Threads

My first visit to the gallery was a bit overwhelming really. I did, as predicted, have a small cry. But only a little one, when I was on my own. The gallery is a beautiful bright airy space. The lighting is great and the hang is cohesive, it makes sense. The work is displayed mostly chronologically when it comes to the walls, but three dimensional pieces punctuate the space and provide places for the gaze to stop which act as visual jumping off points. I’m able to sit in the middle and see the links between works that I wasn’t so aware of previously. I suppose I’d started to think of my work as a series of projects… which it is… but it is more than that. As I look around I see links materially… textiles, stitches, paper, wood, ink, watercolour, graphite (and of course the songs) I’m also mentally linking with work that isn’t in the exhibition.

There are conceptual links across the work too. I see in my own work a focus on love and loss, but dealt with using a caring, tender, light touch. I also see where my focus is up close and personal, and where I’ve pulled further out to attempt to deal with a bigger picture (pun intended). But then, inevitably, having looked at that, I find a different spot to home in on. My eyes drift and bounce around the room, picking on favourite and familiar elements. It’s like having all your relatives round for Christmas dinner… before the fight starts… but holding an old grudge here and there.

I think it would be good to get someone else to review this exhibition. Someone less familiar with it all. The family therapist that can see things more clearly?

I find myself in that state where anxiety and excitement are in perfect(?) balance.

I am fairly organised: all the documents are printed and in a wallet. I have currency and a travel money card. I am insured. My phone is travel ready. I’ve got clothes sorted, hanging, ready to pack. A new suitcase, and scales ready to weigh it. The travel is where the anxiety lies.

The excitement (although some is sprinkled in with the travel anxiety) lies with my itinerary for when I’m actually there. I have artist talks, sessions with students, workshops, tourism, and a fair amount of just hanging out with Debra.

I also, unexpectedly, have a gig! Colin has asked if I would like to sing at the reception on the 23rd… he will learn a couple of my Drawing Songs pieces… and we will rehearse when I get there. This is very exciting/daunting, as at the moment, Colin is an almost complete stranger… apart from an exchange of emails, and the friendship once removed, through Debra. I’m excited to see what he will do with these songs. They will be recorded/filmed I’m sure. I’m confident that it will be fine. If Colin was confident enough to suggest it, and I’m confident enough to sing it, it’ll be great, right? For me it will be all about the process and the experience. All my previous performances have been with people I know very well and have worked with now for a long time.

I have to say I am thrilled with and humbled by the amount of work other people are putting in to ensure this exhibition and my visit are the best they can possibly be. Amazing. Thanks to all the team xxx

I have no doubt that I will return from the US invigorated and refreshed, with too many ideas about where my practice will lead me next.

For a virtual gallery experience visit The Weeks Gallery

A weekend of tidiness, tea and cake in my studio yielded quite a few sales, which definitely means I’ll have some cash to spend when I’m in America. So that’s a relief.

It also started and continued a few conversations about art and practice. The continuity of ideas, the continuity of just keeping it all going. I also had a discussion about the artist’s relationship with the studio: how it is like home, but not home. It is a solitary space (well mine is, I don’t share) so the door is shut until I decide to open it. It is only when I decide, when I have rearranged it, and hidden all that needs hiding, that the public come in. Certain friends and colleagues are allowed in when it’s not got the Sunday Clothes on… but only a few.

It is the one room where there is no compromise, no give and take. I do realise I am very fortunate in this. I think I would find sharing a difficult prospect now. I’m sure I would do it if I had to, but would only do that if absolutely necessary.

I do as I please. I don’t have regular working hours. Sometimes I’m there for half an hour, sometimes for ten hours, doing what needs to be done. I don’t have an hourly pay rate and I barely earn any money at all from what happens in the studio. 

This weekend then was a rare event. Saturday was quite busy, lots of visitors and patrons, Sunday less so. I think this is the most I have ever sold at an open studio, for which I am very grateful, thank you to all who came and talked and bought. I really appreciate you supporting my practice.

So this week, I get to put it all away again, there’s slightly less stuff, what with the sale and the fact that quite a lot is in Jamestown at the moment – exhibition opening imminent! But I am wondering if I will actually put it all away, or whether I will throw it out? Some of it at least?

