Our collaborative project has a green light as we have contacted an interested artist from the Royal Standard.Full steam ahead. I did a preliminary web-trawl for Liverpool connections to some of the interests represented through my own practice. I was initially interested in the textile trade and later the devastating damage sustained during the Blitz. But two aspects immediately caught my eye. 1. the docks – construction, use, demise and remodelling. 2. the off-shore WW2 forts. With the forts, it was the architectural forms, wartime use and the gradual degradation or destruction of them. The Army needed Forts to break up heavy bomber formations using the Thames as a navigation aid to London’s Docklands. In the North of England, Liverpool was also seen as a target by the enemy. The Mersey Bay off Liverpool were to get 3 sets of Heavy Anti-Aircraft (AA) Army Forts constructed by the Cleeveden Bridge Company. A detailed site on many of the forts along our coast is:
http://www.bobleroi.co.uk/ScrapBook/CityReunion/FortFanatics.html
However, I can just imagine the tricky logistics if we wanted at some future point to do a physical tour of structures way out at sea that may or may not still be there. An easier physical tour would be of land sited defences. There do seem to still be pill-box defences and the like surrounding Liverpool, but research so far has not revealed any still in Liverpool centre itself. Further research required. Dominique Rey
The project is building momentum, members of Satellite who have opted into putting something into our first portfolio collection for Space Exchange at Aid and Abet have emailed me 3 images each. These in turn have been sent to Aid and Abet who will select one image from each artist. Its good they will be curating our first portfolio. We are though, producing this on a shoestring (sound familiar) and each Satellite member is baring the cost of production, in a very tight deadline. My own image is an ink drawing, which i will reproduce 37 times, some will go into portfolios, others will be for sale individually. The trials were produced using what transpired to be the worlds smallest (slight exaggeration) and fairly ineffectual light-box making the processes not as pleasurable as it could have been. Will be treating myself to a A3 light-box to produce the set.
Each artist submitted images which link to East Anglia in some way, my own are taken from a residency last year at Hethel Engineering Centre near Norwich. Derek the Engineer that i worked with told me about his apprenticeship days in the drawing office where he used coloured inks in addition to pencil on technical plans. The inks had no informational purpose but did in fact simply look visually pleasing. Obvously more time consuming that simply using a pencil, the drawing office manger didnt encourage the activity but i thought for my contribution to the portfolio edition i would indulge myself and spend time drawing the same image repeatedly using pen and ink. I hope i give myself enough time to enjoy doing it.
The process for producing an artist’s newspaper is not proving straightforward. The quote from the printer is way out of our tiny budget, even as a very thin, slimline newspaper. So I’m sitting on the floor amongst a pile of printed matter, trying to re-think the design. Rifling through my pseudo-archive (it’s just a yellowing pile on a shelf- does that count?) of artist newspapers, for inspiration.
Perhaps we can turn it into a folded poster on thin, rough paper. Somehow, as an object it has to sit well alongside our Portfolio and also create a presence in the gallery.
Dominique Rey
