Once In a Universe

Who’d have thought it would be so difficult to make more art? The problem arises when scale and ambition outgrow workspace. So my NYR#1: Make More Art! starts with a concerted effort to find bigger spaces to work in during 2019 as visiting artist or artist in residence, especially in environments where there are opportunities to engage with other artists and the public. My focus for the year is on continuing to increase the scale of my drawing, creating room sized installations in which drawing acts as a framework or structure combined with objects and still or moving images. You can see a five minute film about my 2018 residency at Eastbourne’s DC1 space here on Vimeo. If you’d like to host a residency please do get in touch!

NYR#2: Finish one thing before rushing on to the next exciting thing. This one’s interesting. I’ve made quite a good start with it, editing, organising and sharing the documentation of my Once In A Universe project on my website. That’s the positive aspect of tying up loose ends; the downside is that moving the work on from where I left it in the autumn seems to have been on hold for an age while I’ve been refining, editing and publishing the documentation. This leads me to NYR#3…

NYR#3 Draw every day. Not make a drawing every day, just draw every day, even if its only for 10 minutes. At least this creates a sense of continuity when studio time is limited and it acts as a constant source of ideas which can be developed in two and three dimensions.

One thing I’m pleased to have achieved is a collection of short videos from Once In A Universe. They include great presentations  by artist Shardcore and writer/poet Chris Parkinson, plus a fantastic Skype conversation with complexity scientist, Dr Alexandra Penn from my How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Machines* event. They are all in my Vimeo album. I hope you can take the opportunity to view and enjoy them and find out more about the project, especially if you weren’t able to make it along in person.

* How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Machines was produced in collaboration with Amy Zamarripa Solis/This Too Is Real
Films by Anna Winter and Skype.

The subject line of the e-mail reads “Information only: Grant closure Project Name: Once in a Universe”; so that’s it then. All done. Except it feels far from all done. The year long project ended with a two week residency last October and now the evaluation is done, the final payment has been received, but the next phase is just beginning. My aim for this year is to make more work, show more work, and make sure that by the end of the year I have a solo show in the planning stages. So now I need to make sure that the project documentation is properly edited and shared with those people I particularly want to see it. Then the next step is to try to put arrangemments in place to make sure I can continue to develop the work on a new, large scale with space and time for it to grow and mature. For now I’m focusing on updating my website and reviewing the archive of documentation so that it can be shared as a taster of what might come next. Here’s a tiny snippet. There’s lots more to come.