I'm finding the idea of working with an established gallery more and more appealing. Not least because of the number or emails, meetings, conversations, and false starts seemingly inherent with artist led/alternative venue shows.
The fantasy goes like this – I agree the dates of a show in the coming 12-18 months. I make the work. I send a picture or two and my mailing list for the invitation. I deliver and perhaps even install the work. I arrive in the late afternoon. I enjoy the opening night. Three weeks later the show closes. I return and collect my work.
Right now I just need things to be simple. And they're not. Perhaps I'm not as comitted to 'process' as I thought I was. Maybe I just don't have the energy for collaboration at the moment.
I'm really pleased to be getting re-acquainted with Marcia Farquhar. Saw her 12 Shooters last week. It was a brilliant way to catch-up with 10 years worth of performances. Mind you I found it a bit intimidating to be invited to a retrospective of someone I consider a peer…
I've applied for funding to document recent work. The digital images I have aren't very good and as my practice has become more studio based the artworks seem to be harder for me to photograph well.
The funding would be allow me to hire a professional photographer and a studio. I'm inclined to have 35mm slides and medium format transparencies which can be scanned rather than asking for digital images from the start. I understand film and SLR cameras, technology leaves me a bit cold (perhaps that's why it doesn't work for me – see, there I go investing it with some kind of spirit that it so obvioulsy doesn't possess).
I like being able to hold a slide in my hand, I like writing the label and putting it in my slide index draw.
Whether I get the funding or not I need to spend some time and energy getting good quality pictures of my work. I phoned a couple of photographers listed in the back of a-n and hope that I'll be able to use one of them.
My work isn't easy to photograph and perhaps I'm too attached to it to see what needs to be focussed on. The main thing is to be in a studio with good lighting and good walls – two things missing from mine.
Last week the landlord came around 'just to see how we're doing'. The conversion of old depository building in front of our block is almost complete – live/work studios will be nearly £300k. The visible bits of our block have had a lick of paint and it all looks very smart – victorian coachlights around the new brick parquet courtyard. We used to all be 1a Chestnut Road, now we're being re-named Harry Day Mews and we'll all get street numbers. I wonder how much longer we have at the studio ….
It was my neice's 1st birthday this weekend. There have been a couple of occasions in the past year – and perhaps even a few months before that – when I've found myself thinking that now I'm an uncle I'd better get on with being an artist.
The first time this thought came to me I was on my way home one evening. Having never wanted children myself I'd never really thought about how a child would describe what I do. All of a sudden and for no obvious reason I imagine Esme being at school and talking about her family; mum's a writer and editor, dad writes computer programmes, my uncle says he's an artist but he works in a shop a lot of the time ….
And there it was. I say I'm an artist but is that how she'll see me? And why does it matter? Does it matter? I don't really like to admit it but it does matter. It matters more than the rest of my family, my friends even other artists. I want to be successful for her, I want her to be proud of her uncle.
So I reckon I've got about another five or six years … The first one hasn't gone too badly – I've done more in the past twelve months than I have in the last couple of years.
As a single artist (that's how I see myself even when I've got a partner) I got good at living within my means. So long as I was making art I was content – I never really got that bothered about exhibitions (though perhaps that was something I said to make the frequent rejections less painful). That's changed. Not only do I want shows, I want good ones! I want to be taken seriously as an artist so I better take myself seriously.
Deep down I know that this isn't really about Esme – but she's a great totem. Does it really matter if I use her as a bit of a 'signifier'? As I wrote that I realise that is exactly what is she is – a signifier of a future generation! My ambition now seems considerably more arrogant – I want to be signficant to future generations! I think that this might be a good time to end this post ….
Jodi (my studio-mate) and I getting competitive! In a healthy way, a health that in no small way comes from our practices being so different. I'll explain; we're getting competitive about the amount we're each doing to develop our own practice. What's great is that we're not in competition with each other as it's unlikely that we're interested in the same opportunities. Recently we did apply for the same residency and I'm pretty confident that the selector's decision wouldn't have been between the two of us (maybe I'm wrong). As it is neither of us has heard back so we're both assuming we were unsuccessful this year.
A few of us from Crystal Palace Artists got together last week to start some peer mentoring. Linda Duffy got us together after having met with each of us and noticing similarities in intention if not medium. I'm hoping that it will be a space for us to discuss work and ideas.
When I down-loaded pictures from Frieze I found the last few I'd taken of Bed, live work. It was strange to find them like that. They were taken at a bad time (personally and professionally!) and perhaps I was deliberately leaving them for a while. The piece was supposed to disappear 'naturally' over a period of time – I'd imagined it being worn away by passing feet, or the rain. As it was an over zealous and under informed member of staff started cleaning it away. The pictures I have are of what remained after their effort to remove it. I took the decision to finish what they started. (Note to self: I must make sure everyone knows what's going on when I deal with multi-staffed arts organisations.)
I’ve been thinking about what I wrote yesterday – I’m not happy with it and was going to edit that entry but I’m going to leave it and see if I can’t unpick a bit of my uncomfortableness.
I also started going through my catalogues and notice that the Frieze catalogue has the most notes.
I was really disappointed with Zoo this year. Perhaps being there the first day wasn’t ideal, perhaps being there the year of Northern Rock wasn’t ideal, I don’t know but I left feeling rather deflated. I can only think of one or two stands that interested me.
I accept that being an artist rather than a buyer I’m not the target fair audience however in the past I’ve left Zoo feeling excited about being an artist (even one without a gallery). This year was different.
What does it mean when I don’t see evidence of my kind of practice? What does it mean to be out of step with what young galleries are showing?
I know that fairs are an essential part of a galleries year and must surely generate (directly and indirectly) a great deal of the income that enables them to put on more experimental shows. Perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places, perhaps I should make more effort to get to gallery shows and shouldn’t expect the fairs to showcase new and exciting work…
