Threads

On Wednesday I fly to Stockholm.

It seems weird really, that this thing is actually happening. 

I have known Stuart Mayes for about ten years, since starting my blog on a-n.co.uk. We started out by commenting on each others blog posts, and talking about each others work. There seemed to be a correlation in the way we work, and the materials we use. Then a few years ago we met in real life when I went to Sweden with the group of artists that had been involved with the Colonize group exhibition in New York. We spent a wonderful afternoon together and didn’t stop talking, we drank tea and coffee and ate cinnamon buns… as is required when in Stockholm. After that, the correspondence continued, friendship sealed by the real world contact. Then recently, probably over covid and since, the correspondence has become more specifically about how we could do a joint show, or collaborate in some way. I sent Stuart some shirt collars and cuffs and he made a beautiful piece of work from them. When it comes to garments, and using them to stand as signifiers, I think we are on the same page. It seemed to us that the way forward was to spend some real time together in the same place. 

Last year I decided I needed to release a small pension. It really isn’t much, but it adds a little to my monthly income, and I set up an Art Travel Fund with a lump sum. Once that was done, the obvious place to go was Sweden.

So here we are now, my suitcase is almost packed and I’ve even learned a little bit of Swedish. 

The plan is that we will work together in a project space that Stuart has booked for our residency, with whatever materials we can find to express this feeling of connection, this Correspondence. We don’t know what this will look like, but I am sure that we will come up with something that neither of us would make on our own. A good collaborative relationship shows you the world through someone else’s eyes, using the tools in someone else’s toolbox maybe?

We will also do an evening event of conversation with each other and to other artists. 

I have had other artists ask me how I “managed” to go to America, and over the last week or so, how did I “manage” to get myself invited to Sweden. They ask as if this is some sort of magic. It Isn’t. Neither is it some sort of Grand Networking Scheme. What it is, in both cases, is years of Correspondence. Connecting with people, not out of a desire for global travel and status, but out of interest in each others work, I talk to people, to artists, whose work I am fascinated by, we talk about what we are reading, making, seeing…

In my experience, artists can be insular, exclusive. Take a leaf out of the musicians’ handbook. Musicians are more curious about what other musicians are up to, and musical collaboration comes more naturally, it is the nature of the beast to be in a band. So this is what I am, I’m in a band. It just so happens that we aren’t all living in the same country.

I’m reading four books at the moment:

Object Lessons by Eavan Boland

Dandelions by Thea Lenarduzzi

Introducing Semiotics by Paul Cobley and Litza Jansz

The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula k Le Guin

And I’m also frequently dipping back in to Correspondences by Tim Ingold.

I quite often read more than one thing at a time. It’s to do with attention span, mood, and quite often tiredness and how my eyes feel.

What that does is often it causes confusion… “which book did I read this thing in?” But more often than that is it causes the firing off of connections.

Object Lessons concerns the life of the author as an Irish poet, when she finds that some of her Irishness is missing, due to being taken to London during her childhood. So in England she is always Irish, but in Ireland, she has missed crucial connections… some of the language, the culture and common memories with her peers do not exist, and what’s more, she has trouble finding her voice as a poet. (In post-ww2 years.)

The bit I am reading in Dandelions features a family divided, a father working in England, deciding whether to move his family to England, or whether to go back to Italy. (In the pre-ww2 years.)

There’s a rootlessness present in both, a longing, and practical, pragmatic, economical and political reasons for staying or going. I relate. I am the product of the exile and the emigrant, who met and fell in love in their new country, from very different backgrounds. They stayed, my brothers and I were all born in England. I feel no desire to find their beginnings. I may be a little wary of them. And this is undoubtedly where my rootlessness is rooted.

In the semiotics book I am drawn to the theory of Umwelt, the environment that is personal and particular for each organism. Each person perceives their Umwelt according to their own unique set of circumstances. They are a signifier for that Umwelt, and from that Umwelt, their nature can be surmised.

In the Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction, imagine the carrier bag, which contains all that we are, our history, our experiences, everything that goes into making us who we are. What we then make, write, create in any way, comes directly from that carrier bag. It is filtered through it, even if we are writing of someone else’s experience. According to Le Guin, we use the stories we know to tell new stories.

So… this has translated to my current studio endeavours. Having finished the large drawings for the RBSA Candidates Exhibition, and fired up by my election to full membership, I am seeking the next big thing. (By this, really, I mean any thing that warrants my attention, that interests and intrigues me enough to pursue it.) Because of the reading, I am seeking amongst what I already have. I have twigs, stones, drawings, textiles… I am spending my time exploring what these objects mean to me, how I can change meaning by changing context. I assemble, disassemble, and reassemble in different patterns, and repetitions. Boland talks of CADENCE: rhythms and cycles of activity, language, and behaviour. By returning to the familiar, I can find the underlying cadence, tune in, and write a different story… perhaps.

Too Busy To Work…

I know I am not the only one, having read the words of my fellow bloggers, to feel that sometimes life as an artist can sometimes mean one is too busy to do the work.

April and May have been madly busy, with art-related things, but not actually in the studio making. 

I had a trip up to Liverpool to see Wendy Williams and her latest exhibition; I’ve attended the presentation evening for my certificate of full membership of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists (more about this later I’m sure); I was invited to become a director of a Community Interest Company run by Helen Garbett and Bill Laybourne, who I have written much about in previous posts… to which I said yes; and I’ve had all sorts of family and domestic events. 

For the next couple of weeks though, I have more time to be in the studio, and more time trying to figure out what to do next. I think I need to have some idea before my trip to Sweden for the residency with Stuart Mayes.

