Rebecca Griffiths BUILD Residency Spring 2009

The BUILD residency is officially over! This was marked by the private view and public talk last week. A lot of the people who came were students or staff from University College Falmouth (who I know as a recent graduate) and offered quite particular feedback as a result.

The questions prompted me to think about how my practice has changed since this time last year when I was preparing to put up my (BA) degree show. My practice has become less diverse, more focussed? The last few months have been about simply ‘being’ with materials in many ways. This became quite evident when I gave my talk and began to reference process and material an obsessive amount.

I think the work at the BA show contained a lot of baggage which I’ve temporarily left behind. The support work that was a necessary part of the degree ….the weight of all those visual and critical references hasn’t been lost but has perhaps just been hidden behind a more direct, intuitive, and physical approach to making. A natural step having taken a break from education perhaps?

But there are things that I want to go back to, revise, and re-access now. This intense focus on making has come to an end for a moment and my intention is to spend some time re-fuelling; to read, write, talk, listen, draw, go for some coastal walks and catch up with some friends! (and I’ll be starting a new blog soon which will follow my thoughts and ideas before starting an MA at the RCA in September)

After a long, hard, adrenalin fuelled week of work, I finished installing the ‘Slipping Contours' show last night. I'd been having some concerns about how to display work….Due to my interest in fragmentation, objects in the studio tend to be scattered on the floor and lie horizontally . This is the work's natural inclination. But this week has been about finding the appropriate solutions to arrive at a sense of balance between the vertical and the horiontal, the fragmented and the whole.

I've been working on a piece called ‘Section', a 50 kilo batt of cast plaster, painted to take on the appearance of aluminium. It has been a particularly interesting process because it became something way beyond that which I could have produced and handled myself in the studio. After much discussion and assistance from artist Andrew Bird, the work was hung from steel girders accessed beyond the ceiling but invisible to the eye, and hovered in space precariously.

I need to prepare for a talk about the residency next week but it feels too soon to stand back and access the whole experience. Serious reflection must begin now!

This week I was based almost entirely on the studio floor developing a sculpture out of fragments of chipboard. The process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction integral to each component, as well as the layering of its linear elements suggested a relationship to drawing and felt like a return to an obsessively ‘scattered' aesthetic.

Out of all the work I've developed during the residency, this one feels most informed by previous work, and I see it acting almost as an anchor, to help me keep hold of the other constructions which I'm yet to understand.

I've had time off work this week to concentrate on the project, and the difference it's made has been incredible. A much-needed luxury!

This week I've had two meetings with BUILD's partner organisations. The first was to discuss how things might take shape in the show. Having been so focussed on making it was really helpful to get a fresh perspective on this, and to re-consider the exhibition in terms of audience and use of space. Although the exhibition isn't a primary focus of the residency as a whole, it's certainly becoming one now, less than two weeks until the install.

The second meeting was a professional development session and a chance to discuss at length the past, present, and future position of my practice. It was a rare opportunity to step outside and build a larger picture of what's going on and where I might want to be in 5 years from now. In particular it prompted me to think about what exactly I want to get out of The Royal College next year and the best ways to prepare for it.

In the studio this week I've been trying out a multitute of possibilities and have been frustrated at my lack of commitment so close to the deadline. The title of the exhibition "Slipping Contours' is becoming ever more relevant as the physical instability of the work increases.