… and suddenly May is ending.
In my mind it has only just begun. Flipping through my diary I can see what it feels like that. There’s always follow-up work to do after Supermarket, there was collecting my work from Liljevalchs, then there was the screen-printing course … more on that later … my participation and presentation at the Verdandi student association Biennale … more on that later / in upcoming post …then there was the Market Art Fair, an unexpected deadline (half self imposed, half not), and making a very minimal artwork for the artists’ clubs members’ show. In addition the Saab needed both a trip to the mechanics and it’s MOT, I needed to renew both my passport and driving license – life in Sweden is seriously curtailed if one doesn’t have a valid form of ID and with the UK having left the EU my UK passport has limited currency here. Renewing such documents means booking times to physically visit the appropriate authority and / or the police. There was of course a good smattering of other small and necessary tasks, events, and activities both art related and not.
This past Tuesday was the ’Welcome Meeting’ for new members of the Uppsala Print Workshop. Now that I had completed an introductory screen-print course I was eligible for membership which I applied for and received. We were only two of the seven new members at the meeting so it didn’t take as long to go through all the procedures, hints, and tips for everything from getting in to the building and using the communal kitchen to where various pieces of equipment should be stored (and where they often are to be found if they are not where they should be) to buying one’s own equipment and materials.
As a member I simply book myself in to work there as and when it suits me, there is basic equipment and materials that can be borrowed and / or used at very cheap rates. I think I would like to team up with one of the other artists on the course for the first few times that I am there without the watchful eye and great support of our tutor Gijs.
The course was organised by the cultural development part of the County Council (a sister department to the department where I work half-time) and was for practising artists. We were six though one dropped out after the first session due to other commitments. The first of the five sessions began with a study visit to the Medical History Museum – a wonderfully curious place a short walk away from the building where both the print workshop and my studio are – these and many other buildings were once parts of Uppsala’s psychiatric hospital. The museum and the enthusiastic, relatively recently appointed, director proved a wealth of information which we were tasked with taking inspiration from. Back in the workshop I felt something I imagine akin to what the students I worked with on the textile collage project seemed to experience – an overload of inspiration in tandem with being asked to respond in a new medium.
I finished that first session without a clue as to what I would do. That evening, in conversation with L, I realised that I am not used to producing a two-dimensional image – I work with three dimensional materials even if they result something very much concerned with image. My chatting with L led to me deciding to make a type of fanzine booklet combining different sources of inspiration from both the museum and my own (good) health. The second session was spent making the layout including ink drawings on acetate, a stencil cut from black card, found text treated with vegetable oil to make the paper translucent. Gijs diligently led us through the stages of preparing the screens with UV sensitive emulsion. Some fellow participants worked rapidly and managed to create their first screen that evening. I was happy that I had created the layout for my tiny publication. While others got on with printing their first colour and making their second screens I did not have much success in either of the third or fourth session. My ambition to try out different variations of stencil was causing multiple difficulties. So everything was resting on the fifth and final session. Thankfully I learned from my mistakes and had good guidance from Gijs … which meant that by the end of that evening I had an edition 72 little fanzines drying on the racks. I picked up the dried prints on Tuesday at the Welcome Meeting.
I’m this first person to have made a fanzine at the workshop – which struck me as odd as the place has been running more than four years now. It also struck me that made an object rather than an image – old habits die hard!
The format of the fanzine – a single sheet with images on one side folded and cut once to create an eight page booklet – really appeals to me. I like the idea of producing similar things in conjunction with future exhibitions and projects … a kind of limited edition, yet low value, give-away that replaces a traditional exhibition text.
