six week residency

i like to sit back with a cup of tea and meander through my daily four of the clock. fortunately today i find myself alone in the studio so i;ve got my feet up on the furniture, as no one knows i’m doing it!

it’s been quiet here for a few days.

the end of last week was mared by some scumble or scumbles unknown removing the lead facing on the garage at the house. it upset me rather.

any way one good thing to come out of being a victim of crime was doing some drawing. one of those empty shop things was happening. the resident artist was drawing and inviting visitors to draw something too. i’ve added an image of what i drew on my page on facebook. i liked the artist enough so to go back and document her work. oh, how rude of me, her name is diana shepherd. i saw an opportunity to make a very wide digital image of her drawing, the drawing must have been in excess of 10 metres wide. i’ve sent her the file and other images this afternoon.

i’ve been thinking about something emily speed wrote very early on in this residency, which was :

“I like your point about the lack of it being a big deal.. better somehow (for creativity – not life planning) if it all catches you by surprise I think.”

i do have to admit to not quite understanding fully the life planning bit. isn’t any other residency about creativity? interestingly, because i’ve been happier in myself because i have been making loads, i have been able to do some future planning, which feels so liberating.

and what of outcomes of this residency? well today there’s feet up on furniture, i wouldn’t have expected that treat so soon. there’s the collaborative little film with the young whipper snapper, the edit of wich is progressing. the young chap has been off doing interesting things with metal, so he’s not been around for a few days. i’m sure i’ll see him once he’s taken care of his metal engagement. there’s also the you tube channel that i’ve started to use, and make stuff for. making stuff to place specifically on the channel is quite a shift in my attitude towards the channel. i’ve also re-engaged with the photobox pro gallery system. i’ve set myself up some opportunities to investigate image making, something that will carry on after the residency has been completed. the image making gives me an outlet for potentially political or social stuff, while my sculptural new media investigation remains focused on the human being, irrelevant of politics, religion and anything else that might get in the way of simply enjoying the process of being alive.

i’ve let the studio know that i have an opportunity to document an event this weekend and i’ve had a call back to do more lighting design next week, so i mite delay the end of the residency for a few days to accommodate all this other stuff.

being in positive mental space and writing, while my feet are up, i realise i am really quite busy, doing stuff i am enjoying and the bonus is i have started talks about my next big project. having the talks on going leaves me in a positive mental space to enjoy doing other things. making doing thinking etc.

i’m finishing early today. i’ve been affected by things what have happened in the studio today.

i’d come in really excited about something i’d done at home over the weekend. i’d found a use for a pile of rejected windows from envelopes. they were rejected because the early form of recycling where i live didn’t take the windows of envelopes, so i used to religiously tear them out. i kept them believing that one day i would find a use for them. over the weekend i decided i wanted not to have the pile any more. i was faced with what to make with them. it became a little film and now there is a space in that place where they used to be.

so i got in all excited. there was a bit of funny atmosphere. someone was going to be popping in and i’ve had it confirmed that the runner of the purple shed is going to be flitting in and out for the foreseeable future, something family orientated that no one was really able to tell me about. reminds of those applications i make to other places and get a blank rejection and then write to them asking for some feedback and get ignored. the last time this happened was from an organisation that i had really liked for some time. their lack of feedback has tarnished my view of them. if the organiser is away, i’ll miss our chats and moments of realisation about stuff. i hope i can chat again soon.

also this morning someone popped in to have a chat to those in the studio. i ended up being an ignored bystander in an argument about artist and curator and systems and you know what it was a waste of my time. i tried to get involved, adding my opinion and standpoint, however it was ignored, probably because it was too liberal. the argument was between the person who claims to be getting nowhere and the other who has managed to find a route and has started journeying alone it. i recognise that a year ago i would have been less liberal than now. part of the argument seemed to be about being accepted for what they made. seems to me there was some personal issues going on that was being projected onto others. i can say that as i did a lot of projection during the ff show. all that projecting, it’s everyone else except me…the pattern emerges that maybe it was me. i left the conversation as i found it to negative and going no where.

moan over, i’ll chilling out of here.

made from windows.

by lunchtime today i’d concluded “i’m not that clever really, i might as well enjoy what i do and have fun.” this revelation came over a lunchtime chat about a ted video that had been watched by members of the studio this morning. i’d caught bits of the soundtrack and had been sent a link to a website that was referenced in the ted talk. the site works sematically to link images and words, very much the 3.0 stuff that Kelly had talked about last year.

so i’ve spent the afternoon just having fun, being annoying and having a laugh. all for the creativity of it of course. i’ve spent time with the sculpture. wow that’s a messy process, and so many tools used as well. i’d be a 1.0 sculpture, however i don’t like having to buy materials and then use then and in any case what would i make, my mark making is so child like, i’ll be laughed out of polite water colour meetings.

it’s a slippery slide for me i’m afraid.

i sometimes would like to be able to “send via thought transfer” my thoughts about the moment. last night was the most recent occurance of this. as i sat listening to music with pizza cooking and wine breathing i really would have liked to simply download what i was thinking. i really wanted to download about the day i’d had and how happy i felt.

there’s a lot of work currently being completed at the studio. yesterday was another opportunity to play with my picture taking and processing skills. i’m enjoying this opportunity a lot and i’m realising that i now have quite a good knowledge of photoshop. so much so that i’m returning to my photobox gallery with the intention of making images for print and sale. i do like the mine field of resolution and quality and image size connected with digital image making. i’m always troubled by the starting resolution. ha ha ! it no longer matters as i can manipulate and construct to my heart’s content.

after the photoshot, there was a bit of a buzz and i was whisked up into the energy and before i knew it i was out with three on a picnic and walkabout, to explore and observe and generally relax and eat and talk, while amusing with observations and sketch making. one of the little video sketches i made is at the bottom of this post.

if only i could have downloaded my thoughts last night. this afternoon i do feel slightly tired and below par and it’s four oclock and i’ve just sneezed. have you seen the sneezing panda video on you tube?

i’m still enjoying the space to play with my skill base, mucking about with image, video, web and other things as yet to be done. it does however niggle me that it doesn’t feel worthy enough. worthy enough? worthy enough to attract funding. i am of course still troubled by my sub conscious. it is programmed in such a way that it runs in sync with the conscious disability to at times leave me feeling worn out and useless.

fortunately for me i have a project that does feel worthy and does have interest and does have potential and i’m looking forward to getting to the point where i can do what i want with it. it does strike me as interesting how slow these things progress. i think i am aware that at the beginning of anything, it appears slow. i’m always amazed at how long the journey to somewhere is, only to be self contradicted on the return leg.

oh and talking of return legs, the chap with the kite. his filming project appears to be turning into a collaborative project and i’m starting to get caught up in the whole thing of what to do with the footage and what to make and what to communicate and all those other things one gets to consider when one sets out to do something. luckily i remember the kiss rule.

and so i have coffee and write and all the tension wains. well most of it, last night was fun and they all did come back to mine and we did all get on well, well except for two of them. they seemed to eat and crash out really quickly, their playful romping during the afternoon certainly taking it out of them.

i might have to disagree with hockney for a moment. sometimes after head down doing, the need to look up and be reflective is necessary. i say that as i need to do that myself. i have done that recently to see that without intention of doing anything, i have actually done things, simply because i want to. a bit like the electro-therapied pianist who kept playing.

i have several lines of enquiry, and as such will always be working to an unreached resolution of the enquiry. however along the way there will be stations of completion, alongside the worthy project.