Through An Artist’s Eye

A central outcome for my Artist’s Eye project is to become more proficient in poetry. Not that I will become a poet in the professional sense – but that poetry becomes a stronger branch of my practice.

Until now poems have arrived spontaneously, and have been written in a completely un-tutored way.

My Barcelona in a Bag project began with a poem. This is the project from which all else in my practice currently flows. So the potential of poetry as a catalyst in my creative practice is clear – visual works not only flow from poetic beginnings, but visual works also inspire poetic responses. The objects I work with are the ultimate source of this emerging two way street.

Enter ACE funding and the opportunity to beef up my poetry muscles with the help of Jenny Rivarola, whose poetry making I have observed through our collaboration. She has also cast her expert eye over a new poem, which has emerged from our work together. My first ever experience of receiving professional crit of a poem.

True to form this poem was inspired by an assemblage piece currently on show at the North Wall Gallery, Oxford.

I’m now busy thinking about how to push this combination of poetry and assemblage further and work towards exhibiting or publishing the results in the near future.

A blog post about project management and all that goes on behind the scenes for a project like Artist’s Eye.

Right now it feels like I’m stirring too many pots. Cooking up a feast for an unknown number of guests, the stove top is crammed with assorted cooking vessels – take your eye off one and it catches light, and burns. Another bubbles over spilling it’s contents and creating sticky puddles on the hob. Suddenly the power cuts out. A meal half done and largely inedible is the last thing you want. So you stand and stir, tending the lot as best you can.

Of course I won’t let this happen. Hyper focus is a powerful secret weapon in my professional armoury, and there’s too much at stake to let my creative project suffer from ‘overcrowded stove syndrome”. So I give it the all systems go and head down approach, which is yielding results.

Our exhibition booklet is nearing completion; after much rewriting it’s gone to our designer and the first draft looks pretty damn good. A film is also in process, with not one but two filmmakers on board. This undoubtedly will up the quality of our process film and is a wonderful opportunity for me in terms of professional development. I feel entirely blessed, though it has extended my working hours significantly these past 10 days and added to the heat in the creative kitchen.

Exhibition material must also be organised – created largely from the contents of the booklet. Even so, it will involve design work, liaison with printers and a close eye to the space available at our exhibition venue.

We have several events scheduled as part of Artist’s Eye, creating and organising our publicity material and keeping tabs on the practicalities in each location takes up several rings on the hob.

Creating up to date contact lists and making sure we’ve thought of all avenues in terms of audience reach is also crucial admin, onerous but essential!

And then there is the snowball effect of a project like this, which gathers opportunity and interest along the way. Thank goodness it does, but also #help! – that’s another article to write and images to process. Fortunately my small team pulls together beautifully and I can hand over certain tasks to the consummate professionals I’ve been so lucky to find and work with.

With so many partners for this project there is a great deal to be done in keeping everyone in the loop and making sure communication is clear on all points. The devil is in the detail – I can’t afford to get to a venue and find tech isn’t compatible and I can’t show our carefully crafted film.

And so some nights I wake at 3am with a horrible thought – I haven’t done so and so, I didn’t think this through…

Fortunately there is still a long way to go and much of the work is in hand. I turn over and try to sleep again.

I suppose it’s not surprising I haven’t been so blog-tastic lately. Been a bit quiet I have…well for me anyhow!

And then the pre-scheduled commitments intervene – taking days out of the current project – which can feel like a welcome break but also very time consuming. It’s been a total joy to hang a show and exhibit with two colleagues from my studios – you know you’ve been working hard when swapping to another piece of work feels like a holiday.

Well you can’t beat showtime – and the opportunity to get out your killer heels. I honestly can’t wait until the autumn for the culmination of Artist’s Eye, and yet I don’t want it to end.

So much, learning, so much professional development and so much experience to bring to the next gig.