Project Me

I remain convinced that I think differently under a white ceiling … or between white walls. No matter, I enjoy the feeling of light and space – no doubt enhanced by the generous distance between the studio window and the now abundantly leaved trees that turned a brilliant green over night.

Yesterday I played with the shirt collars that partner the cuffs that I had fun with last week. Again simply cleaning up the cut edge, buttoning them together, and hanging up on the wall. The collars bear the traces of their being neatly but tightly packed: a few are heavily creased others just a bit wrinkly. The shape of the collar pieces produces a more angular (?) … jagged? … vibrant? … line than that of the cuffs, and hanging there it seems more chaotic and excited than its companion piece. Both put me mind of patchwork quilts – the soft tones and textures of well worn clothes, the sometimes odd contrasts of colours and patterns, the repetitive yet distinct forms.

As they are now the pieces are about 2 meters 50 by 90 centimeters. I have used a little under one-third of all that I have. I am interested to see what happens if I continue and each piece becomes as wide as it is high. This is not what I thought I would be doing with the material. And I am actively having to stop myself from saying that this is not art.

Today I looked through some older work: work from 2005/06. I was in search of pieces that might appeal to an art association buying for their members’ lottery. On Tuesday Uppsala hospital’s art association’s management committee are coming to the studios and all of us here have been invited to present work that could be of interest. Another first for me! It is interesting trying to imagine what might appeal to art appreciative nurse or doctor. The challenge is not as daunting as it could be as I went on a guided tour of new commissions permanently installed in the extensive new hospital buildings. I do not know if the art association were directly involved in the commissions but I do know that they encounter a wide range of contemporary artworks in their everyday professional environment. I also know that as members of Sweden’s national art association organisation the management committee each receive a quarterly arts magazine (it is the same magazine that I get because I am on the art association committee in Enköping). It is somehow reassuring to know that if they do not buy from me it is because they do not like my work rather than them not knowing about contemporary practice: an informed rejection – if you will!

Work place art associations were once very common in Sweden. Enköping’s art association started at the Bahco adjustable spanner factory in 1944, and it was only a few years ago that Enköping council employees wound-up their own art association. Many of these associations were formed after the second world war when Sweden transformed itself, and employers both national and private actively engaged with offering their employees extracurricular opportunities – often but not exclusively cultural or sporting. It can be seen as a legacy of Dr Westerlund’s whole person approach to health: employers invested in numerous associations and sometimes even went as far as building holiday villages, they of course reaped the benefits of having happy healthy employees.

That said, I have made a selection of older embroidery pieces that I shall wash and press over the weekend. It will be nice to see them up on a wall again after fourteen or so years in storage. If I have time I might make one or two new pieces (not embroideries) based on an idea that I had on my residency at WIP in 2009.

A day at the new studio* playing with some of the shirt cuffs that Elena Thomas sent to me last year (two years ago?) made real the possibilities of working differently there. The clean space, the good lighting, and the white wall that I can easily pin things to all contributed to me finishing the day feeling that maybe something was starting to happen. I had unpacked the cuffs at the old studio but had not come so long with them. What I had made in Enköping was tight and small – quite different to the large and loose ’thing’ that developed in Uppsala. Working in the high ceilinged bright light clean sparsely furnished room gave the work the opportunity to expand … gave me the opportunity to expand – site specificity? It is interesting to wonder if having a ’white cube’ studio might result in work that suits a ’white cube’ gallery. I was brought up to be at least critical of white cube galleries with their inherent commercial interests, elitist agendas, and less than ’art for all’ accessibility. Though even while studying at Dartington (87 – 90) I questioned whether the ’white cube’ was in itself the problem. I am still wrestling with this!

Looking at my playful creation in its white cube gave me the possibility to see it as an object in its own right. It was as though it demonstrated an authority – it claimed space.

*how long can I call it the new studio? … the Uppsala Studio? Studio B? Studio UA (abbreviation of Uppsala)

April passed in somewhat of a blur. It concluded with a very pleasant low-key and covid responsible opening of Mr Dandy Blue’s Lepidopterarium in Flat Octopus’ Exhibition Case.

