Never let it be said I had a weekend off. Even during my brief sojourn in Portsmouth I was on the beat – well, kinda. I went to aspex (you must know by now how much it hurts me not to capitalise that) on Sunday and cast my beady eye around Cornelia Baltes’s show Hoovooloo. Interesting. The open submission exhibition Say What You See is a fantastic idea, and the concept of curating -or rather, growing an exhibition as weeks go by is definitely something I’d like to experience.
Before leaving the house I persuaded Luke to take the plunge and shave his beloved beard into a biker ‘tache, (naturally so that I could have fresh material for my work, you see) but it ended badly. He claimed he kept getting a combination of Village People/Mexican vibes, and after noticeably scaring small children in the shopping centre, he shaved it all off. Beard on/beard off – more value for money as a model, I say. The whole facial hair thing could… actually I know it will… take off on its own in the future as one of my ‘projects’, but I find it fascinating how it works as a signifier of masculinity in culture. It’s like shorthand for “man”. Nicola Rowlands is a designer and illustrator who has some work in the shop in aspex, and her “Pocket Manfriends” – little painted pebbles (I think) with faces and names like Claude, all had beards, except for one who had a wee pencil moustache.
I’ve been writing a fair bit about hair in my dissertation, which is nearly due to be submitted. After sitting on it for ages like a massive egg… well, that analogy won’t work so let’s just say I’ve started to comb through the third draft at last. It’s odd to think that side of it will be over so soon; I just hope the last minute fretting pays off and I don’t end up with an errant apostrophe in there. I don’t know what I would do with myself. If there’s usually a frustrated artist inside many people, there’s probably an English teacher deep inside me waiting to get out.
Back to the studio, what an eventful week for our little group! I don’t know the specifics yet, but it was leaked that we’ll be getting some money to go towards our catalogues. Some – so no idea how much or how the application fared as a whole, but it’s more than we started out with. On top of that, the others may well agree to go for the ad in the Degrees Publication, but I may need to work on them a bit still. What I’ve managed to do right for a change is to get the right woman to do the right job – after looking at my basic idea and then whirring away on her shiny new laptop, Kate delivered some great ideas for the catalogue cover and show logo, and amazingly, we settled on one very quickly, which she polished up later. I could show you now, but we’ve been told to send it off to the K College brass for approval first. But wait, there’s more! We also pinned down a date for the off-site show at Chatham Dockyard, which most likely will be in the first week of July.
The student ambassador gig’s been interesting – a few students in my year have expressed interest in subscriptions after my pitching it to them (I’m sure they’ll realise how useful it is with a professional practice unit looming) but blogging doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s list of priorities. I can understand, as 5 out of the 8 of us have families to look after, and everyone seems to be scrabbling to keep on top of the written work as well as actually making work.For me it’ll be more of the same – paint, draw, carve, cast, blog. Hopefully a wax version of Muse 2.0 by next week, and hopefully some serious progress with the carving as well. I finally bought a profile gauge today for under £2, and I’m kicking myself that I’ve gone so long without it. I could have saved so much time by having the right tools – or power tools of any description, I should say – but it should be much, much easier in the weeks to come. Hooray!
