Sarah and I had an initial meeting in Glasgow in December 2013 where we caught up and talked generally about what we hoped to make and achieve with the bursary funding.
The funding is covering two round trips for each of us to Islay and Glasgow respectively, a meals budget and materials budget for our research and work development.
A few key thoughts so far from our first meeting:
…banal descriptions, categorised…
…something big enough for a person to put their head inside.
In addition to these, here are a few excersises from the book How To Be an Explorer of the World by Keri Smith that have got me thinking.
Exploration 12: Fifty Things – Write down fifty things about one of the following…a walk in your neighbourhood.
Exploration 27: Accidential Art – Go for a walk. Identifiy and document existing ‘art’ that you find, such as things that are not created on purpose [or with th epurpose of being art].
Exploration 59: How To Wander Aimlessly – Start heading in any direction. Act only on instinct. If you start to think you are wasting your time then you are doing it correctly. Keep going. Pay attention to all the details.
For my New Collaboration Bursary I have invited artist Sarah Laing to collaborate with me to develop new works inspired by my recent move to Islay. Islay is one of the Inner Hebrides and is located off the West Coast of Scotland (http://www.islayinfo.com).
We both actively explore process-led making practices through our work. We will each respond to the same found object or natural form within the Islay landscape and can anticipate creating around 6 works throughout the collaboration.
Taking inspiration from games and play, I will create a series of spoken-word sound works that present humourous and abstract descriptions of natural forms and objects. I am interested in creating fictional identities for found objects, assigning these with abstract and other worldly features to make their original source and form hard to discern.
Isolating fragments from these natural forms and objects, Sarah will respond by creating 3-D forms and drawings using Denril, ink, pencil and found materials. These drawings will take their cue from my own sound works, while exploring mark making, ambiguous form and
discovery through repetition.
