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I’ve been saying it for a while, but more recently getting away with it less….
“I’m not a musician or a performer!”

Depending on your definitions, at least one of these is now not true.
It is true that I don’t play a guitar or piano, or any other tuned instrument. I occasionally have been known to tackle simple percussion, and of course I sing. The knowledge I have of music is increasing each term I spend with the songwriting circle. There are of course, enormous swathes of stuff I don’t know, but I could make a list of stuff I now do know. My voice is improving, in terms of range, and most definitely in strength and delivery, which brings us to performance.

I am a performer, because I have performed on numerous occasions now. I enjoy it, I love a little banter with the audience, and so far, it has been received well, and I even get the occasional compliment on my voice from people who have no vested interest in making me feel good. I love applause… An instant response to art is astonishingly satisfying!

The band of lovely men I have around me to write songs, we are collectively known as The Sitting Room. (There are jokes about us needing to sit down frequently as we are all of a certain age and need to rest our joints).

Anyway… We now have, at the last count at rehearsal last week, 15 songs. Some of these are good to go, some are just started and still need work. (In addition to these, the guys have their own huge repertoire of solo material, that we inject the set with, to give my voice a rest, and the ears of the audience a bit of variety). We would like, at some stage to record these songs. I have been assured by the band, and experienced people of the circle, that it is best to “bed in” these songs by performing them live for a while, to iron out the lumpy bits and figure out the best way to deliver them. “Ok…” Says I. Hmmmm…. Well, I may be a performer, but I think I can still count occasions I have performed on my fingers. Whereas Andy and Ian have lost count. So as such, I am loath to perform at the sort of open mic nights where the football is on in the other room and drunken punters shout ” Sing Angels! I love Robbie!” I have said I will do a particular open mic night, because I’ve been assured none of those things will happen as the audience are attentive, interested, engaged listeners.
Otherwise, what is happening is we seem to be invited to play in what I’m choosing to call “curated spaces”… Galleries, museums etc.
So what I have before me now are a list of small gigs to get me going:
This Friday, 21st October I will be doing a fairly long set, but just with Ian, at Bewdley Museum at 6pm.
On this Monday, 24th October, just one song, with just Andy this time, at The Crescent Theatre bar in Birmingham, with other members of the Songwriting Circle, 7:30pm. In November (tbc) we hope to be doing the aforementioned open mic with all three of us, doing a three song set. Then there will be the Circle end of term group concert at mac Birmingham on 21st November.

Then by December 3rd, we should be all warmed up, well rehearsed and in fine voice to tackle a set at The Old Library Studios Open Weekend! Singing with my very own band, in my very own studio… Details to follow….

If you turn up at any of these events, please come and say hello… But I’m usually more sociable and relaxed for chatting after, rather than before the performance! Be warned!

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I don’t often post twice in one day, but I’ve been having technical issues with Soundcloud, which have just been resolved, so before it all goes pear-shaped again, thought I would post this, that I intended to post a few days ago!

I’m not going to write much about this one, but wanted to post it, as it illustrates a bit of a shift again…

This is the first vocal I have properly recorded in the new studio. What I found is that I wanted my voice to fill the room. So I shut the door, plugged everything in and let rip a bit.

It is a work in progress, the vocal is by no means perfect, and neither is the production or recording, but it is another bookmark.

The song “Above the Fold” is a songwriting collaboration between Nicki Kelly, Bruford Low (on piano) and I from a few weeks ago. They have both worked on different versions of the same song. It may be that between us there is a definitive super-song, but it might stay as three versions…

The phrase “above the fold” refers to those headlines that everyone sees, because they sit above the fold…..

ABOVE THE FOLD

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There’s a lovely high white corridor wall just outside our studio, and Sarah suggested I put some work up.

To be frank, I could do with selling something. Not just for the money, but also as I am drowning in work, and rapidly running out of storage space. We had a discussion about what was the purpose of me putting things on the wall, as some sort of post-post-graduate show, or to sell? The two aren’t mutually exclusive of course, but if I’m doing the former, it becomes more difficult to hang older work, and justify its place. However, as I am doing the latter, I need to find a way of showing mixed work, without being such an arse about it.

So, I gather together a load of stuff from under the spare bed and out of the loft. Now we’re not talking ancient monuments here, we are possibly talking about the last three or four years. I group it all on the studio floor in “bodies”… This is one body of work, for the joint show “One” (with Bo Jones)… This is from “Are You Listening?”… This was from this, that was from that… And I was getting twitchy and dissatisfied. But this is why you need someone around you who will challenge that. Why can’t this shirt go with that drawing? Why can’t that stitched piece go with that one? Sarah started shuffling the work around the floor, unfettered by my work chronology, she could see connections that I hadn’t, because basically it hadn’t occurred to me. Of course I know that my work has common themes, but my grouping of items uses a very particular set of personal criteria. Because Sarah doesn’t have that list, she was much freer. I started to see things differently, and weirdly I started to like things again. Work that I was ready to dismiss, and put on the reject pile, suddenly came to life when put next to a newer piece. Miraculous! The layered bra drawings started to relate to the altered children’s clothes… Moth eaten vintage patchwork related to the mending of a child’s dress I completed a couple of weeks ago.

Having regrouped and reassessed, and fallen back in love with some of the old work, I set about reframing, or in some cases, just taking out of a frame, ironing, re-mounting, and tidying up, polishing glass etc. I attached new mirror plates, touched up white paint here and there, and now they are ready to hang. Now it isn’t rocket science is it?… but the act of refreshing the work in frames, and the two garments I have chosen to accompany them, has made me respect my old work more. It has made me see that these pieces are still relevant, still worthy of regard and discussion in a new setting.

