Walking Into the Light

So, I spent 3 very packed days in Berlin. It was beautiful bright and sunny, but very very cold and snowey. It was as if I had left yesterday and returned a day later and someone had added winter to the scene.

I instantly felt at home and as if I had not been away at all. Another collegue from London is situated in the studio just now and it was very strange to visit her there. It all felt so familiar, but there was some one elses toothbrush, and someone elses work! However it was lovely to see the studio again and to meet up with some of my German collegues.

I also enjoyed walking through the winter streets and trying to visit as many galleries as I could, in between socialising. There are just so many galleries in Berlin, it is crazy, for such a small city with such a small population.

However, the main purpose of the trip was to discuss showing in the Milchhof Pavillion, I had a great meeting with one of the artists in charge of the panel about possibilities, and partly due to seeing the space again and because of his input feel that I have some really concrete ideas of where the work is going. Very useful. So there is a plan afoot, and I am aiming at having a full proposal in place for September and showing in the spring next year. Let us hope the weather is more clemant by then.

All in all I feel very positive. Some decisions were reached, for example that the sculptural ideas are seperate from the video ideas. I think they should be kept for another space, I still remember the orangery at Charlottenburg Palace. This would be ideal. Also I need to get better footage from inside the palace and maybe I can do that in September.

It would also be good to have a pre showing somewhere in London, just a kind of work in progess affair.

Meanwhile the dolls are burgeoning in the studio and demanding exhibition space and I am off to Morocco in a couple or weeks to fire up a couple more projects. I need a couple more blogs!

I am re igniting this blog, as I am off to Berlin next week for a few days. Partly because I am missing it so, partly to see if I can get some more concrete plans for an exhibition in the city.

I have been unable to leave the work on the large scale drawings alone. I have been trying to finally resolve other work started before the residency, primarily the doll work. But the drawings are progressing in strange and wonderful directions and it is very exiting.

I had a visit from some curators at my studio on Tuesday and they were very impressed with the increasing army of dolls marching across the studio floor, but they were also very exited by the large scale drawings. This was encouraging. I feel unable to gauge the success of this new departure in my work, so it is great to get some feedback on them.

I was sorting through my plans chest a couple of weeks ago and realised that these drawings are not just the product of the residency, but that I have been making drawings consistantly over the last 3 or 4 years. Not sculptors drawings, but first life drawings and then more abstract developments from the life drawings and sculptural works. Berlin just allowed the drawing to become the focus of all my creative thoughts, not just a contingent activity. It was a kind of release from more conceptually bounded work.

I have been made aware of what a time away from normal routine and environment can do for ones practice.

I am exited by the thought of going to Berlin, it will be strange to be there as a visiter again, just for a few days, not months. It will also be cold!