Restarted

We’ve spent the last couple of weeks planning our exhibition which will be held next month in Liverpool.

It took ages to decide a title even though we have a common theme of using memory or links to the past in all of our works.  Many titles were discussed, even more thrown out for being too political or just downright off putting.

Its important to get something simple, that defines all of our different styles of work but is not pretentious.

So ‘Reshaping the past’ it is.

The exhibition statement was an interesting  experience…. two of us – Catherine Harrison and I,  have exhibited together on many occasions – most recently when I took her work to Athens for Platforms Project.  Maybe for this reason, we’ve become a bit jaded over exhibitions.  We’ve put in so much effort in the past but really, the only people who show any interest are family and friends.

So I put absolutely no effort into the press release – what’s the point ?

At this stage artist No 3 – Sufea Mohamad Noor stepped in.  Oh my God – she’s like a human tornado ! Much younger than me, is a whizz at spreadsheets and dynamic in her approach.   Was I like that when I was younger? Is that why I achieved so much then and gone quieter over the years?    Did I just give up as it was too hard?

‘Think like a man’ she kept saying when we put a (very) brief bio together.  List EVERY achievement., no matter how small.  State where you studied…… what are your aims in your work?

I felt so uncomfortable with all that.  We just don’t shout about what we’ve done.

Invite curators to the exhibition ?? WHAT?  Never bothered doing that. What’s the point?

I’m just so shell shocked.

I’m going to roll out the press releases in the next few days , while hiding behind a cushion cringing at being so forward.

Yesterday, I finished installing an exhibition of work by NML’s Youth Engagement Forum. They’re a collective of young people who meet up at Liverpool Museums .

At the moment, all of the Liverpool museums ( World Museum, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool Museum plus several more not in the city centre ) are on strike due to a pay dispute.
So to cut a long story short, I was asked, as a freelancer there, if I would deal with this exhibition.

It was a difficult situation, but the exhibition had been planned for such a long time and CassArts ( where it was going to be held) were fully booked well into the future. Pulling out would mean them losing their slot indefinitely.  Plus, the theme of the exhibition was International Women’s day – happening this week.

What should have been a few hours work, turned out to be quite time consuming in the end. The students had sent me their statements, but they were all in different fonts and sizes, so that itself took a while to clean up.
I then had to join the main library to use their printing facilities. That was challenging, but I’d put it down as a learning experience for me – having never needed to use public pcs and printers before.  Thanks to the wonderful staff there  though for teaching idiot me how to print in colour 🙄
On arriving at the exhibition I found that most of the work was on paper, so that was just a case of spacing it out and attaching it to the wall with White Tac ( not allowed to use anything else on the walls there)

Three of the works were  framed , but they hadn’t attached any method of hanging on the back . Cass Arts have a wire and hook system .
Having had enough by then and not fancying traipsing round town to look for string or wire, I thought the easiest thing to do was just take them home and fix them there.
Returning on day two ( via the library again to print off more things ) I installed the final works.
I do hope people get to see the exhibition . Obviously the museum won’t be able to publicise the exhibition as they normally would.

After a couple of weeks of feeling a bit Meh about my work, the weather and not doing much, I feel recharged again now.
I had 5 days of Spanish sun – visiting the amazing colours and architecture of Seville .

I loved the Moroccan feel, the peacefulness of the gardens and of course, the blue skies.

With so much stimulation, the trip made me want to start to introduce colour again to my work.
I’d been working with white paint so much lately as a kind of revolt against the busyness of my installations . It had a calming effect and I was able to get a feel of the paint without the distraction of colour and patterns.

Back to reality now though.

I can’t start on any work as my studio / spare room/ dumping ground is being used for an overnight stay tonight, so I have to pack away all of my paints etc and have a sort out / clean . Sigh.

Also, going through my emails when I got back, I found one from the open studio tour that I’ll be part of in June. My statement was too short.
One thing I hate, is long, pretentious statements that no one ever reads. I’d said to a friend a few weeks ago that I just wanted to say that I liked to paint. I liked the feel and texture of it. I had written a bit more than that, but it wasn’t enough and I reluctantly had to add a few more sentences .

It’s all nonsense isn’t it.

Last week I had a meeting with two other artists I’d worked with before, about having an exhibition together .
One of them has a studio in Liverpool that has its own gallery space. As it’s also connected to a bar and eating place, it’s a good place to show work as there’s always people around.
One of the suggestions we discussed – having bounced off ideas about the title which would tie our styles of work together , was to make BIG work.
Sounds good doesn’t it, but bearing in mind that I don’t have a studio space, the idea of working large is quite challenging .
I did actually have a couple of old canvases in my loft, that I decided to dig out and rework to see if I could do something with them, which was useful .

I managed to prime them in the garden one day when it was dry and not bitterly cold, so that went ok.
The next bit wasn’t so easy . They were too big for the kitchen table or any others surfaces I’d been using up to now, so the only option was to cover my bed in a plastic sheet and work sprawled across it.  Although that worked sort of OK, standing back to see what they looked like was near impossible. It was yet again a case of taking them into the garden to be able to look at how they were going, from a reasonable distance.
I’m not 100% sure. I’m out of my comfort zone in so many levels . As well as size, I’ve introduced more colour , which although I’ve worked with before, I suddenly feel less confident with now .
We’re aiming for an opening date end of April for the exhibition, so given that I’ve already got a body of work set aside, there’s no urgency to finish these two pieces if I’m not happy with them. I’ll keep going though as it’s always good to stretch yourself .
In other news, my application for the open studio has been sent off and I’ve ordered ( and received) the first lot of cards I’ve had printed. I’m quite pleased with them.
… and in a completely different note, I’ve got tickets for the Graham Crowley ( John Moores prize winner) talk next week.
Looking forward to that !

It’s been a rubbish week… well, it probably hasn’t, but just one thing overshadowed everything else and I felt like packing it all in.
I got the reject email from an open exhibition I’d entered.
It was particularly depressing because I wanted it to be the start of showing this new body of work I had.
I had worked so hard on this particular piece. I worked on it constantly and checked it in different lighting positions, adding , changing until I was completely happy with it.
I honestly felt confident about showing it.
Picking it up yesterday, with all of the other jaded entrants, I skulked home leaving it in a bag til much later when I had the guts to take a long hard look at it.
Should I have painted it differently? Added more colour? Less colour ? …  I went through all of the options but I couldn’t find what I could change.
They just didn’t like it . End of.