site is adjacent to a railway station and indeed used to be part of the rail sidings in days gone by)I’ve also arranged a site meeting with the local Councils Lottery Programme manager.
I’m researching the history of the park for my archive work, its amazing when you start reading into its history and the old maps I’m finding are equally interesting.
What else…
Bought a very large van to go and collect my work form CoExist in Southend, the lovely Amy let me sleep in her spare room and we’ll definitely stay in touch, I’m sure there are projects in the north that I can get them involved in.
Have managed to store all my huge book tubes in The Royal Standard studio space for at least 4 months (and I’m on the waiting list for a studio – if any come up and if I can ever afford one) Its a great space though with some seriously good artists involved, fingers crossed.
The Biennial’s Wirral Project that I’m helping organise is coming along nicely, booked the amazing Birkenhead Park to have a finale community event after a week of smaller events in June. The 4 artists all seem to be on track, check out www.wirralpedia.com to see some of Jemma Egan’s work. Jemma is in local libraries over the next week gathering information.
Right…I’m off to look at more artists.
