Over the weekend I posted a brief round up of my time in Colne last Friday and today I want to go into a little bit more detail about how the day went and how I felt about it. As I explained in the previous post I entered into the experience believing that I would end my day with a big pile of drawings, extensive written documentation and hundreds of photos capturing my time in the town and the tasks that I set for myself.
Leading up to the day I made a number of random trails tracing onto a map of the town centre and then creating directions to aid my journey through the streets and provide a modicum of structure to my wandering. I also created a list of ‘tasks’ to follow throughout the day for example:
‘Follow a trail looking only at the ground’
‘Document only using drawing for one hour’
‘Spend 1 minutes only drawing figures’
The list was quite extensive and on the train journey from Manchester to Colne I divided up the day and made a more solid itinerary. However when I arrived in Colne and began to explore the town I soon realised (reluctantly) that this preparation had been mostly in vain. A combination of chilly, windy weather and self-consciousness meant that I found it incredibly difficult to stick to my list of activities. On the journey and during my first hour in Colne I made some sketches, mainly of people, encountering some strange looks which I found quite off putting. This might have been because I was on my own or it might have been simply because I’m not used to working in such a public way (most likely a combination of the two). My usual working process involves sitting at a desk or table and (unfortunately) mostly drawing from photographs either researched online/in books or taken by myself and I’m not accustomed to responding directly from life.
After a few attempts at sketching I walked further into the town taking photos and making notes constantly keeping an eye out for anything interesting. It felt unnatural and forced to walk around in this way; I felt like I was having to try really hard to find things that I actually wanted to record and unfortunately this feeling didn’t really dissipate throughout the day.
After wandering without any structure I decided to follow one of the trails that I’d mapped out. I attempted to do this only recording in written form which worked for a while however it was difficult to write and walk and also to interpret some of the things that I came across. A couple of times I broke the rules and photographed places because it was just a lot more practical.
The rest of the day continued in a similar vain; I followed 2 or 3 more trails but I found it a struggle to continue with any of the documentation tasks or rules that I had set out for myself prior to arriving in Colne. I could tell that my concentration was waning towards the afternoon and I only really made a note of/photographed anything that was particularly unusual or striking.
The most comfortable moments were those spent away from the town when my trails led me to open spaces overlooking a reservoir or a hillside and I felt less self-conscious. Even in these moments though I wasn’t as enthusiastic about drawing as I expected to be and I think this was due to a lack of interest in the subject matter. I was convinced that placing myself in new surroundings and giving myself the time and space to work from life and experiment with drawing and mark-making would inspire me but it just felt a bit flat. I don’t really want to produce a series of landscapes or views of the town and although part of me feels that it would have been useful to document everything that I saw to gather a full picture of my ‘trip’ another part of me knew that making a series of sketches of the typical sights could easily influence my final output and lead to a series of uninspiring and safe pieces of print.
As I mentioned in my previous post the outcome from the day came as quite a surprise and even initially a disappointment. I left Colne feeling deflated and and unhappy with myself and my efforts. On reflection though I feel that the exercise was still a success and I was being too rigid with my expectations. The aim was to go to an area of the North West that was new to me, experience it for a day, build a personal impression of the place, document this and create some work inspired by this experience. Although my day in Colne wasn’t the most fascinating or enlightening I have come out of it with a series of images and written insights and a perception of the area. Over the next week or so I’ll be doing some further research into the locale looking more into the history with a particular focus on folklore/myths surrounding both Colne, Nelson and wider Lancashire. I don’t intend to create work responding directly to existing stories as I’m keen to invent some new folklore in response to my visit to Colne. This new folklore will be a reaction to my impression of the town as quite boring and ordinary; the folklore or myths created will serve to generate new interest or intrigue making the mundane more appealing.
My work is not intended to patronise the town or it’s residents – I’m not suggesting that Colne needs an artist to step in and make it more attractive or interesting to outsiders. This is completely a personal response based on my own expectations, tastes, experience etc. the area is my starting point and the work has to honestly reflect how I feel about it.
