Project Me

I am tired! I think this is partially due to my massive intake of refined sugars over the past few weeks – I’m simply not used to it and I am sure that it is wreaking havoc with my natural blood sugar and energy levels.

Getting my work ready to deliver to the Spring Exhibition has been more time consuming than I had imagined … or perhaps I should say that I have probably been working less efficiently than I could have done – see the note above!

Sunday evening and the works are packed into their crates – which are labelled and ready for me to pick up from the studio in the car on Tuesday afternoon. I will then drive them to the gallery and hand them over. I have also written a short text providing some additional information for the guides leading public and pre-arranged exhibition talks. And I made a very short and hopefully very pedagogic film showing how to install the pieces.

I have booked a posh(ish) hotel – it’s a ll relative! – for the night after the opening. I want to enjoy the evening and not have to think about travel back to Uppsala in potentially subzero conditions … I also want to return to the gallery for the opening to the public. I am very curious to see who turns up and how it feels. I have the feeling that the opening night will, as usual, not be the best time to actually look at the exhibition so returning the day after will give me time to go around the show and even to see the exhibition in the new wing – a collection of couture garments from some of the worlds most famous houses which have been commissioned by a man and tailored for his body though the original garments were designed for a woman. I am very interested to learn more about this Swedish man with not only such a ’gender fluid’ project but the finances to execute it … will he be at the opening of the Spring Exhibition? Might he like to invest in an artwork made of ties???

One week until I deliver my work to the Spring Exhibition … there is a lot to do in that time – practical things to attend to with the actual pieces, and other things to do with the stuff around them – writing two texts (and getting them proofread), making a short video showing how the work can be installed, getting them photographed (in the studio). I am sure that a week is sufficient time to do all of this … so long as I stay focussed.

As soon as I finish this post I will re-read the letter/mail from the exhibition/gallery to double check what I need to do and to make sure that I haven’t missed anything.

I am excited and nervous about the show … about my work in the show … about the potential exposure (and criticism) that the exhibition will generate. I have never been involved in something on this scale before. The scale is interesting … and even confusing … in some ways I can feel like a very small part of a very large event, but then I think about the fact that five works will be shown and that they will make quite a visual impact … unless they are hung in an out of the way location – the gallery is vast with seven maybe eight large rooms. I can’t imagine visitor numbers of 100 000 – that far exceeds anything I have previously done. And the range of visitors – art lovers, art collectors, art professionals, art students, artists(!), tourists. I imagine that the kinds of reactions and response might be different from different visitors but I have difficulty imagining what those reactions and responses might be: appreciation, curiosity, criticism.

Do I expect to sell? I can’t say that I do but it would be very nice!

I am expecting a certain level of criticism – the ’I could have done that’ kind of thing, the question is whether or not I will hear it or not. Might someone bother to email me or comment on Instagram? What kind of press and media coverage will there be?

Between delivering the work and the exhibition opening I want to make sure that my website is up to date and tidy. It will be interesting to see if it gets more visitors, and if my Instagram account attracts more viewers.

Now to get on with day’s tasks!

Yesterday afternoon I received an email letting me know that my funding application has been approved – I am going to receive project funding from Uppsala City. I am very excited and more than a little surprised by the news! Just a few weeks ago something cropped up in conversation with another artist (other artists? … I can’t quite remember) about funding and I re-read my application – which had been submitted at least a month prior – I remember feeling a little disappointed in myself that the application wasn’t more concise … expansive … focused … professional … thorough … At the Christmas dinner last week P, who works for the city council’s culture department, mentioned that they had read my application … I felt a little awkward and embarrassed … had I revealed how ill equipped I am to write such applications? I had written in Swedish hadn’t I … ? … and I didn’t have anyone proofread it … Well it seems that my passion for the project must have shone through!

I am very excited because I wrote ’from the heart’ … I was honest about my interests and intentions while being clear that I didn’t know know what the outcome would be – perhaps an exhibition, perhaps a performance, perhaps a website.

I am very excited because it really is a process and research driven project … the outcome(s) will be what they need to be.

I am very excited because receiving the funding will focus my attention and time … I have to do the project now – and that is fantastic … because it is a project that needs doing – not only for my own sake but also for the city’s since it illuminates aspects of the city’s cultural and lgbti+ history that are currently unacknowledged to say the least.

… so 2024 will see me re-engage with Following Eugène – the new chapter (for which I have received the funding) takes as it’s starting point the painting(s) that Eugène Jansson exhibited in the 1907 Uppsala Spring Exhibition – the first of his ’naked athletes’.

I am going to get on with the project just as soon as I have delivered by work to the 2024 Stockholm Spring Exhibition!

I am at the studio wondering how I will manage to do everything that I want to do today: two video calls/meetings, an opening, a magazine (final edition) release, a Christmas dinner (where I need to be at the venue early in order to give out tickets that the artists’ club has bought for the committee and others). All that I really want to to do is potter about the studio!

… I forgot something else … I want to make a prototype box for transporting the tie drapes to the exhibition. I would really like to get this done today as I am working three days next week (and have meetings at on least two evenings) and then it’s Christmas … I have been invited to friends which is lovely but it means that I need to make something to bring to the table and get some ’token’ presents … I also have to get a tree and do grocery shopping for myself.

