I mentioned in the last post that I was about half way through the project and that I had done some stuff. Today for some reason I feel the need to quantify:
I have some drawings, about four quite large scale, several smaller ones, and a some very small ones that have been edited out of larger ones. In these drawings I do start to see the seeds of change germinating.
We have about half a dozen songs that are nearly there, and available to listen to (see below).
In terms of audience, contrary to expectations I do feel there has been some growth here too:
Drawn In is an online exhibition hosted by Glitterball Showroom from Enköping, Sweden, curated by the marvellous Stuart Mayes who has been enormously supportive of my work for years now, and he asked me to open this run of online exhibitions. It seems to be going well, has attracted some wonderful feedback and a great review from Sarah Goudie on a-n reviews. As part of this exhibition, four of the songs are being previewed, as works in progress. If you feel inclined to pop over to Soundcloud, feel free to like/add a comment. The playlist has had loads of listens, but people do seem reluctant to comment… I do understand though… I’m a bit like that… but it is nice to get real words from real people.
I’ve joined The Creative Community too which is a bit like Linked In for creative professionals, except it works, which I find Linked In doesn’t very well… certainly didn’t for me. It’s new, and growing steadily, the networking feels natural, and friendly (again, unlike Linked In).
And last week I was invited to attend an online Discussion Festival run through Platform 7 events. This is really great. I’m sure there’s lots of backroom Oomph going on, because it’s brilliant, and not like zoom at all… if you are Zoom Fatigued, and would like to do something that feels more like chatting in the pub, this is the thing. This week I got to host a “table” and I’m doing it next Tuesday too. You can register for free, and then if you feel you have had a great night, make a donation afterwards, or you can pay a little in advance… whatever you feel, or feel able to do. (Free is ok too) I’t hard to explain, but there are lots of “tables” and you can freely hop between them, listen to what’s going on, or join in if you want. My discussion, prompted by the Drawing Songs project, focussed on the merging of art media, and asked can a song be a drawing and can a drawing be a song? It was a really interesting night, so I’m looking forward to doing it again. I’m adding loads of links in this post, so you can go off and discover for yourself.
Things have gone well so far, but I am straining at the leash, as I’m sure many people are, to get back to real people in real rooms… once we can do that, I will feel I’ve got some definite rock solid progress going on.
But there are dates in the diary for real human contact… meetings over coffee, studio visits, rehearsals… it feels like a blossoming… let’s hope there isn’t a late frost that kills it off…
I’ve spent an hour or so looking at my budget (on track) and my time plan… which has swayed a little in the covid breeze: some things have had to be cancelled, and will now not happen, but the things that I have done in their place I think have been better, more effective and have accidentally reached a wider audience that my planned activities would have done. So I’m happy with that.
Onwards …