It was really nice to meet people in person after months of online events. And it was really really nice to get such a positive response to the work. I have to say that it looks very good – the professional vitrine lends it an elegance and, for want of a better expression, showcases it perfectly.

Yesterday was also the last day of the wonderful Elena Thomas’ online exhibition Drawn In for Glitter Ball showroom & projects. Elena is the first artist to have an entirely digital show with Glitter Ball and I am pleased to say that it worked well – especially Elena’s songs which have received a lot of attention.  If you have not already checked them out then pop over to Glitter Ball’s website where you can still find the link to Elena’s Soundcloud playlist and her online show.  Thank you too to Sarah Goudie for her great review which you can read here on a-n.co.uk.

Yesterday was, I am sure, a day marked in most Swedish artists’ diaries (and the diaries of other artists working in Sweden). Midnight was the deadline for proposing new acquisitions to Moderna Museet – the equivalent of Tate. In an unprecedented move Moderna have invited artists, curators, and galleries to submit a portfolio of five works in an Open Call. The museum has been given an additional 25 million kronor* to buy art as part of the government’s artists’ support scheme during the covid pandemic (*about two millions pounds). This opportunity was the subject of much conversation last night – a few artists admitting that they were going to be applying later that evening and wondering what prices they should put on their work. I think pricing is always a complex question for artists (unless your Hirst or Emin!), even more so when the potential buyer is significant international institution with a sudden windfall. Of course we all want to be well remunerated for our work: the hours we put in, the materials, our skills, our imagination. But then there are also those non-financial rewards of being certain collections. From the little I know of the commercial gallery scene I understand that one of the gallerist’s skills is negotiating the ’right’ price for an artwork – getting an artist into an important museum might mean offering an attractive price. A good gallerist would know what kind of price an artist could expect – pricing is another challenge facing those of use not used to the commercial scene.

On Wednesday I and several other artists I know presented our work to another panel (committee?) charged with buying work. Regional councils have also received additional finances and also made an open call to artists working in, or with a connection to, the county. It was the first time that I have ever made such a presentation: I had fifteen minutes to speak about the portfolio of five works that I had submitted. It was conducted via the share screen feature of Teams – not that it was my screen that was shared rather one of the selection panel who I had to ask for ’the next slide please’. I was really pleased to see one familiar face among the four panelists who had their cameras on – I was aware that there were several more participants whom I could not see – I do not know how many more as I was too focussed and busy with my presentation to have time to call up the participant list. We had been told that the presentations would be accessible by curators and other arts professionals as well as the committee responsible for purchasing work for Uppsala county. The thinking was that presenting to a larger audience could result in an artist being contacted by another county, museum, or public art consultant. It is a great idea but made me more nervous that I already was. The fifteen minutes went very quickly and I was very pleased that I had made a note of how many minutes to spend on each work along with those key things to mention. Of course there are always other things that could have been said, or things that could have been said differently, especially as I make work that has multiple points of engagement, but I felt that I had gotten the main points across. Now it is just to wait to hear if Uppsala want to buy something!

Sweden’s Public Art Agency (Statens Konstråd) also received extra funding and also made an open call to artists … This agency operates nationally and has it’s own collection of artworks available for public exhibition and long-term placement in public buildings. It was also commissions specific public art projects. On Monday I found out that they selected one of the five works I proposed to them. I had to read the email several times to make sure that I had understood it correctly! It is really exciting and means a huge amount to me to be in a national collection – I still cannot quite believe that something that I made now belongs to Sweden!

The news of being bought by Statens Konstråd was perhaps even more unexpected as it came only a couple of weeks after Louise (arts officer for Tierp) asking to buy Eugènes ringar for the council’s collection. It seemed just too unlikely that I should sell two pieces within weeks of each other – especially as until then I had never sold a single work. Selling to Tierp will always be my first ever sale and will therefore always have a very special place in heart.

My artistic identity at the end of April is not what it was at the beginning of April: I am now an artist who has sold work, and more than that I am now an artist who has work in a local and a national Swedish collection! I really cannot describe what this means to me, I can say that it feels as though I have achieved two very significant goals – goals that I barely dared to name in case that I never achieved them. Thank you Louise, and thank you Statens Konstråd!

