Project Me

It was not my intention but I have just re-read my posts from immediately after John died (December 2007).  I am delighted to see that they are still there as they were not obvious last time I logged in.  John has been in my thoughts a lot lately, and was very much there last Friday when I attended the premiere of ‘Chicago’.  Musicals, on stage preferably, were one of John’s passions and I am sure that it would delight and amuse him greatly to know that I have ended up being, albeit tangentially, involved in the world.  The show is great, although I was too busy trying to see how everything ‘worked’ to really enjoy the number that featured all the feathers and headdresses that I have been working on over the summer.

The work with Tim has been really good fun, and I am continuing to assist on a couple of other jobs that he has.  Assisting is something that I have thought about, and even envied.  It is something that I had considered myself too old for – thinking about how tough it can be to become an artist’s assistant in London.  In many ways I am perfectly suited to it, at least in a part-time capacity.  I get to do something practical, I am required to use and develop my skills, often the work is (wonderfully) labourious which gives me time to fantasise.  The challenge of making my hand(s) invisible has given me new perspectives on responsibility, authenticity and creativity.

Driving back to his studio after a fitting one day Tim explained that he considers that I work “with him” rather than “for him”.  He is right to point out that it is an important distinction, and I am very pleased that he values not only what I do but who I am.  The route north in and out of Stockholm to and from Tim’s studio goes past John’s cemetery, I am aware how I quieten down as we go by.  I say a silent hello.

And now term has begun and I am teaching and studying again!  My recent running around is not sustainable and I want to have some kind of routine.  I need to have some kind of routine!  Not least with my writing here.  I miss it, and I miss reading other blogs.  Yesterday the weather was undeniably autumnal, after an extended summer break it feels like a good, and appropriate,  time to cosy back in to ‘Project Me’!

Oh I am missing having easy access to a computer!  I am in Stockholm, at the studio, for a couple of days before returning to the countryside for a few more (computer-less) weeks.

After not posting anything for a while it is difficult to know where/how to start …

I am feeling very inspired and am looking forward to the autumn when I will have more time here.  The last two days have been spent sorting out the materials that I dumped here when I cleared my locker, shelf, and table at Mejan.  It feels so good to be here amongst my own things and in my own space.  Preparation can be very enjoyable in itself!

The summer has turned out to be far more interesting and inspiring than I thought it would be.  By chance back in late spring I met Sweden’s only “plume maker”, after chatting for a while he asked if I might be interested in assisting with feathers for some costumes he would be dressing for a forthcoming production of Chicago.  And that it what I started doing last week!  It is a new area to me, and yet at the same time I am using and adapting skills and experience that I already have.  Learning to mix dyes is though entirely new to me – and is fascinating after all the years of working with my materials pre-existing colour(s).  Next week we begin to make steel-wire structures for the headdresses and ‘bustles’ that will be worn by the dancers.  Tim’s studio is in the middle of the countryside above the stables on the farm where he and his partner live.  It is a room packed with feathers, sewing machines, drawers of sequins and beads, rolls of cloth, shelves full of the patterns he has made for many of Sweden’s best-known performers.  There are a couple of mannequins, and beneath the large worktable there are usually four dozing Jack Russells.  His passion and enthusiasm is quite infectious and it is perhaps therefore that I find myself dreaming about my own ideas as I stir about lengths of boas (feather!) in vats of decadent, but slightly grubby, shades of purple.

Thoughts about how I want to approach the ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ course are also coming up.  My proposal is to research the contemporary gay city – does ‘the city’ have the same draw for gay men now that smart-phone apps and the internet make contact/identification with other gay men possible no matter where you are.  And at the same time as this de-locating of one aspect of city’s former functions for gay identity, there is increasing interest in gay and lesbian retirement flats – the first in Stockholm opened last year.

