Today is the day.
Site specific Elective work all going up today, I was up until 3am finishing off, just got to mount everything on board – Assessment is Tuesday but as I work on Mondays mine has to go up today.
I'm tired
I'm stressed
I'm feeling too old to be doing this.
Is it harder for mature students or does everyone get like this I wonder?
:(
Will pop back after the weekend and I'm sure I'll be revitaised and raring to go again.
How things change. I have decided that instead of using hooks in the ceiling as I usually do, that I will use metal grills suspended from the ceiling of the gallery that will then have the 'exploding notes' secured to them coming directly up from the books.
This all happened because I happened to go to Leeds last week to the artists book fair – £25 train ticket to see what other artists do with their books. It was interesting, there were some books that intrigued me but I was expecting a lot more to be honest. It was good, don't get me wrong – it just wasn't what I was hoping for.
Anyway, on the way to Leeds I was reading the Guardian and noticed in the 'what's on' guide that The University Gallery was showing an exhibition (Perhaps Nothing, Perhaps Something) that included the work of Cornelia Parker.
Her work 'Neither from nor towards' was simply amazing, I would recommend anyone who happens to be near Leeds to pay a visit, the exhibition includes other work that was also fantasitc but Parkers piece just held me in awe.
I have long been a fan but through books, magazines and the power of the Internet. I have never managed to see a 'real' Cornelia Parker piece. The installation was so well thought out, so meticulous in it's design and orchestration that I confess I spent far too much time (or maybe not enough time) circling and viewing from every angle.
Anyway, the individual pieces of rock were all hung from a suspended metal grill which gave me the idea to use the grill (that was kind of a round the houses explanation of why I have chosen to use grills instead of hooks in my own work).
So in my search for fabricated grill, realising the expense involved and as such thinking on a smaller scale, I have discovered replacement grills for speakers, pre-fabricated circular metal that is ideal. The books are all music based and so to have them exploding 'into' speaker grills seems very apt.
God, I'm going on!
Also this week I discovered another student on our course has folded books – the amazing thing is, she is doing the degree from 250 miles away as she moved house in the summer so everything is done with her tutor by email and she only returns for seminars and assessments. When she came up this week we noticed our books are very similar which was a bit of a shock to see but then I still have to explode mine, so they wont look alike by the time I am finished. It was actually good to see the differences, Louise's are so neat & very perfectly folded in a way that I really didn't want for mine but hers did look fantasic.
What else – oh had many headaches and migraines this week – definitely due to stress but it means my concentration is not great – JUST as I need it to be! May try acupuncture if it doesn't settle down soon.
Making frames to transport my work safely into the gallery for the degree show. The books are very delicate and are usually made on site but we have less than a week to set up and each book can take a day or two to make.
So I have to make all ten of them in college and somehow transport them safely into the gallery to then be re-strung onto their ceilings.
The maquette of the frame worked well but the actual frame I made this week was laughable, about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Then thanks to puting heads together with a lecturer and one of our ex students we came up with a plan that should work and is now part way through being made so next week may well see the first one made which would be a big relief.
Last week I was working for Liverpool Biennial in the ideas shop with David Bade again before his return to Amsterdam and I made one of my book sculptures in the shop – site specifically. Using an A-Z book I carefully cut out any piece of the Leeds/Liverpool canal on any page and the surrounding parks and roads, the roads were cut from the index too but kept completely to the Seaforth area. Then I threaded them through the pages and hung the book and some of the threads from the ceiling and walls. It's meaning is to draw attention to the slow down of local regeneration and how it had affected the different threads of the community and how by working together they can be united once again. It went down well with community members, some of whom had offered to help set it up.
This weekend will be spent tidying my studio so that I can actually fit in there again to work!!
Madness ensues.
Life is more hectic than ever before – Work with Liverpool Biennial is hotting up and the pace is getting fast now, been working with David Bade, a Dutch artist based in Curacao and Holland who is documenting life in Seaforth via sketches and paintings. It's been a fab experience seeing how a professional artist works, his 'portraits' are not realsitic by any stretch of the imagination but he talks to people in a community, hears their stories and then paints them after they have walked away – an impression, a memory of their conversation. Fascinating.
College is obviously getting hectic – half term (or reading week as it's officially termed) I read! A LOT!
Researching for my thesis, so much reading is involved but I know what angle I want to take, where I'd like to take it and basically what format to process the research at least. Now I have to conduct interviews and set up a questionnaire probably online but first I have to decide which questions I want to know the answers to.
I know one question I want answered. 'When will I get my life back?' or 'When I can I get on with the joy of being an artist?' Ok, so that's two questions but one answer for both undoubtedly.
I have almost finished a site specific elective maquette, based on a map of Sefton Park – it's looking ok so far I think. It was quite difficult cutting the shapes out of plywood but its done! Have to take it down to the park and photograph it in situ too.
je suis retourné de Paris.
Five days in Paris with college, it was exhausting – miles of walking around galleries- what an amazing way to spend a week.If I had only had time to visit the Pompidou Centre it would have been worth it for that alone – what an amazing place. It gave me so much inspiration seeing the work of artists that I have admired for so long, Anish Kapoor, Damian Ortega, Ron Arad and so so so many more. One day was seriously not long enough to go there.
Then there was the Louvre, the Musee D'Orsay, Montmarte oh and then the Latin Quarter and Le Marais with it's array of galleries.Ah but it's back to reality and back to the grindstone.
I am so busy at work and haven't even had time to think about college. This is so wrong,I went back to college to enhance my life, to take time to find myself and find out what type of artist I am now.
I love my job with the Biennial though, it is exciting and fun and a fantastic experience but so hectic right now and I really want to concentrate on college – just until June – if only I was wealthy enough to take a work sabattical but as it is, I will continue working on college stuff til all hours of the night and all weekend to get me through he next few months.
Do all artists have to have a 'day' job too, will my life always consist of having to wait for the paycheck before I can experiment and produce my own work …whatever happened to being a starving artist in a garret – the idea still appeals to me. Maybe not so much to my kids though. Maybe the answer will be for me to work full time for an arts organisation, I enjoy it so much most of the time – maybe that is where my career lies?
I will spend the latter half of this week doing only my own work – inspired by Paris
