Studio-Intensive

Studio-Intensive Day 6

Started the sixth day well but got stuck in a one and three-quarter hour  traffic jam to studio, a journey which normally takes twenty minutes. What did I do? Well, I planned my recording for Monday, sang along badly to Radio Three,  thought about my plans for the day including my Skype conversation with artist Linda Duvall this evening and did a little bit of huffing and puffing. I try to think of space like this as a bonus but I don’t always manage it. Re-ran the early part of my day for positives but the loss of the yellow duckling is still very saddening. Little things make big impacts.

Worked at some admin. and began looking again at the a-n artist’s toolkit especially  the do-it-yourself critique questions from Linda Ball’s toolkit 2007 –

‘quality of your work, ideas and concepts you have chosen to develop, direction of your work, quantity of work you have produced, relevance and quality of your research, ability with manual skills/techniques/processes, relationship with your audience/client, degree to which you have been experimental, quality of new ideas or innovative solutions, ability to be critical about your work, ability to be critical about others’ work, involving others in a critical approach to your work, keeping up-to-date with contemporary practice, ability to plan your time and manage your workload’

It is still relevant even though it is now 11 years old.

Talking of relevance, I started reading Albert Camus’ Create Dangerously. He writes

‘To create today is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing’ (Penguin Modern 17:3). Written in 1957, this sums up this age of social media where nothing can be hidden and everyone has opinions based on few facts.

Preparing for my collaboration with Linda. This involves humming over Skype using particular spaces. It explores the intersection of space, and by implication, time; body and sound and by using Skype, brings in extra spatiotemporal resonances. Resonances are, of course, what I hope the humming will do. Last time we tried it, we were both physically present, and the level of empathy between us was such that the hum became one, became separate from us both but, at the same time, belonged to us both. I will report tomorrow on what happens.

Studio-Intensive Day 5

Getting a good routine now, emails checked and coffee by 6.30, out for a run and 30 minute gym session. My favourite run takes me through a field of young cattle. The first day they followed, surrounded and generally bullied me, they are a little skittish. Now, I have a technique that I will research in the future. This is not without precedent. I have been using humming as a way of connecting body, space and sound. A year ago, I did a residency in a hole in the ground in Saskatoon. The last morning, I went there for sunrise to create sound-songs and hums. As I finished, I looked up and a deer had come to the side of the hole very quietly, I didn’t hear it, and it just stood there listening. I also used hums to soothe my grandchildren when they were babies so thought to try it with the cattle. It has worked two consecutive days  with only animal number 2345 being a little more curious. Makes the run much more peaceful.

Next  a discussion with Ed about our collaboration. It will work out fine. I realize I am prevaricating with this blog post as today has been quite important in terms of learning. My question about what sort of artist I am created problems. I am the sort of artist who fills their time with little, although interesting, things because I am unable to deal with what I really want to do. I think, basically it comes down to finance, I cannot finance my ideas and have invented a condition which allows me to coast. This is ‘form dyslexia’. I have a lot of trouble with the boxes, the questions, the problems caused by the computer when filling them in and general rage that the process instigates in me. I actually feel quite ashamed of myself for allowing this to happen.

Today, I went to Lakeside at the university to see Scaling the Sublime. A brilliant exhibition in the main. One of my favourite artists is Katie Patterson whose work needs explanation as its context is not obvious. This is how my work generally is, my real work, not my prevarications. I have seen this as a problem, submissions ask for images and not always contexts. Also dealing a lot with sound, it doesn’t always make the most impact.

Now, I need to address the problem.

Studio-Intensive Day 4

A day where things have turned around. Tidying completed. My overnight recording wasn’t quite as well-recorded as I had hoped but surprising amount to noise. Lots of birdsong though. Need to try again tonight. Collage finished, needed an extra island to cover glue I couldn’t remove. Daily drawing done.

Time to ask questions

A very basic, what sort of artist am I, apart from a  messy

I am very serious about it, and very motivated. I feel a constant need to understand things and find that understanding through art. Ideas that occur through just being in the world, through just living. But also, how things work, how materials work, what processes really do. I try to understand philosophical ideas through art as well as interpret them but find it difficult to do as short of reading time but am working on changing that. I love what I do by which I don’t mean that I love all the work I produce but I love the experimental aspect of finding things out. I perhaps should call myself an explorer if that doesn’t sound too pretentious. research is inherent within my practice, cannot have one without another. Which all adds up to work which is non-commercial. I think that nothing is finished because it just leads to more questions. I do think I have a place within the art world but need someone to believe in me more than `I believe in myself. That was hard to say but it is this questions leading to questions that makes a diffidence.

Found I am on the 66thA5 book of notes and ideas, always wondered whether I would have trouble identifying exactly the one that I wanted and I was right even though they are dated.

Studio- Intensive Day 3

Past art life has become more bags of discarded paper. Am I just a sum of the rubbish? It wasn’t rubbish then so what has changed? One thing is that the internet has meant that things don’t have to be printed out, they are always accessible. I don’t need these copies, this image, that catalogue, they become part of my own personal archive or, alternately, hoarding. What about work I have created, is that hoarding or not? Will I want to show it again or would a photograph suffice?

Actually think that an artist’s life is a little circular, re-visiting is fine. You get new contexts and can think of a different way of doing it.

Worked on recording techniques and left sound recorder on all night. It will be interesting to see what happens when the building is empty. This is so important for my cave recordings, have to get it right first time. Visited lots of websites for tips but some are contradictory so will have to experiment.

The collaborative piece I am doing with Ed and the choir has become just Ed. The choir don’t feel they want to do it. Now need to look for participants in Birmingham but think it will be ok.

One last piece to stick on my collage. I have had such a lot to learn about 2D stuff especially about the final touches, the cleanliness being a major thing, I am not a clean worker. Also about positive and negative and the way such small changes affect the whole.

Looking forward to tomorrow when things should have turned round, the sorting out so I feel that I can move forward.

Day 2

Stream of random thoughts, not necessarily coherent.

Blog is a form of practice.

Described water whilst swimming in a Norwegian fjord a few years ago as sharp. The water in my pool where I swam today was soft. Soft and warm.

Moving a painted scrap 1 cm. makes a lot of difference.

Think this work, From the Top Down, juxtaposes areas of land and sea, of mountains and clouds as well as here and not here.

Found leaflet on different sorts of ice as well as a map of the Galapagos Islands, they are both relevant. However, the book of Korean recipes is not, not yet.

White duck has one yellow duckling after sitting on egg for several weeks.

Made polenta, its violent yellow splashes erupt from the pan.

I drew the edge of the curtain from my bed today.

The river is speckled white with blown flowers which have gathered up in eddies creating white blankets. I don’t get hay fever.

The studio, so cold in Winter, was quite warm in spite of this.

My new-found space in the studio created from tidying up makes it seem enormous, I can swing my arms and not knock anything over.

I sharpened all my pencils.

Looked through my past portfolios and images, usually I can see a thread running through my practice but not today.

I am enjoying myself.

Already about to change rules of engagement with this Studio-Intensive but realise that if I didn’t, I would probably have been wasting my time as I would not have been thinking deeply enough or challenging myself to come up with new thoughts.