Tues 19 August. Loofer’s Food and Coffee Place recently opened in the Eastgate mall. Very friendly and sponsors Fairtrade projects. Subtle lighting and jazz.
We’ve both seen an exhibition by students in a shop unit in Chelmsford and liked the energy and ideas. We both need temporary studio space occasionally. Wysing Arts have experimental space for their artists. Currently Basildon town centre is our temporary studio space.
Talked about the intellectual foundation for work and its “juddering” pace with production. I’ve been reading Tom Philip’s “Works. Texts. To 1974”. He describes “suffering the feeling that [his] work…is what [he does] while waiting to find ‘the way’ or ‘[his] own way’”.
There’s progress towards final outcomes to this project. Gordon has a mock up of an A6 publication – pictures and text. I’m editing short videos and sound for the internet. Ideas emerge for a further collaboration focusing on shop mannequins.
Tues 5 August. The Master Baker at Basildon bus station is small and clean. It sells bread, cakes, sandwiches etc. and its round tables attract the neatly turned out, mainly on the far side of 50. The tea is marginally more expensive than other places.
I’ve been editing sound for a short video shot at home. Showing the results on laptop, it’s kind of worked, but the editing software is clunky so adjusting video and sound together is a long process.
We are thinking about outcomes. Gordon wants to produce a printed booklet with photos of the fronts of the cafés and written documentation. Needs a reasonably priced book binder or will make the books himself. I am getting enough material for virtual work and maybe a booklet.
We walk to Eastgate mall and I take sequential stills looking down on café and shoppers from the first floor.
Tues 22 July. McDowell’s Pie & Mash. Its unusual deep green windows are open; designed by the Proprietor’s father, she thinks. Flow of breeze, flow of people. Traditional food – pie a particular shape, pastry and meat particular browns, mash and liquor their particular consistencies.
We analyse reactions of people to our photographing round town and the use of pixilation to disguise identities or even locations. We speculate on ways of using animation or building mechanised images within McDowell’s. How different to working with neutral gallery spaces?
A question arises. What relevance are etching and hand-built mechanics (mine and Gordon’s interests respectively), once cutting edge of social development but overtaken by more viable processes? Could I live in my great grandmother’s clothes or she in mine?
We look for the next café. How to chart them all? Passing through the town square there’s thoughts about creating an inflated ideal landscape.