The new job is going well, though to be honest I miss not being in control of my schedule … it’s something that I will have to get used to as ’my schedule’ does not generate income. I listened to an artist’s talk the other evening while washing up – it was kind of ’advice for young artists’ … there was lots of encouragement, and good emphasis put on finding one’s own voice and making conscious decisions about how to be the artist that you want to be … I found myself questioning (again) whether I have ever really given myself the chance to be the kind of artist that I want to be … a particularly pertinent question as I start a new job after only four months of what should have been a year long sabbatical. The economic reality is that those four months were sufficient to demonstrate that without significant additional earnings the savings that I have would not last the year … and those significant additional earnings are not only not guaranteed they are seemingly less feasible. None of us working for Supermarket may get the same the fee as last year – the fair received a 40% cut in its core funding – very worrying indeed.

So while I would like to be a studio artist who sells work, gets both public and private commissions, does a bit of guest lecturing, and is selected for museum shows, I have to accept that that boat may well have left the habour.

What can I do to increase my sense of ,at the very least, being heading in a meaningful (to me) direction?

1. Recognise that the part-time job provides sufficient basic income, I need to start seeing other ’opportunities’ (to earn) as threats to my own practice and I need to prioritise time in the studio.
2. Learn to say no! And limit the amount of time that I give to unpaid work/projects.
3. Set some goals for the coming year, and have a five year plan.

So now to get on with the day …

I am enjoying making work – unlimited editions – in preparation for the Christmas Market / Open Studios in just over a week’s time. I am not expecting to sell anything but it would be great to be pleasantly surprised! Not only am I enjoying making the editions … I am feeling almost smug about the actual pieces … they make me smile … they are a good use of existing material … they are ’seasonal’. What are they? They are secondhand jigsaw pussels where I have covered a randomly selected piece with black glitter before putting it back with the other pieces. Christmas 10 years ago I started a jigsaw, something of a tradition in both Sweden and the UK. Working on it only occasionally after the initial Christmas and New Year period the thing took me weeks to complete … actually that depends how you define ’complete’. All of the pieces in the box were used but the picture was not complete – a few pieces were missing. K suggested putting gitter where the pieces were missing. I chose black glitter … and this became the first in a series of works were gaps … holes … in secondhand jigsaw pussels were filled with black glitter. Of course the works took a considerable amount of time to make … I made six, possibly seven or even eight, and then moved on to other things. I had however bought quite a few jigsaw puzzles in anticipation of making a substantial series … an idea which still appeals to me. These as yet un-played (?) puzzles have (been) moved from one studio to another, here at Hospitalet they contribute to mass of materials and past works that I have ’temporarily’ occupied an empty room with. That was until I hit upon the idea of turning them in to a kind of diy art project – which is why I am coating one pussel piece from each box in black glitter. Whoever buys one is guaranteed at least one spot of glitter in their finished … self finished(?) … jigsaw. (It’s entirely up to them if they fill any other potential holes with glitter or not. Each box contains the pieces of the pussel along with a signed ’certificate of authenticity’.

I am even going to offer a gift wrapping service – as I think that they make great Christmas presents! I am very curious as to whether anyone will buy one. My approach to the Christmas Market is somewhat more The Fete Worse than Death than handcraft and watercolours … not that I claim to be anywhere close to Joshua Compston’s brilliance. I do enjoy testing the boundaries, and … or … offering something different to what might be expected at an artists’ open studio … no nicely framed prints … decorative paintings here … though definitely something for the genuinely curious and daring collector!

The unexpected success of my secondhand stall at last year’s Christmas Market has encouraged … inspired … others to do the same this year. There is even talk of a long un-manned table where we all can put our things – labelled with price and telephone number – so that visitors can simply pay by phone for whatever they buy. After a year in my ’new’ apartment with several unopened moving boxes in the basement I can pretty confidently say that there are plenty of things at home that I could try and sell … how many vintage vases, dishes, candlesticks, cutlery sets, table clothes, napkins, storage jars does one single middle-aged man need … even if he is a homosexual and somewhat of a ’collector’?

I am also making small steps towards getting work ready for Vårsalongen (The Spring Exhibition). Last night I visited the Uppsala Makerspace to see if could be somewhere that I could produce the pegs that the ties drape over. The place is very impressive with dedicated rooms for not only wood and metal work but also ceramics, textiles, electronics, and 3D printing. In addition there is a general tools store, a range of materials that members can use, an area for (young) children, shelving and storage boxes where members can leave their on-going projects, and a large general crafting table, library, and lounge next to a large well equipped kitchen. I was very impressed and am definitely keen to join. The simplest and most basic membership allows access on Wednesday evenings and the option to sign-up for any workshops, classes, and courses. It’s a very reasonable £20 for the year. Tomorrow I shall sit with the computer and workout where and how to buy the timber to make a trial transport box for the work. Making the first (prototype) box is a project for next week. Studio colleagues have been telling me that local council arts officers often visit and buy from the exhibition. Some commercial galleries attend as well as collectors, consultants, and agents. I am doing well at not getting my hopes up … and am bracing myself for a good deal of criticism … I am however very excited about the level of exposure that the show offers, and am excited about the potential to meet the two curators from the selection panel/committee – Ashik Zaman and Tawanda Appiah – both of whom are doing fantastic work broadening, extending, deepening, developing, supporting, and exposing contemporary practice in Sweden.

Tuesday I had a lovely … and long overdue … studio chat with Elena Thomas.  After a good catch-up about family, friends, and such we spoke about how we might  think around … develop … and  propose …  a two person show.  Though our processes and material are distinct there feels to me to be something in our approach and ways of working that speaks to shared  concerns … there must be something there – we have been in correspondence for over ten years!  Perhaps that’s it – ‘correspondence’!