I’m reminded that I’m someone who likes order and structure. These things have been rather absent from my life recently and I have found it very unsettling and stressful. When I look at the next few months it seems completely crazy to think that I could be ready to move to Sweden by March, but if I stop thinking and starting doing I’m sure it will be possible.
I want to find ways to keep making things. Last night I went to an exhibition and open studio not too far from home. The studio runs screen-printing courses which four friends have done and really enjoyed. I’m thinking of doing a course myself. It could be a good way to do something creative and I enjoy learning new skills. Just starting to think about printing has made me realise how material based (rather than image based) I am – it’s a challenge to start thinking about working in 2D.
• do something completely different and new
• something 2D in relation to my installations/sculptures
• just play!
• start and see what happens
It would be great to see if I can make artworks that might be more readily exhibited, or even sold!
Betweenness
Catching up with a-n and other magazines that stack up during the months I’m travelling between London and Stockholm is a strange experience these days. I’m starting to feel a distance from some of the current discussions and debates that are UK specific, and at the same time I have opinions about things and want to talk them through. The situation isn’t helped by not having a studio and not regularly spending time in the company of other artists. Online forums are not the same as sitting in a studio and chatting over coffee. I’m looking forward to settling down in the not to distant future and getting involved and active again.
I’m going to see if I can go on the waiting list for a studio at wip:sthlm. Not only do I want a studio there but I want to be on the artists’ management board – I’d like to be involved in running the residence studio.
My presence at the Supermarket art fair continues to grow! Robert Ekholm (artist and Michael Petry’s assistant at MOCA London) has invited me to one of the artists representing MOCA at the fair next year. I really like Supermarket and I’m looking forward to being there again. I’ve also been asked to be do the children’s snow sculpture again – of course I said YES!
Supermarket is in late February (18-20) and the snow sculpture project is at the beginning of March so it looks like I’ll be in Stockholm for about three weeks in total – there’s no idea to come back to London for six days between the two events, not unless I get offered some very lucrative work.
Things are coming together for next year. I’ve just received the dates for a group show – it’ll open on March 18. I’m really pleased that the date doesn’t clash with things in Stockholm.
If anyone is going to be in Stockholm before December 12 I recommend seeing “Trice Upon a Time” at Magasin 3. It’s the first time Magasin 3 have shown work from their own collection. For me it was really exciting and interesting to see such breadth and depth of work. The curation and presentation is really good, in addition to contextual information about each of the three “chapters” of the show there are texts alongside certain pieces that explicitly state that those particular artworks could, with different curation, be equally valid in another chapter. What I really appreciated was that these text (and the others) were so well written, they balanced being informative and accessible with being challenging and (dare I say it) adult. It seemed to me that the educative material in the show was intended for an interested adult rather than for child or first time gallery visitor. It was wonderfully refreshing to be in a public gallery that acknowledges the artist as part of its audience!
Frieze, phone, talk …
It felt more like Embassy week than Frieze week. I don’t remember ever being in a foreign embassy in London before and last week I was in three; German, Swedish and Norwegian. It was all art related. The second part of Martin’s show (at the Swedish embassy) was a good night, not only was the work interesting but there were proper Swedish canapés and a very friendly group of Swedes and Swede lovers. Earlier in the day Francois invited me to join him on his Frieze VIP itinerary that included a reception at the German embassy to see work by young German artists. And on Friday, after a day at Frieze, I and a few other former Crystal Palace Artists attended the NABROAD party at the Norwegian embassy. I spent most of the evening talking with Trine (a Norwegian artist who was at the Slade at the same time as me) and Jerzy (the Sir John Soane Museum curator who I have met previously and briefly through Michael Petry).
After missing Frieze week last year it felt good to be there and I really enjoyed bumping into people from one day to the next. It made me realise that I’m not as alien to the art-scene as I sometimes think I am. Or rather that I have (and am still developing) a group of friends and ‘professional friends’ (to paraphrase Nicholas Logsdail*) on, and in, the London scene. I really don’t want to loose them when I move away.
