Off shortly to gather more ideas and texts from the children at the playground – this is the last planned session at Charlie Chaplin’s, after this its a case of planning where the texts are going to go on the hoarding.
Hopefully, I’ll get a few games of football in too.
Just prior to this commission I made DO IT! a series of signs that are currently located inside and outside South Hill Park Berkshire, as part of At Play (2) curated by Outi Remes and Cally Trench.
The aim of the signs is to address the viewer / reader directly with an action to follow, in the same way that the texts on the hoarding will do.
At the opening of At Play (2) I led visitors on a tour of the signs, and invited people to follow each instruction.
At the sign that says Sing Your Favourite Song To the Birds, a small girl said her favourite song was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and so children and adults sang this song to the birds in the tree overhead.
At Play included work by Mary Anderson, Emily Bailey, Jackie Berridge, Tineke Bruijnzeels, Sean Caves, Felicity Clarke, Stephen Conning, Sergio Cruz, Alex Dewart, Caitriona Dunnett, Helen Edling, Helen Flanagan, James R. Ford, Clara Garcia Fraile, Linda Francis, Freya Gabie, Francesca Galeazzi, Amy Galloway, Judy Goldhill, Paul Greco, Lesley Halliwell, David Hockney, Clare Johnson, Daniel Lehan, Katy Merrington, Arnaud Moinet, Elizabeth Murton, Nicola Pomery, Joanna Salter, Kay Sentance, Cally Trench, Nick Trench, Imogen Welch, and Mary Yacoob.
Here is a video of the hoarding.
At times the hoarding seems very very very long, but thankfully its NEVER as long as I imagine it to be.
I have now started to take notice of other building site hoardings that I see as I make my way around London – as blank canvasses ripe for texts.
On Wednesday I saw one being constructed in Mile End – something beautiful about the sheets of plywood. Also these ‘floating’ rectangles on a wall right by the South London Gallery, immediately took my eye.
Thursday afternoon I went to Brodie and Middleton and bought brushes, and started to think about how I could vary the size of the text, that the text should be as ‘playful’ as possible – to reflect the ‘free play’ ethos at the playground.
This week was spent at the South London Gallery working out, and practising how I will write the text – what brushes to use, the thickness of the paint, could I write letters without making paint drips, are paint drips OK, and what size will the text need to be to be visible from a distance ?
Making each letter separate feels much better. I think it will make the text clearer and increase flexibility as to how I compose the text on the hoarding, rather than using a joined up handwriting style, which I normally use for A3 Hand Drawn & Quartered, a monthly poster style publication that I produce and distribute in galleries and venues in London.
A3 features work by a single artist (or several artists around a particular theme) on one side, and a slogan of mine on the other. Contributors to A4 so far include Elaine Arkell, Darren Van Asten, Urban Bear, Matt Blackler, Chloe Copper, Calum F. Kerr, Caroline Gregory, Kelly Large, less, Joanna McCormick, Frog Morris, Hannah Simmons, Mr Solo, Veronika Spierenburg, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, Daniel Wallis, Nathan Walker, Nous Vous, and Charlotte Young.
Part of the difficulty in making the letters so large is that it is impossible to paint the letter in one brushstroke, since the paint runs out, and I am finding it difficult to make the letter look ‘flowing’ and energetic given the number of times it has to be in the repainted.
I decided that I needed to buy different types of large sized brushes, and hopefully find a brush with a ‘magic touch’.
