I am in the ‘full-blooded’ stage of the project. Was in Bristol last week, a lot happened – major installation design decisions, planning for the catalogue. presentations to teachers, gifting sessions at the Museum with a group of students doing the Creative Media Diploma at Backwell School.
I stayed at my sister’s house in Backwell, and with her and my brother-in-law Mark’s help (he is the school connection as he works as a lead practitioner in the CMD for the region) , we worked out how to translate my colour palette for the 900 objects in the main piece into actual number of objects per colour and metres of fabric required. I had been trying to do this for a while without much success, so when we came up with the final numbers I was in sweet shock for a while as I saw that every number relating to every single colour is divisible by 9 again! 9 seems to have become a living entity and be following me around, toying with my head..
Mark unearthed around 30 objects for the project to wrap–most of them childrens toys .My nieces were there, deconstructing their early childhoods as they debated and figured out the detail of each item’s history…
I was due to give what I had been told by the museum was only a presentation to Mark’s school group the next day . However when I got to my sisters house I realised that there had been a communication blip and the students were bringing objects to wrap the next morning..I, however I hadn’t brought any materials. I perversely like this kind of situation. We hatched a plan and got the students involved in sourcing fabrics, cutting, stripping and logging as well as wrapping and experiencing the adrenalin rush of being in production of a live artwork.
Mark has since set up a lot more sessions with different school groups and I now know what I need to do to be prepared. I enjoyed sharing my work and approach with them, I have started to accept that my self-criticism that I talk too quickly and jam too much in is in fact exaggerated in my head and just part of my style and the more I accept that the more I will slow down anyway.
Example of objects given so far…coming in thick and fast:
A bunch of keys to a recently repossessed house.
A child’s toothbrush
A photo of an ex-lover
A gold watch strap of a recently deceased partner
A ninetndo wii (broken)
A screenplay
A jar of gold size with gilder’s tip and gold leaf.
Three small knitted dolls, each symblising a lost child through miscarriage
A photo taken by my mother of a group of her Iranian friends, sent to me by one of them
An ipod mini
A large seed pod
A jar of shells and stones, collected over 30 years ago by parents long departed.