Speaking of which … a three hour phone conversation with Kim made me realise that wherever I end up staying in Stockholm I’ll need to get a good deal on phone calls to the UK. Kim and I often talk for a few hours, and it’s usually about art and/or education. Our conversation this week was a mix of Frieze review and Kim’s research for forthcoming public talks at the RA that led to a discussion the post-YBA scene in which we find ourselves. I might, in a very casual way, start to investigate possible parallels between the Hollywood studio system of the 1920s – 50s and the YBA scene of the 1990s. I could be on very shaky ground but it might be fun! The comparison came up when we were talking about the current work of some artists who were household YBA names but not so well known now or who appear to be still producing very similar work now, we wondered if they weren’t a little like the child-stars whose early fame was not without consequences. Kim and I usually hold these discussions in the morning, pottering around our flats with tea and coffee respectively, neither of us are pub-goers and seeing where our sober thoughts take us perhaps it is just as well.
The talk I gave to Jewelry & Accessory students at Middlesex was well received – which I am very pleased about. Not least because I wanted it to be good for Julia who invited me to give it. Julia is an artist herself as well as being a lecturer and running Meter Square Gallery with her partner Ken. They are a fantastic pair and I’ve really enjoyed getting to know them over the years since I arrived in their hotel room in Norway for an impromptu cocktail party. It was Michael Petry’s party really but hosted by Ken and Julia as they had been upgraded to a suite so had more chairs and a sofa. We were all in Norway for Michael’s Golden Rain project. Thinking about it now I realise just how interwoven all these connections are and how enjoyably fruitful they’ve been. I hope that one day I will be in a position to give these friends the kind of opportunities that they have given me …
(* I remember a wonderful text by Nicholas Logsdail from an old Artists’ Handbook about getting established as an artist, in it he mentions the idea of ‘professional friendships’. What he describes are friendships with people who you know and care about through being in the same of related professions – not to be confused with ‘networking’ or ‘personal friends’.)
Received two particularly touching emails today. In one an artist that I used to know well told me that she’s being treated for breast cancer, and in the other one another artist told me that she’s three and a half months pregnant.
Make that three – I’ve just received an email telling me that the Brusand Project Space closed at the end of last year. (I wouldn’t mention this in the same breath if I didn’t know that the project wasn’t a dream of two young artists who put everything they had into it and managed to keep it going on less than a shoe-string for two years.)
I’m at home today – the replacement windows are being installed. I hadn’t realised how noisy the work would be and had imagined that I would get on with lots of things. The reality is that the loud and irregular bursts of drilling and the general chilliness of having ‘open’ windows are not making a good working environment.
Saturday will be the last day of PLAY. I’m looking forward to Bryan’s World Tea Party event. He’s mentioned that tea will be served “through” the work. The piece invites a certain kind of ‘performativity’ – one kind of performance becomes the context for another. The tea-party puts me in mind of Boy George’s comment that he preferred a cup of tea to sex. I think that each has its place, and that it’s wonderful to be able to enjoy both!
Last weekend my parents saw the show – they loved it. They were also charmed my Michael and his partner who we had lunch with beforehand. I’m surprised by how pleased I am that they liked it, I mean really liked it. My parents always say that they like my work but I can’t remember seeing them enjoying something I’ve made so much. It has been a very successful piece – more successful than I could have imagined. When my more academic friends and my parents express similar enthusiasm I know I’ve done something good!
I’m also looking forward to some nights out during the frenzy of Frieze week/end. I’m looking forward to Frieze too, I missed it last year but it’s quite nice to treat it as a biennale. Two years is a good timescale for me – much more manageable!
Back in London again …. and it feels foreign
When I was travelling yesterday I had the distinct impression that I was leaving home (Stockholm) to visit London. Over the last year more of my day to day life has been in Stockholm than in London so I guess it’s not really a surprise (being the last one to ‘get it’ is something of a theme in my life).
I’m going to start looking at how best to arrange things. Some of the timing depends on selling my flat because until that happens I don’t have much money. And from the local estate agents windows it looks like I won’t have that much money after the sale and paying off debts, so I have to get it right.
I hope to sell in the new year and to move not later than Easter. Ideally I want a studio as soon as I arrive, not least so that I have somewhere to put things. My plan is shed as much household stuff as possible and to take as many artworks and materials as possible. Perhaps there is also something about having a studio that will ground me when I arrive in this new place. A studio will be a declaration to myself that I am there as an artist, it will be a declaration to myself that I AM HERE! The studio will be own place – I think I will really need it.
This morning I received an invitation to the opening of Martin Gustavsson’s show at the Swedish Embassy – it made me smile. I love my growing relationship with Sweden!
