ARTISTS TALKING

Mike Hall (School of Art, The University of Wales, Aberystwyth) makes installations, modified objects and paintings within a museological environment: “The work is informed by the impact of history on our lives and how response can be conditioned by information, and the role that presentation plays in this conditioning.”

Hi there everyone. Time to start blogging!

With only just over six weeks to go before our Opening, things are beginning to warm up a bit here in deepest Wales. Term officially ended last Saturday and quite a lot of the others have gone home for Easter break – hopefully taking some of their work with them. See them all again near the end of April in time for the final mad scramble.

My work is coming along steadily (famous last words!), but there’s a lot of it still to do. Nothing like pressure to focus the mind (or so I’m told). The theme of my Final Show is interpreting the past, and my draft catalogue entry gives an insight into what I’m trying to do.

“Interpreting the past is particularly problematic. Information may be scarce; anecdotal evidence corrupted by ‘Chinese Whispers’, or worse still, deliberately rewritten to fulfil a particular purpose (a reason itself lost over time and also probably the subject of editorial licence). The artefact remains: an enigmatic orphan; open to suggestion and ripe for misinterpretation.

My work explores the world of these ‘orphans’ examining how their identity can be disguised, manipulated and modified to provide the potential for reinterpretation (and possibly misrepresentation).

Step into this world and judge for yourself.”

The plan is to build an installation using plaster tile shards from a fictional ancient culture to represent the remains of that culture, and use variable lighting to throw shadows. Thoughts behind this are that the physical pieces represent the material facts from the past, and the shadows thrown by the lights become the different interpretations that we put upon these facts. In addition I’m creating a load of small pieces that will displayed in a glass-top box, in the same way that museums do, but haven’t worked out yet whether to label them or not. Also I’m doing a series of paintings (I need to in order to satisfy assessment criteria for the module) – all in all a lot of work, but if it comes off it should look good. I’ve been allocated a complete room for all this, rather than a regular exhibition space, so it’s now down to me to make the most of it.

Well, here we are already at the end of week 1! I thought time was supposed to slow down as you get closer to a black hole (mind you I’ve never studied astro-physics, so could very well be talking out of one). The wild and woolly West is out there putting temptations in my way – probably the same as it did when you were here Tish, and some days it’s difficult to resist.

I’ve resorted to writing ‘To Do’ lists in order to get some sort of daily routine. Very sad, I know, but at least you get the pleasure of crossing things off! Work is still progressing steadily (thanks to aforesaid lists) – big panic still well over the horizon.

By the way, if anybody out there thinks they might know me – well you could be right! Big hello to all C & G Decorative Stained Glassers at City of Bath College, and even bigger hello to Wiltshire College, Trowbridge, Foundation Course 2002/03.

Signing off for the weekend. Have a good one everybody.

The weekend has been spent doing final prepwork for submission to Mid-Wales Open (check out their website www.cambriaarts.org.uk ) which kicks off on Saturday – all work safely delivered to venue yesterday pm. I also needed to get some decent images of work for the Oriel Davies Open, and complete the paperwork for that submission - in the post yesterday - and some people think that all I do all day is sit and paint!  

Now back to the job in hand – my own final show.

Canvases have been stretched and gessoed ready for me to complete the series of four that I have to produce as part of my final assessment. The installation is, however, a different matter altogether. So far I seem to have amassed lights, timers, quantities of wood, a display case, oh - and plenty of good intentions. My sketch books are full of drawings, scale plans and thoughts and I’ve even built a quarter-scale maquette to try and identify possible problem areas, however there’s nothing like building full-size to bring out the gremlins.

Time to get down to it I guess. (Well at least for the time being, although those Cambrian hills certainly do look inviting!)

Whoopee! The hard work of a couple of weeks ago seems to have paid off. Both paintings entered into the Mid Wales Open have sold; one on the opening night, the other on the first official day of the show. (Big question mark – am I charging enough?)

Work on my series of four paintings is almost complete and my final piece of written work is now well under way. However, attempting an objective analysis of my own work is proving a daunting task – just how hard can I be on myself?

I’ve marked out an area of floorspace at home for the trial construction of my installation piece. It’s strange how every time you think that you’ve got it cracked further problems rear their ugly heads. With only a month to go to the opening it really is time to get focussed (and I mean focussed!). Next week everybody else comes back again so things are bound to start buzzing again. (Manic panic all round, no doubt.) Deep breaths; stay calm; rise above it. Who are you kidding? There’s something about animal fear that’s contagious.

We’re back at college now but not that you’d notice. The third year studio is as quiet as the grave - although there was a flurry of activity yesterday (deadline for having work photographed for inclusion in the catalogue). I suspect that most people have got their heads down at home – no, I don’t mean in the pit still, I mean concentrating their efforts on their final written work, and getting themselves ready for 8th May when we all have to start preparing the studios for the exhibition itself.

The series of four are now complete, and in time honoured fashion they’ve undergone name surgery (sorry a-n editor, I know I supplied the first image as Fragment:P1 but in the overall scheme of things I think this title means more in the context of my exhibition).

