Westgate Studio Residency

One thing has been bothering me about this blog was the adjustment needed when using a different weblog. (I have been using a WordPress now for over 3 years and wasn’t really aware of how comfortable it had become until trying to adjust to a new weblog format.)

Employing a new structure really helped to high light how ingrained my work practice has become. Hope by trying new methods it will provide a better awareness of the established ones.

On Wednesdays visit the weather was more over cast with drizzly rain. I was interested that one view from Paula’s studio window was similar to that from mine in Durham; there is a steep road opposite.

Another thought was that in these building which have been used for retail that the views from the 1^st floor up have been the property of those employed there, not the customer. The views from the studios are cracking.

I did find myself wondering about falling in to taking an expected type of studio photograph. Have to keep reminding myself that this is a process of building up a rapport with a specific place; that the images develop over visits. Similar to repeatedly drawing a place might.

I am also interested about the imprint these visits will leave on me.

Yesterday was my second residency day at Wakefield Studios.

I met several more of Wakefield’s studio holders, including Paula Tod http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=4862 hose studio I was able to spend some time in and photograph.

Spent the first hour or so yesterday photographing in the top floor studio that had been occupied by artist Red John, before revisiting particular parts of the building again and then taking myself outside to photograph the surrounding buildings many of which are quite particular in style.

Thoughts so far about the format for the work to take are:

A series of visual booklets either documenting each trip or focusing on individual aspects for example:

Local buildings; door furniture in the studio building (which has had an interesting history, is a listed building and used to be a coaching hotel before becoming a bank and now studio complex.)

Zine.

These ideas represent a jumping off point rather than a concrete proposal and I will begin to get a better idea of how the images might begin to sit together over the next couple of days as I start working more with the material.

Have been looking again at the photographs from Westgate studios.

One image keeps pushing its self forward; of a tap in a currently unoccupied studio on the top floor.

Taps are ubiquitous… and are a conduit for something we can’t exist with out.

Plan to spend the next few days exploring this.

Here and there:

It’s been a few days since my initial visit to Wakefield’s Westgate Studios.

Going over the material I gathered (video and photographs) a couple of thoughts have been chasing themselves in my head.

The first is the notion of here and there… the process of going somewhere completely unknown, how one seeks out the familiar (street furniture, shops, etc) to use as markers to establish a map.

And the other a looser, more abstract idea, to do my with my own practice methods, concerning the role and importance I assign to my physical engagement while making work.

VIDEOS:

Looking at the videos one thing that I was thinking about with travelling to the Westgate studios was what happens when you go some where completely new… the disorientation… the similarities.. Architecture, retail shops, street furniture and how one reads them and tries to create using familiar points of reference to create configurations formulating a map/plan, to make the unfamiliar familiar.

Inside Westgate I tried filming surfaces, rather than spaces or spaces between, quite often un focused or very close up. Filming the views outside again filmed details, brickwork, surfaces, snippets.

The outside views were very different to those in Durham City which is far smaller geographically, the buildings aren’t so grand and are lower, so there aren’t (from Empty Shop studios) the vista views out across the town and over to the countryside which for me is a big feature at Westgate Studios.

PHOTOGRAPHS:

With the photographs I concentrated on surfaces; on textures, details. Also on some broader shots of the studios and the light in them.

I am interested at this point of the idea of here and there… interior/exterior/ Wakefield/Durham… close to/far away

Perspective… how we perceive/ how we communicate…product of our environments/culture (local)… that contemporary society seems in many ways breaks down those understandings/differences/local identities,.

The photographs are a product of a quite rigours physical engagement on my part (not using tripods for longer exposures, physical control needed in obtaining certain camera angles/shots) in order to create controlled images which very subtly allude to a physical engagement with a place.

While I was thinking about this side of things the notion of how an application of extreme control over the physical body in the arts often is seen to award a cultural status (e.g. as with dancers.)

I wondered just how much the awarding of status for the subjugation of the un-predictable nature of the human physical body extends, particularly in relation to the arts.

That is something I would like to look in to more, though not necessarily in the time frame of this residency but as something to take forward in the future.

Yesterday was my first day visiting Westgate Studios, Wakefield.

Spent a busy day photographing and video-ing around the building.

Was shown around by artists Ian Smith and Bob Milner.

The views from the building were amazing and so was the light in the building.

Have a lot of material now to start sifting through and planning for the next visit in a couple of weeks.