This year has seen the return of a temporary public art exhibition in Norrtalje (the county town in the area where I am spending the summer).  After a two year break, and now managed by the council rather than an artist’s group, the show which sites work in the river that runs through the town centre has made a welcome come-back.  Looking at the current work and wondering how I would respond to such an event, an idea started to develop.  I do not know how the artists (usually about seven or eight) are selected but I am going to get in touch the arts officer after the summer.  Elsewhere in the town I noticed that a new ‘culture centre’ is being built, and there is a quite impressive range of public art around the town – standing at just one point on the river bank I was not only able to see some of the temporary works in the river but three permanently installed sculptures doted around in the landscaping.  As far as I can make out the council has taken on the project as it grew too large for the artist’s group to manage, there could be other politics going on but even so it is good to see a council investing in the arts.

Yesterday evening I went for a swim after a day in the studio. I took a 15-minute walk, mainly through woodland, down to the lake that runs through and around the city centre.  The water was pleasantly warm and incredibly clear.  Sitting on the rocks and watching the sun slowly start to set I could not help but smile to myself and acknowledge how much I enjoy doing what I do.

Walking back I collected a few feathers that I am now washing – I want to have some that I can experiment and play with ….

Re-reading some more of the Artistic Research course texts, or perhaps reading them in a (literally physically) different context has been surprisingly rewarding.  Sometimes it can take a really long time for me to ‘get’ something, or to reach a level of understanding that offers some significant potential for advancement.  It has occurred to me that perhaps the wonderful, and challenging in a broad sense, opportunity that artistic research offers is a radical alternative to previously established traditions that both classify and separate things as either objective or subjective.  Being able to consider A/R like this seems to make good sense – once again I return to the image of the venn diagram and the overlap.

I continue to struggle with artworks produced prior to, or outside of the recognised canon of, A/R.  I tend to support those who claim that artworks always have had a relation to research – it is all a question of approach and perspective!

Two weeks ago two artist friends/colleagues and I began the formal process of establishing an independent platform for artistic research.  It feels very good and exciting.  The idea has been floating (incubating?) for over a year, for me it certainly feels right that it has taken time for us each to work through what and how we want this thing to be.  It was on a particularly fine summer afternoon that the three of us sat outside a café and held the inaugural meeting of “The Institute of Artistic Research”.  The serious playfulness of the name well reflects our ambition to offer an open, creative, independent, and alternative place for artists who are engaged with, and interested in, research.  We will invite a couple more artists to join us on the ‘committee’ and then begin to plan our activities.  Already the three of us ‘founding members’ have quite different ideas and practices – we see this as one of our strengths, as something that will enable us to encompass and encourage a diverse programme.

Folklore came up in discussion the other evening after dinner.  We were talking about Swedish traditions to do with death as a friend’s father has recently died.  The Swedes or at least the ones that I know are not particularly sentimental, this is not to suggest that they are not emotional, just that things are (not surprisingly) done differently here.  I was lent an ‘ABC of folklore’.  Reading the introduction at breakfast the next day I came across a passage about the persistence and significance of folklore.  The author, a respected authority, suggests that folklore offers people “hope, meaning, and comfort” [my translation], these three words struck a chord with what I had been reading, and thinking, about artistic research.

I am spending summer out in the archipelago.  I should have been working at the inn where I worked last summer but I quit after one week.  I combination of me being more tired than last summer and them being more disorganised made me realise that I simply could not work there.  Thankfully having worked over the spring term I am not in absolute dire straights.  As the house in town is being hired by a family who have ended up ‘between’ homes over the summer I am kind of forced to stay out in country.  I am looking for other work but everywhere seems to have a full quota of summer staff.  So in the meantime I have decided that I will prepare myself really well for the autumn term and returning to Stockholm after the summer – hence the re-reading of course texts!  Other things on my summer to-do-list include: preparing all the updates for my website, updating and translating my professional cv, writing an application letter (in Swedish) looking for additional part-time teaching and art-education work.

Sweden, with its free education, can be a dangerous place for someone who loves to study.  Despite saying to myself that it is time to ‘leave school’ I applied for, and have been accepted to, a part-time course in the architectural history and theory department at Mejan.