Stating/Showing

A Plan of just down the road from George Square (the leaf it tagged as me)

Mary Cooles’s perfection – alter-image – I entered in to her domain and the painting remained as my disguise.

“I am talking to you today about alter image.” This alternative image is changed during intervals in the installation process. You see before I made considerably large movements, God knows I had room for it then, now I make smaller perfections.

There is something about the house plants that litter my window seat in the living room. They have entered in to my drawing process as my drawings take place in that room, they have entered and are a part of – or perhaps already were a part of – my experience.

The other day, in envious delight, I visited the studios of two other artists who think a lot. In envious delight their studios exist on a mezzanine surrounding the gallery of the studio complex below. One of the artists has a cactus on his shelf, the other a picture of a cheese plant on her desk next to an open book or two. I now have a picture of another cheese plant’s leaf next to an empty espresso cup on my wall above my writing desk, tagged with bent over masking tape. In the picture, according to the photographer, the leaf is also tagged as me.

There must be a connection here. There are fucking house plants everywhere and this studio complex I entered in to uses house plants to make you feel at home, or to make the studio holders feel at home.

In this studio-cum-gallery in Glasgow, I will use a houseplant or two to make a projection in shadow on the wall, I will move one leaf one by one, tacked with masking tape to the floor.

Back to the window seat, where each pain, as you lie underneath the sill on the white sofa, frames another gull in the sky and another flag whistling in the wind: there on this sill I cannot sit, there are too many plants, and instead I place an oil painting on the window seat to dry in the sun. This painting is build on systematic geometry that is deliberately altered, a very conscious choice to go wrong. In the middle of this painting there is a whole, or a window, through which you can focus in again on the framed image: a gull seems closer for some reason, and the flags more resonant whipped in the sea air. I will bring this painting with me please and I will use this painting please as it is a painting and it belongs in a gallery not on a window sill.

Having moved

I thought it was time that I tackled the view from my flat. It adds layers to the city. The flat itself is on the top of a hill and the back faces southwest in to the hills. In the far distance there is a ski slope that is lit up at night. The weather of each day affects the view: some days (like today) you can see the hills as they dress the sky line and on others all that remains to be seen is the bare trees at the foot of the window across the garden. It is a different kind of view from that which I became used too. Glasgow offered the reflection of your flat within the windows of others. Leeds was much the same – quite on show that you were. This view reminds me of the hills of home, North East Derbyshire encroaching on the seven peaks of Sheffield and the Peak District itself. You could see the water tower next to my uncle’s house in Norton, south Sheffield from the landing window.

Perhaps this is it. Landmarks are a given in this place.

The other evening my friend needed the toilet so we entered in to the foyer of an arts centre around 6.30 pm for him to find suitable facilities. Before long we were asked by a young woman, who’s accent disguised her past, if we wanted a Peroni. We of course said yes and then three Peroni’s later we had learned she worked for a bank and was posted all over the UK to help promote one of its clients (you can guess which one). The promotion this times was in the guise of a photography exhibition, rare prints taken from Italian or Italian inspired films, in which Italian costume designers played a huge part. One particular print took my fancy. It depicted a 70s bar with one woman wearing a 70s style dress and three men with moustaches and matching suits. We decided to get to know the Peroni girl a little better – another bottle later we learned that she was from North East Derbyshire (Clown in Chesterfield to be exact), the town next to the one where I grew up. First off though she said she was from Sheffield too as I had said that is where I was from (well I was born there, in Jessops hospital, the hospital where my Grandmother on my father’s side had worked as a nurse). We were then a lot more exacting and confessed at having grown up just south of the Yorkshire border instead. I could see Sheffield and the water tower from my house on the hill though so I was sort of half lying.

She did not sound as though she was from just north of the midlands. And neither do I except when talking to Scottish people, as I want to accentuate my roots during my time living here. The landscape is the same but the accent is different I think.



To dally on the walkway and marry at the door

I seem to have acquired myself a mentor. A mentor that is impeccably fast at replying to emails – almost too fast, and definitely faster than I am at producing the work in the first place.

The mentor is currently working through this text for me. The text is then edited at a faster pace than it takes for the mentor to get back to me, this being a response to her well-practiced speed in reading, thinking, responding and making things constructive.

Keep writing (making) making writing she says.