ten months on new ground

I volunteered at Abandon Normal Devices for a few days at the beginning of the month- invigilating, investigating and taking part in events and screenings in various sites across the city. Hosting film, installation, live events, performance and workshops, the Festival of New Cinema and Digital Culture is in its second year and ran from 1^st – 7^th October. It was good to do, but it only served to reiterate the fact that I want to be an artist over any other kind of events/gallery based work. I saw Sheena Macrae’s Odyssey on show at the Cornerhouse Gallery when UnSpooling opened- the piece was different to how I had imagined. I think the scale of the work in actual fact threw me. I had imagined impossibly large screen- tens of metres across! In fact mirrors are used to display this illusion, even better. I knelt down and stared into the ongoing reflection these magical strips of light that had been created with parallel panes and didn’t care that I felt (and probably looked) like a small child in awe.

I have set up a kind of makeshift studio space in the spare room of my house, which is actually light and spacious enough to work in for the time being. I have most of the materials I need now, gon get cracking.

2. interaction (I)

Feeling rather embarrassingly like a tourist and being the newbie that I am, I have been observing and generally taking in as much as possible from the surroundings. I am residing in the very nucleus of student activity and fresher nightlife. I don’t really mind this; the only worry is the burglary statistics. The police popped round the other day, which was at first deeply worrying, and then reassuring, then slightly worrying again. Best get some insurance for my laptop.

Anyway, having had little time to make artwork due to the chaos of the move (and because I left most of my art stuff back in Loughborough), I’ve been trying to reconfigure my creative interests using some words.

“… it is possible to suggest that what constitutes the world around us is not the nature of materials themselves, but the difference between them.” -Ian Monroe (from the essay Where Does One Thing End and the Next Begin. Collage: Assembling Contemporary Art. 2008)

It is true that tactility only exists through a differing of materials. It is an illusion- or more accurately, a suggestion of tactility I am trying to produce through making artwork in collage. Maybe our understanding of these images as real-life objects can tempt us to disregard the fact they are all in fact paper components, through a desire and imaginative willing?

Sometimes collaged combinations are successful because they react strongly off one another in provocative ways. Friction being how the strongest relationships are formed. -To over come it I mean. If you cant overcome that abrasive state, it may fail. I’m kind of referencing something I read about how our early relationships with our siblings teach important lessons in dealing with confrontation. Arguing, bitching, even physical fighting can occur in sibling rivalry, but it’s the making-up part that is so important. Knowing how to apologise and forgive. Stronger relationships are built through experiencing this process. I like this in regards to my artwork. I tend to anthropomorphise the cut outs for my collage, like a little child playing with arbitrary objects or toys. Do they like each other? Do they get on? Ha! Maybe they can learn to get on. I’ll leave them together for a few days, maybe they will eventually.

I’ve been thinking about Louise Bourgeois’ diary entries, of which I have read quite religiously in the past. They are overt and unashamedly intimate. I often question the importance of knowing the private reasoning behind an artist’s creations. At times I want to share my diary entries with the world, but some days later I am thankful I held back. I need to start gathering new material for collage. I have hundreds of books and magazines at home, but i feel the need to start a new collection here to represent the location in which i am making artwork. I’ve not noticed many charity shops in the city centre though, so my next mission is to travel a bit further out to find some..

1. decisions?

so here i am. having recently graduated from fine art at nottingham trent university, i have decided to throw myself into a new and completely unfamiliar city – maybe missing that initial buzz of exhilaration that comes with starting an adventure or journey such as university (and partly for kicks) i have chosen to dwell in the city of manchester for ten months.

the ability to problem solve, or at least know how to go about solving problems is one thing (possibly the most invaluable thing) I have learnt from university. i’m quite good at creating problems too, interestingly, but anyway.. this aside for now, the time has come to apply this to the (cringe at the cliché) “real-world”, where squeezing awkward full-time employment, voluntary work, writing, and still practicing as an artist feels almost like an impossibility.

after four days of living here I had gone out to a club with a friend of a friend and her crowd, worked at a Muse concert at Old Trafford, got a best friend from uni round for wine and catch ups, worked a few days at Whitworth art gallery and landed a full time job in a bar across the road. It felt good to be that busy, but extremely tiring. It was due to being completely alone (in my house and in the city) for the first week of living here that forced me to do so much and meet so many people. Being settled and in full-time work (now 3 weeks into the move), means I have to try, plan and generally be more prioritizing. What constitutes time well spent?

I have started to read On Friendship by Michel de Montaigne:

P29. “Vainglory and curiosity are the twin scourges of our souls. The former makes us stick our noses into everything: the latter forbids us to leave anything unresolved or undecided.”

It is healthy to be able to leave things undecided: up to fate (or some version of it) to guide us through life. I like this notion and with regards to Montaigne’s words, I would say I suffer from the latter rather than any excessive boastfulness or the like. But it’s not even an inability to leave anything unresolved that is the problem, but rather the inability to actually resolve things that is where the frustration lies because if we could go through life curious yet resolving and deciding on everything as we go… well, I don’t think I would have a problem with that. Decision-making is proving a common annoyance for me at the moment. Not little things- it’s easy to quickly weigh up pros and cons of a day-to-day problem, or act on a gut instinct when it comes to something trivial. I’m talking 2, 3, 4 year plans and the post-uni pressure of feeling that I have to select from a colossal hat of exciting things I would love to do in life. And I don’t think I want to. Or do I? This is exactly what I mean…