The new setting is an excuse to get the work out, show people what I’m about, and actually, showing not just the new stuff, but the slightly older work alongside it, show people who don’t know me what I’m doing, how I think. As I look at these little piles of almost curated works, I find I’m quite pleased with how it all hangs together as a new body…

This was helped I think in part, by the buzzing around in my hind-brain of the Eva Rothschild exhibition currently on at The New Art Gallery Walsall. She choreographs the work, putting new with older work, in new combinations… Fresh views… New relationships…

I must really remember to look at my practice and the work it produces, as a whole thing, not just a series of series… The connections are clear once I open my eyes!

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Talking about the objects:

Just talking about them does something to the way I handle them.

I have knitted a vest for Hans, the doll without a hand, or rather, the hand resides elsewhere…

It had to be done. Also, his head had to be mended with brown paper. The nursery rhyme ringing in my ears. I didn’t use vinegar… but somewhere in the depths of my brain there is a thread to be researched into the connection between the plastic used to make these old dolls, and acetone…

I have no idea why, other than I am compelled to do so.

He now sits proudly on top of the pile of newly-covered chairs, a soft blanket surface to take the impression of his hard, cold, plastic body.

I have made marks on these objects: lines of stitching using threads garnered from other garments; the brown paper had been written on with white ink; the knitted stitches are wobbly and uneven because I have unravelled something previously started and abandoned; the key motif, used on other things stitched with unbleached coarse linen threads; the keys that inspired it hang on the studio wall; alongside a crumpled brown paper drawing of the shirt from which the threads were pulled; a linen dress, embroidered by a different hand, has been ostentatiously repaired with the patch from a different garment, whose threads have also been used on the unworn coat… and so it moves on…

The material links are clear, I have even noted an unusually muted colour palette (for me). The limited material choices are part of this family too.

The methodology is also connected: crumpling, reusing, unravelling, repairing… adding another mark…

But I am cautious about going too far…“avoid tautology!” says the echo of Henry Rogers repeatedly in my ear… trouble is, if you don’t know what you are saying, how do you avoid saying it twice? And there are other ways of speaking… words are insufficient perhaps…

So I cradle Hans in my arms, smooth the surface of the child’s chair and gently prop him on it. The movements are signifiers too. But what is being signified?

Probably that I’m an old bat that talks to dolls and pigeons and needs to get out more.

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The isolated artist is a myth. Impossible.
(If you have evidence to the contrary, do tell)

It is only by talking to other artists that you develop.
(Talking to non-artists is good too, but a different beast, to perhaps be discussed in a different post.)

I now share a studio with Sarah Goudie. Our conversations range from the ridiculous chatting with resident pigeons, to the theories and sensibilities that drive us in our various ways to make marks.
Both types of interaction are welcome. We both have a highly developed sense of the silly.
It is inspiring to delve deeper, gleaning insights from the other artist into what I might actually be doing.

Yesterday I spent the day in my studio with Dr Jacqueline Taylor (she worked bloody hard for the title so I shall use it at every opportunity). In talking to someone else about the work, I am challenged to find the right words to describe my process, my philosophy, my connections, rationale. Flimsiness and airy-fairness will not do. We are discussing a future project: we talk of process, materiality, semiotics, visual vocabulary, and searching for the possible common lexicon…
In talking like this, my work takes on a new dimension, extra layers are added to it. The things I am doing rather instinctively while on my own in that beautiful room, suddenly become clear …I know what the purpose is. I saw Jacqueline off on the train, and have spent many hours in deep thought ever since.

The evening was spent at songwriting circle. Up until very recently, ridiculously, I still looked upon my songwriting as a fanciful thing, an added-on thing. Since dismissing that, and taking on board confidently that is a very important part of my practice, I have dived in even deeper. Committing more thought and a mindfulness to that process too. Songwriting is the thing that increases my brain activity, providing opportunity for a completely different sort of intellectual process. I have often mentioned the meditative state that occurs during stitching or immersive drawing. My brain wanders off on its own, making connections previously unknown. Songwriting is nowhere near that, it is completely the opposite. In songwriting I am TOTALLY in that moment, unable to wander off and think about whether we have enough bread for tomorrow’s breakfast… There is no room for any other sort of thinking. I can listen to the piano chords played expertly by Bruford Low, and hear additional suggestions for lyrics and harmony from Nicki Kelly. When I concentrate on these chords, I can really hear, and now, after a couple of years practice, able to sing a topline over it. I hear it, and have now got the confidence to sing it, without fear of making a fool of myself. I am also pretty fast at writing the words, that scan, that pick out just the message I’m looking for.
I absolutely love it. It’s fast, and furious, when you are in the right group of people. Nearly better than sex. It is also exhausting, in that wired and buzzy adrenalin fuelled way. Monday nights leave me with a big grin on my face.

Today, I’ve had lunch with Carol Wild at BCU, discussing all manner of things… Now colleagues, she was once my MA tutor, who had the often dubious pleasure of marking my essays. She remarked on how much she enjoyed reading my blog and how much my writing had improved in the last four/five years. It suddenly occurred to me that what has happened is that the blog is even more integrated into my practice than it ever was, but that actually, very interestingly, my songwriting has had an effect on my blog…

In terms of structure, I now think that when I write the blog I have a greater awareness of rhythm. That my verses shouldn’t be too long. I should use interesting words, include metaphor. It should have humour and/or a bit of weirdness for the middle eight.

The the final verse should somehow reprise what has gone before, make connections.
The connections I have made in the last couple of days have pushed things on a bit further.
I couldn’t do that on my own, without conversation, laughter, music, reflective thought.

As the pigeons coo above me, and I contemplate what they might add to the recording of the song, I cannot help thinking how bloody lucky I am.