I am also learning a little bit of Swedish in preparation for this.

For someone who loves language, I’ve done surprisingly little learning of other languages, other than my native English and I have a little bit of left over school French. I have to say, I am really enjoying learning Swedish. I can still only speak in the present tense, I have trouble with pronouns and in Swedish the definite article is trickily attached to the noun in different ways, rather than being a separate word. Word order in questions gets muddled, but I am starting to be able to say a few things and understand a few things, beyond “Two beers please!” 

It has made me realise even more sharply how important words are in my practice. I think this will form part of the work I do while on the residency in Uppsala. Trying to describe my work in a different language when I have enormous limitations is a challenge!

But what it does make me do is pare down all the unnecessary frippery I hide behind in English. Not exactly arty bollocks, just all those extra words that don’t add much to the debate.

So I am pondering this while I look across the table in the studio. I’ve not really been able to get my teeth into anything since finishing and installing the work for the Candidates’ Exhibition, but what I am doing is rearranging some things in front of me. Some old stuff, some new, and a return to textiles, just to see what connections I can find… correspondences… communications… comparisons… are all these works talking to each other? Or do they speak a different language? I suppose it’s my job to act as interpreter. 

Hej, jag heter Elena, jag är en konstnar som tolkar ord och föremål.

(I hope that makes sense Stuart, I had to look up “objects” but is it the correct objects? You did say something very wise to me the other day about understanding the language rather than learning the words. Very interesting.)

I’m at the point now where everything is metaphorically on the table. Anything is possible. I’ve got to the point where I don’t want to draw any more sticks and stones. I don’t want to do any more large drawings for a while, due in no small measure to lack of storage space. (Starting to think Barbara Walker’s got it right… draw on the walls, get a really good photographer and then wash it all off and paint over it.)

I’m doing a bit of stitching again. This feels right, comfortable, efficient, fluent even.

I’m writing, ideas in essays rather than lyrics.

I’m clearing the decks, tidying the studio, moving things round.

This reshuffle is where the next ideas will spring from. I’ve put away the drawing equipment. I’ve scrubbed the table and vacuumed the floor.

I’ve ironed a large piece of black cloth to cover most of the table. But conversely I’m thinking I will take the black off the wall and paint it white! (At the moment it’s a sort of Office Magnolia)

These changes to the working environment throw up different possibilities.

On the black tablecloth I have arranged a series of the vessels I’ve been making… and then I’ve been filling the vessels with the sticks and stones and other things from around the studio. This playful shape-sorting makes connections. I will continue shifting things around until something sticks. Part of this might well include inviting other artists in to play, and to talk about how this correspondence between things works.

If you’d like to take part in this, please get in touch.

And moving on..

I’m still basking in a bit of glory, it is wise to do so I think, when the occasion calls for it, and will be doing so at least until the presentation of my new full membership certificate later this month. In the meantime, work continues…

I had a lovely couple of days with Wendy Williams in Liverpool at the beginning of the week. I’ve been wanting to revisit the city for ages, and Wendy’s Exhibition Reshaping the Past with Catherine Harrison and Sufea Mohamad Noor at Elevator Studios was the perfect excuse to just get on with it. Really enjoyed the exhibition… I’m used to Wendy’s paper installations, and I’m very keen on them, but had not seen any of her paintings… abstracted landscapes and brightly coloured blank buildings… I always love a shed! Catherine’s careful and precise drawings using rust and old tools and keys really grabbed me, worth getting up close to. Sufea’s textiles were ethereal… they grabbed the light in a sparsely lit space and moved as the people did through the space. A good combination of styles and materials here. I managed to do a Mersey ferry tour, have a trip to a pared down Tate at the RIBA building, and a bit of time in the Walker, seeing Johnny Vegas’ and Emma Rodgers’ ceramics and other 3D pieces. Loved Johnny’s nods to angels and Icarus and wings. I’d have like more time with them (and the Walker in general really) but time and the state of my knees prevented too much walking. I have to select my targets and head straight for them these days. I wonder if they are touring these pieces?

After a few days of anniversary celebration, meetings, ceramics class and a couple of gigs, I am really exhausted and needed some down time, as well as feeling the need to get back into the studio. So yesterday and today that’s what I have done. Yesterday really I was just reacquainting myself with the space, tidying up as I’d left it in a bit of a pickle after getting the work organised for the RBSA Candidates exhibition, and there were paper trimmings and bits of fabric all over the place. Once tidy and with a cleaned table I started thinking about what I was going to work on next. I’ve not yet finished with the sticks and stones. There are many aspects of that left to explore. I’ve also just recently written three essays about my thinking and the work… too long and detailed for blog posts… which are already probably too long.

The wrapped twigs are calling out for another re-setting and so I got a few out to play with – maybe 200 ish – and have started to think about attaching them to a selection of garments.

This is definitely the mad in-between period, where I am trying out loads of things. I’m also working with Helen Garbett on a collaborative project concerning collecting things in a series of pouches or pods… this stems from my work with lichens, and pockets, and Helen’s work with Limpets and gathering. We have both just read and re-read The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction and find ourselves drawn to the collecting of the real and the metaphorical… watch this space…

The band have been doing more gigs lately, which has been really good to get new songs out there into the world.

I feel I have some more lyrics bubbling under, but Andy and Ian have said to keep them to myself, or find someone else to write the music with, so I think I will have to book a day or so with Mike Clarke again!

At some point, while doing all of these things, happily immersing myself in the stress reduced period of exploration, a little nugget of loveliness will arrive, and I will dive deep again!