Days seem to have slipped by. I have looked in one journal I was keeping and saw that the last entry was ten days ago. TEN DAYS AGO. This alarm led me to shaking myself up a bit and returning to early mornings and putting in long days in the studio and then the evening. There are so many beautiful places to visit here and walks to waterfalls like ‘Journeys End’ and ‘The Soul Hole’ are revive and inspiration in themselves – but at some point the notion of holiday has to go and work needs to be given dedicated time and absolute priority.Two nights ago I gave a residents presentation. Residents can put their names down to present their work and show it to all the other residents. I thought briefly about not doing it at all, about silently just ‘hmm-ing’ when people asked if I was going to present and I was wondering why I had managed to work myself up into such a fever about it. This was the sort of thing I would court at home, welcome as a chance to celebrate and share work and gain experience in talking about your work. I had seen breathtaking work the previous weeks, a painter (Neil Berger) who’s work is breathing life and and hums with energy, I have seen a sculptor (Sebastian Vincent Martorana) who can make an life size ice cream scoop (sat atop a real wafer cone) out of marble, and different varieties of Haagen Daaz ice cream scooped out of the pot (actual) – greentea is limestone, strawberry is pink talk, sorbet is alabaster, coffee is limestone. There was also Carolyn Masons hilarious photography of fake Christmas couples and so, so much more – everything I have seen represents incredible skill, or craftsmanship, or humour, or humanity, or poetry, or passion…I suppose how could it not? But my point is my awe of everyone else work meant I felt pretty nervous, a classic, ‘I’m not sure why I am here’…..’I don’t belong here’….But the point is I am here and therefore I do belong here so I spent the best part of a morning sorting through slides and putting together what I hoped would be a fair representation of work I have done, recently and over the past few years. It was fine, I didn’t die, and one of the residents was bowled over that I had done work on Engles, she was beside herself, she had dedicated a research paper she had written to him…..so I’m going to pass on one of my photographs taken in Chethams Library, or one of where he once lived to her. I got a laugh too, so terror over and with the memory of a laugh I went to the bonfire that night and soaked and celebrated in red in wine.
Neil Bergerwww.neilberger.com
Sebastian V Martoranawww.sebastianworks.com
Carolyn Masonwww.carolynmason.com
