blog…

Lovely comment to my last post from Gill. Her words about making scratchy drawings at the moment and the influence of our own moods on the work made me recall chatting to a sculptor who taught very sick people to carve.

She said that invariably their first works were flat and dreary and then rose and reached upwards as the creators grew in confidence and their mood lightened with it…

Certainly my winter energy levels make a difference to how ambitious I am both in the physicality and the scope of my work in those three dark months.

I have just returned from a trip to Edinburgh during which I visited the Scottish Parliament building- what a dissapointment. No modern building can ever have that presence which comes with age but it can be wonderful. This building -which was built by a Spanish architect [ seems odd]- is hugely high spec in its materials but bitty and with views onto ugly walls and with no coherence, nothing to enchant or amaze, nothing in the way of glorious art or sculpture or textiles – everything so safe.

Tell you what I will remember – the bicycle racks. Metal – they looked like little bikes from a distance and became separate shapes on approaching. Everyone was photographing them and laughing. Guess that is what they will remember most – the bicycle racks.

I did however come back with a memory of work that will haunt me for a long time and it wasn’t Rodin’s Kiss [on loan up there] although I did pay that a visit for old time’s sake.

It was the Louise Bourgeois exhibition ‘I Give Everything Away’ at the Fruitmarket Gallery.

Downstairs 220 small drawings on paper – done at night in 1994 when she couldn’t sleep and collected up by her assistant – now called the Insomnia Drawings.

Upstairs – what a revelation – a great light space hung with two suites of huge soft ground etchings. One done in 2007 and the other in 2010 just before her death. The work runs seamlessly around the walls – visceral drawings – often one either side of a text.

One wall speaks of her discovering her father and the maid…a central moment in her life … ‘when terror pounces, grips me, I create an image’/’something happened that I don’t understand and makes me masochistic’/’when did this happen? When I saw them coupling. Separate the snails. My memory is moth eaten, full of holes’/’struck by revulsion I do nothing, paralyzed, immobilized by the horror…..’

The other is extraordinary. Heart stopping. There was total silence from all the viewers. An elderly woman preparing to leave the world has made, as her last gift, these physically huge, starkly honest, unutterably vulnerable works.

‘I give everything away’/ ‘I distance myself’/’ I am what I love’/ ‘I leave my house’ /’I leave my nest’/’ I am packing my bags’…….

If they come to your area – go.

Hi All

this seems to have lurked unpublished on my blog – unloved and unvisited so I will just hit the publish button.

The work was extraordinarily powerful and lives with me still.

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Lovely comment to my last post from Gill. Her comments about making scratchy drawings at the moment and the influence of our own moods on the work made me recall chatting to a a sculptor who taught very sick people to carve.

She said that invariably their first works were flat and dreary and then rose and reached upwards as the creators grew in confidence and their mood lightened with it…

Certainly my winter energy levels make a difference to how ambitious I am both in the physicality and the scope of my work in those three dark months.

I have just returned from a trip to Edinburgh during which I visited the Scottish Parliament building- what a dissapointment. No modern building can ever have that presence which comes with age but it can be wonderful. This building which was built by a Spanish architect [ seems odd] is hugely high spec in its materials but bitty and with views onto ugly walls and with no coherence, nothing to enchant or amaze, nothing in the way of glorious art or sculpture or textiles – everything so safe.

Tell you waht I will remeber – the bicyle racks. Metal – they looked like little bikes from a distance and became seperate shapes on approaching. Everyone was photographing them and laughing. Guess thst what they will remember most – the bicyle racks.

I did however come back with a memory of work that will haunt me for a long time and it wasn’t Rodins Kiss although I did pay that a visit for old times sake.

It was the Louise Bourgeoise exhibition at the Fruuitmarket Gallery – I Give Everything Away.

Downstairs 220 small drawings on paper – done at night in 1994 when she couldn’t sleep and collected up by her assisatnat – now called her Insomnia Drawings.

But upstarirs – what a revelation – a great light space hung with two suites of huge soft ground etchings. One done in 2007 and one in 2010 just before her death. The work runs seamlessly around the walls visceral drawings accompanied by text – ‘I distance myself from everyone’

Oh dear, it’s been a while since I visited my blog. The dark and the cold get to me every winter and the incessant rain in Kent is close to unbelievable.

Did someone say build an ark?

So – the best bits………

‘Tension’ our co- curated show is drawing to a close and has been really well received. A big thank you to David Minton who wrote a review for a-n which has been tweeted all over the place.