Friday afternoon and I thought that I would be on my way home, if not already home by now. However it is so nice being at the new studio – especially now that the walls are painted and floor is ’floored’. The hospital pink that fought for dominance over the orange Lino are things of the past. Now I have white walls and a very pale floor.

It has been almost six year since I have had just a nice studio. Since leaving WIP:sthlm I tried having my studio at home when I first moved to Enköping, then I shared that damp, cold, dark, semi subterranean former garage with Klas before we found the Old Gymnastic Hall with its light blue walls, chocolate brown ceilings, and lack of electricity. Here I have not only a wealth of electrical sockets but also the internet, a good size window looking over a lawn and towards some very well established fir trees, and a door that I can open and close as I wish.

Decorating the studio has been important to me, it makes real something that I find difficult to speak about. It has to do with taking myself and my work seriously, giving it the time and investment that it needs. Perhaps giving it the space that it needs – my work has raw edges so putting it in a clean space affords those edges the intentions and attentions that I want them to have. I have created a room where I both make and show my work in good and appropriate ways.

Having the studio to myself and without having to think about other people passing through to get to their spaces gives me the opportunity to think/re-think what kind of working space I want. There are two joists that divide the ceiling into almost equal thirds, I am taking my cue from these divisions 1: nearest the door/furthest from the window for storage, 2: middle for production, 3: closest to the window for hanging, showing, relaxing, reading and writing.

It has just dawned on me what I like about being here – I do not have to fight with the space or try to convince it to let me be an artist. This is a space for an artist. And I do not mean just my room, it feels as though the whole studio association is willing us and wanting us to be artists. And that feels very good.

Update: I still find it hard to believe just how supportive the curator and exhibition organiser were when I met with them on Wednesday – the day after realising that I simply could not show the placard pieces.

We spent the morning discussing potential practical solutions: covering the entire surface with a silver film, finding an assistant to help me re-make the work, commissioning someone else to make the work. We got advise from various experts – and learned a lot, however most of it was not positive. The polyurethane glue that bled on the front side of the work had ’burnt’ itself in the surface of the plast mirror. If the mirror had been glass it would have been possible to remove the glue. I had not used glass as the piece was to be outside in a public space and I judged it too risky to use regular mirror.

At lunch one of the other artists (all of whom had heard of my situation and were wonderfully sympathetic) asked if I was going to show something else. That thought had not occurred to me. I had made work specifically for the show – both thematically and in terms of placement – with that work unusable I saw no option but to withdraw. And even if I had something else I did not feel that it was my place to suggest it (this is a subject for a separate post). Lunch wound up and we had all gone back to where we were working. I was packing up my stuff in the workshop, feeling miserable and embarrassed, when the curator came in an asked if possibly had something else that could fit the exhibition. The artist I spoke with at lunch was very elusive when I later asked her if she had something …

The reason that I applied for the show, and I guess the reason that I was selected, is because the theme – the relationship between playfulness and seriousness – is a current that runs through my practice. So yes I had other pieces that suited the theme but nothing that suited being outside and nothing on the scale of the placards. The curator invited me to go around the building with her and find a place where one fo these other pieces could be shown in such a way that it could be seen from outside. By the entrance we found a spot for Eugènes ringar #2.

I quickly scribbled a list of all the things that I needed to gather together to install that piece, packed up the residue of the disaster, and headed back to Enköping and the studio. After that I popped to the hardware store to get hooks, some tension straps, and cable ties. By early evening everything was packed in the car ready for the next day and I sat down and logged in to the AGM and ’house meeting’ at the new studio. A few hours later the meetings finished, I logged out and fell in to bed exhausted but excited.

Yesterday I was delighted to take part in the online opening of the exhibition. The work looks good, of course it is very different from what I thought I would be showing, but it fits nonetheless. The nature of the digital opening – the curator and organiser going from work to work and speaking with each artist in front of their piece – means that I need to watch the ’live broadcast’ to see the how the opening looked. I am not quite ready to do that yet!

The whole week has given me so much to think about. I have already mentioned reviewing my ways of working in my previous post, now I am adding a raft of things about showing and about my ways of working with other artists and curators.

I am incredibly grateful for all the support that I received. I might even go so far as to see it as a very silver lining – how wholly appropriate!