I am artist in residence in the Fine Art department of the University of Nottingham for the academic year 2013-14. I have a studio on Jubilee Campus where I shall be available for the undergraduates in art who can visit me to see a working artist.
I was proud to be selected as one of the artists in an exhibition called Web of Water. It’s in connection with Artcore and is curated by Saira Lloyd and Tracey Kershaw.
The brief was that we could respond to the theme any way we chose but it had to be in the form of the graphic novel! I’ve spent several weeks researching my theme and producing the work. I’ve made a photographic collage which I’m happy to say went off to the framers last week. It’s quite a busy and colourful collage of images and I felt it needed to be to help the viewer to engage with the grim environmental theme that is attached to it.
The subject matter is related to my previous work, it’s about rubbish collecting in the sea. I don’t live anywhere near to the sea though, so I took my photos at some nearby gravel pits. Here, I found rubbish washed up as it does on beaches. It was a very disturbing sight. The rubbish from the heavy industries of the past seemed to have collided with the domestic debris of the present. All this washed around what appeared to me to be ancient Willow trees.
After more reading and researching some very disturbing facts came to my attention. I already knew that the plastic rubbish floating in the seas breaks down into ever smaller pieces and that microplastics were contaminating the seas through the use of exfoliants. What I didn’t know was that polyester and other man-made fibres are also contaminating the seas from washing machines. This is bad news that could even be worse than climate change. I feel myself getting political in 2014.
In the meantime the Socket exhibition of Stream is continuing its journey to the Sock Gallery in Loughborough where it will stay until March 1st. The artists will be there for the opening on Saturday 18th January between 4.00-6.00pm. All welcome.
8th November 2013.
After all the hard work of hanging the exhibition at Deda it was a relief when the P.V came around. Considering it was a wet and windy night the launch was a great success. It was much appreciated by me and Socket that so many guests turned out and made it into a most enjoyable event. For some of us it also presented other opportunities.
A few days later I was back for a meeting at Deda. Socket, as a group is now two years old. It’s our third exhibition and we feel, the best to date. Part of the success of the group is down to our diverse practices. Our work is very different. Maybe it’s because we don’t work together in a studio there is less chance of cross pollination.
We decided to do some ‘meet the artist’ days throughout November and December so Nicola Rae and I shall be back at Deda on the 19th December between 11am – 1pm to do informal talks.
In my studio at the university I’m developing another hanging. It feels like painting with yarn. If I get the colour wrong it can be corrected by cutting out the offending colour or tying the yarn shorter, or just adding another colour to dilute one that’s too strong. It’s trial and error. I prefer this method of working with colour, I’ve never got on well with paint.
I’ve been leading a double life for the past month as the Lincoln residency overlapped with my year long University of Nottingham residency.
I can now confirm that I have moved into a studio in the old Dairy on Jubilee Campus. I’m in the Red Room, although thankfully it’s not red. It’s nice to have a studio away from home. The sun pours in as I look out onto the Co-op Funeral Care opposite. At least the neighbours will be quiet. I shall enjoy it here.
Unfortunately it is not true of the neighbours the other side and as I sit there working, the ground is shaking. I wonder if I’m having a Jurassic Park moment or is it the opening scene in Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’?. Whatever it is it’s measuring 4.5 on the Richter scale. I rush out and find Gavin the technician who assures me it’s just the earthworks for the new building next door. Gavin can fix most things but what if the building falls down?
I get on with my work, making three wall hangings for my next exhibition ‘Stream’. They have now been installed in Deda in Derby and went up without a hitch. The hangings are made from unravelled jumpers bought from charity shops in Derby. I decided to unravel them into piles of different colours, cut them into shorter strands and tie them back together introducing more colours.
It’s a simple idea but I haven’t seen it done before. Sometimes the best ideas are the ones that no one else would want to do! The colours are graduated and I’ve since thought of various other ways to do this so I might continue and develop this work. The unravellings become metaphors for unravelling minds as well as ecological concern for rubbish in the landscape and the streams of floating debris in the seas. I wasn’t planning on doing 3D work for the exhibition but there was a spare wall! This was a last minute addition to fill the space.
I’m now looking forward to the P.V on Saturday night.