We did manage a great PV party – star of the show being my dog plate which everyone wanted to take home…!

Curating a gallery show is a new departure for me and it’s been a revelation. I’ve always thought that it was something I would like to gain some expereince in and suspected it might suit me. I’m not sure I would have had the confidence a few years ago.

I am at my happiest chatting, connecting, discovering work, talking, discussing with artists that I have met through the organisations I’ve worked with. I have a reputation for introducing them one to another which I enjoy – especially if by doing so I think something positive will come of it for their practice.

In a way this seems an extension of that. A new form of connecting, of using ones knowledge of who is out there and what they are up to, what their practice is about…who knows who, who has a van, who is responsible or articulate or wayward. It all feeds in.

Curating by invitation is magical – new dialogues between works one hadn’t expected. Works that one had seen elsewhere blossoming into new persona in their unfamiliar spaces, works displayed differently unfurling from inward looking to ones that command the space around them………

Next up is ‘A Fine Line.’ Same co- curators – Ros, Barker, Sue Evans and myself. Same great space.

We were offered the gallery time slot and opted for two shows. So here goes…this second one was an open submission….with over a hundred replies!

Looking at some of them I think we realised how sophisticated we have become in the six or so years out of college.

We had an offer of work which wasn’t attached, work that wasn’t in focus, work with no size or media ….but also stonkingly lovely work and exciting work that came to the exhibition title with freshness and surprise.

How very hard it is to judge the quality of unknown work from a digital image ……

I hope we do all our artists justice when we hang on Monday. So much to learn, but what a buzz … and giving me more back at the moment than my own work.

..and I have been approached to co- curate another exciting and qute different show …….more later.

Looks like I will have to add a ‘curated’ bit on my website. How exciting.

Cold grey drizzle over London but in the British Museum’s El Dorado it was pitch black with case after case of gold artefacts shimmering under their spotlights- and security in every corner.

A big exhibition and really immersive given that so many of the objects were basically the same: chest plates, earrings, nose rings, head ornaments…

I managed to come away with a feeling of having been among these peoples for a while. Quotes from the 16th century helped – one described the women paddling canoes with their feet while knitting baskets and transporting fruit on their heads…I could hear the swish of the water….

Given the terrible indignities the indigenous people suffered at the hands of the Spanish because of the European greed and thirst for gold it was extrodinary to discover that the majority of the work is an alloy – 85% copper.

On top of that the people themselves valued the items for their spiritual and ritualistic worth: monetary value had no place in it at all.

Looking at the intricacy that they could achieve using lost wax castings was just humbling. We think ourselves so clever.

I went all the way round the exhibition and my previous life as a jewellry buyer marvelled at the skill and the craftsmanship, but my heart fell for a beautiful clay pot decorated with piercings.

I collect used clay domestic vessels from all over the world – and its shape, decoration, soft colour and smoked exterior just called to me.

Similarly a Jeff Koons in my house would do nothing for me whereas a Giacometti drawing I couldn’t pass without it being part of my day to look at it.

Size, texture, shape, colour, media, the past or the present, the personal story or the impersonal, the dark or the joyful – we artists are wrapped in our own cloaks of preferences and life experiences.

I think they just roll down our arms and into the work.

Well all the artists chosen, all the artists hung and all three of us co- curators are still talking to each other.

I think it looks really good, but then it’s partly my taste, I am part of the decision making and I too have sweated blood over the hang and bit my lip when one of us has got intransigent or bossy. I am quite sure I have said the wrong things too….

Our show has a subtly different feel from the well known exhibitions that Duncan Brannan the Kent Visual Arts Officer puts up in the same space. Ours is also a mixed media contemporary curated show, but with a slightly softer feel. Strange as Tension is quite an edgy concept. Women curators- or just that some of the pieces reference knitting, lace making, and stitching – but in very harsh uncompromising ways? Maybe it is the presence of the domestic that makes it feel so different.

It will be interesting to see what Duncan feels on Thursday.

Given that we were offered the opportunity just before Christmas and nothing much could happen until after New Year I think we have achieved miracles – a curated show of nine great artists.

Work ranges from Will Gould’s Earth Tower, Dawn Cole’s savagely beautiful solar prints through Alex J Wood’s playful sculpture that epitomises Tension, to Linda Simond’s insightful, colourful knitted take on our digital age.

PV on Thursday night and I hope for our artist’s sake we have had enough time to gather a room packed full of buzzy friends to the share wine and popcorn with.

Day off tomorrow – so to London to see the British Museum’s El Dorado gold exhibition……….

Not a single decision to be made.