I work part time teaching art to key stage 2 in a primary school. This week is Arts Week. With an ever decreasing budget it’s tricky getting artists into school, and i’m always grateful for the swapping I can do, or the “mates rates” that i can persuade people to charge. I am only one person, and providing a week of quality art experiences for 200 children is not possible on my own. Without inviting other artists in, it will soon descend into “cutting and sticking week” if we’re not careful. I’d love to hear any suggestions or comments or experiences of other artists.
There are many threads of conversation going on in my work at the moment. So much so it feels I’m juggling. My research is following a vaguely Deleuzian hit and miss / pick ‘n’ mix approach: I’m writing poetry and prose; embroidering it onto old clothes; making clothing out of paper; cutting lino; disassembling my shed and trailing it around the county for people to perform in; life drawing, and trying to draw babies with varying degrees of failure. I’m hoping one or two of these “rhizomes” will sprout something useful.
For those readers unfamiliar with Deleuze and rhizomic thinking… how lucky you are! Try your very hardest to keep it that way.
www.elenathomas.co.uk/events
Caroline Broadhead using clothing…
www.a-n.co.uk/p/61026/
and
Tilleke Schwarz using embroidered text…
So… I seem to have many threads to tie together (hence the title) What started as an exploration of the balance point between comfort and constraint (think really comfy armchair you then can’t get out of)has become something different. I find myself fascinated by the way we keep our children closer and closer, and how instead of encouraging them to explore the world, we build in them a fear of it.
We wrap them up, keep them warm, help them physically, emotionally, financially, socially. Their every waking hour is accounted for and timetabled. Where is the thinking time?
Risk has become danger. Letting your child do things alone has become guilt ridden.
I made a comfy quilted straightjacket to start with, and a rocking chair with safety strapping. Now I’m making work with apron strings. Lots of aprons. And paper clothing.
I’m writing poetry and embroidering it on all sorts of clothing.
I’m going to make a list here of artists I’ve been looking at. If anyone can add to it, let me know!
I suppose as my first blog entry, this ought to be some sort of statement of intent… but as I have never done a blog before, i’m not sure how it will evolve, and what it will become.
At the moment I’m thinking I’ll share what I’m seeing, making and thinking… and what I’m listening to while I do all that. I’ll post some photos of my work, links to other artists and so on. Then we’ll see what happens.