I will definitely cut more up to make books, the larger unframed drawings for sure. I think I might give some stuff away… 

I do intend to re assign some space at home for storage, but I have promised myself and my husband that it won’t just be a dumping ground, but that the work stored at home will be work that I definitely want to keep for posterity, if not further exhibition. The remaining items in the studio I will ask questions of it:

Do I like it?

Does it represent me?

Is it of any further use as it stands, or if I manipulate it?

Can the materials be reused?

Does anyone want it?

I think there has definitely been a mind-shift here. I am in a good place to make these decisions and act on them. I already have mental “piles” of reuse/recycle/rehome/refuse. 

What I am thinking about most clearly is the space I will have when all that is done.

Maybe I should consider working in miniature next?

There are other ways of letting go…

I sent work representing a decade over to Debra and Colin in Jamestown NY… this act in itself requires guts. What to choose? How to send it? Will it get there?

Well it got there, and I thought that would be the end of the stress, but all that happened is it changed focus. I am not there to install it. I trust Debra, and although I don’t know Colin yet, Debra trusts him, and our email communications have been good.

I hadn’t anticipated the emotional territory I would tread in letting go of my work to allow someone else to curate a show. Part of me thinks this is great, and I will see the work afresh through someone else’s eyes. At the moment though, a bigger part of me is worried. Worried that my bras won’t be shown in a way that allows them to communicate… or the babies won’t look like they are playing, or that people can communicate with them in the way I had originally conceived. I also find myself thinking “Exactly HOW IMPORTANT is this?” I had all of this work hanging in groups when it was first hung… and it worked. I liked it, it did what I wanted it to. But how important is it that the work is hung in exactly the same way this time round? It is in a new space, with a new audience, with the rest of my work surrounding it to give it a context. Maybe a new view of it is a good thing… but I still find myself torn. I have had discussions about it all with Debra, and there have definitely been compromises on both sides I know. And they are doing all the hard work, and it’s their gallery, so once I have had my say, I do need to trust it will be ok. Debra is posting tantalising (but cautious) shots of the installation, not to give too much away. But I am now desperate to see it all! I should be over there in just under a month, so will be able to see it in all its glory. She is telling me it will be beautiful. I trust her, so it will be I’m sure.

The last thing I want to do is be that artist who insists that the fork lift truck comes back into the gallery so the pile of rocks can be moved an inch to the right. That’s really not who I am… but I do want my babies to play with each other, and my girls to talk to each other…

(You can do whatever you want with the drawings, they’re not real people)

PS Deb I love that blue so much I may change my mind about showing the twigs on black for the solo show in May back here

(Installation in progress photos from Debra Eck)

Having taken all my work off the top shelves, and from under the table and the previously neatly stacked corner, I now have an untidy studio again. I’ve sent lots of work off to America for the show, and have the “reject” pile scattered everywhere. It’s been taken out and sorted and put on one side, NOT going to America. So what do I do with it now? If I have decided it is not worthy of that, then what is it all worthy of? The paper based stuff I already have started a programme of chopping and book making. But there are other things, previously exhibited, dry mounted or in frames… what do I do with those? I also have quite a big pile of textile items. Some I want to keep, but lots are left overs from previous projects. I may have a fondness for, but really I no longer need them. Some of these I think I can’t reuse in any way, and may put in a basket at my open studio event for people to just take away if they like the look of them… maybe ask for donations? Other things I want to put prices on, albeit small numbers, in the hope that they will go, some of them at least and I will get a bit of cash for them, to be reinvested on materials, or maybe the gas bill.

But then after the Open Studio, what then? Give them away? Throw them out? Burn them? I am in a mood to dispose of things… space has become the thing I crave most, so in order to gain space I must just say goodbye to things that serve me no further purpose… however pretty the fabric, no matter how expensive the paper was ten years ago, no matter how much time I spent making it… they have done their job. They are redundant.

Tomorrow I shall lay the things out and take some photos… if any of my blog readers fancy anything, call in and collect it, or let me know your address and you can have it for the price of the postage.