The installation itself remains unchristened as yet, but no doubt some witty and pithy (no spelling mistakes here!) title will eventually detach itself from the ether and fall to earth. I just hope that it happens soon! The enigmatic titling of the modified objects will, however, not be subject to change! (Well, that’s the plan so far, although I do have two more tutorials lined up, so expect the unexpected).

Well here we are. The month of May has arrived and with it the awful realisation that there are now less than three weeks to go to our Opening Night. A tremendous amount of planning has taken place, and now it’s time to put it into practice. The studio spaces will soon come down and be morphed into exhibition areas, then it’s all hands to the pump to try and clean up the boards and re-emulsion them to a fine white. (Those calculations, comments, shopping lists et al. casually written up in pencil and crayon over the year will now have an annoying habit of coming back to haunt.) The problem in this instance will not be one for me to contend with (Smart Ass!) as my boards will be black, but there is probably some equally loathsome glitch about to strike. That warm glow of anticipation, for so long a comfort over those cold winter nights, is now rapidly changing into a cold sweat of dread – what if it all goes horribly wrong? Too late for all that now, teeth and buttocks clenched, and it’s over the top…. What’s that funny smell?

The heat is really on now – all those days of thinking about what to do have gone – now it’s action time!

Construction of my exhibition space has gone to plan (Many thanks Phil, Barry and Phil – I owe you.) Some of the panels are still missing from the complete layout but it should be possible to fit them in later on. Luckily there has been little prep work to be done on the panels (some small holes to be filled, and only a few of those dreaded sticky pads to be scraped off), so, it’s paintbrush, roller and black paint time! Over the next three days the lovely white and shining lighting studio has to be transformed into a dark, mysterious space that poses more questions that it provides answers.

Can it be done? I think so, but cannot be absolutely sure. (What? Where’s your confidence gone? Get on with it, you wimp!). Mental anguish is a strange thing – you think that you’ve got it all buttoned up then, bingo, it creeps up on you and twists your guts again. What’s the problem anyway? The worst that can happen is that it won’t appear quite as you thought it might – but that’s no sweat because unless you’ve had a lobotomy no one else can see inside your head, so they will take it as they see it. There you are – problem solved!

Well here we are then – the last few days of mad panic before the opening this Saturday night. In fact we have to be all done and dusted by 5 on Thursday so those last minute little tweaks will have to be either done earlier or forgotten about all together. I’m still short of four boards in my exhibition space so this one is going to go right down to the wire. Everything else, well the major stuff anyway, is more or less done now (or will be by the end of today).

If this blog sounds a little tense (or is it terse? – both probably) then it’s probably because however hard you plan something will always pop up to confuse, confound or just generally throw a spanner in the works. Yesterday was one of those days. Started off by attempting to amputate a finger with a Stanley knife, then the rain came down just as I was trying to get my work into the back of the car, then the car decided to try and boil over. (Do you ever get the feeling that someone’s trying to tell you something?). It doesn’t seem to matter how hard you try to tell yourself that it will all be alright eventually, there’s still that monkey on your back making life b***dy difficult for you. Ah well, such is life. 

Two frantic days of racing against time are finally over, and despite a few last minute changes and hitches everything’s up and running (I’ve just typed ruining – some form of intuition?). Doors are now closed at the School of Art and the next time anyone’s allowed in will be at 6.30 on Saturday when the show opens.

Has it been worth it? I think so – even though there were times when I vowed never to put myself through this again. But then, I seem to remember saying the same thing on many occasions before, and look, here I am again. (Stupid or what?).

The room looks pretty sepulchral now that the lighting levels have been lowered. In fact with the door closed the atmosphere gets pretty spooky. Talking of atmosphere there has been an added bonus that I never imagined. The combined smells of hessian and paint within the room give that little ‘je ne sais quoi’ – not unpleasant but just a little bit strange; you can almost feel the dust of age – just right! As I said in one of my earlier blogs there are more questions than answers within the room, so I am preparing myself for the inevitable ‘what’s it all about? which is bound to happen at quite regular intervals.

The main theme to my work is how the interpretation of facts becomes twisted and changed over time and how it is not only the written word that brings about such changes, but also our own perceptions of the evidence supplied. At the same time the innate conditioning we are all subjects of ensures a particular – in most cases a predictable - reaction to any given set of stimuli and this can be further manipulated by the method of presentation used.

The installation ‘Wherein Lies the Truth’ presents fragments of fabricated tiles, some bearing script, which represent ‘facts’. The assemblage is set on a triangular floor which, when viewed from the front, provides a perspectival image. The lighting for the whole is diffused through hessian, making the work indistinct and requiring concentration to view properly.

The second piece ‘Orphanage’ is a glasstop display case containing the modified object, some of which have already appeared as images in my blog. These are the enigmatic orphans whose past is unknown and whose identity is catalogued by a cryptic caption only. Make of them what you will. You can create your own past for them, and who knows, if your story is convincing enough, then maybe everyone else will come to believe what you say, even though it only started out as a figment of your imagination.

Finally, the series of paintings, ‘Hard Facts’. These take up one complete wall of the room; each is individually uplit, and again because of the low lighting intensity, indistinct and enigmatic. White stone fragments float on multi-coloured backgrounds; simple pieces in a complex world. A closer inspection reveals gradations of shading; simple shapes become more subtle – the simple fact takes on a deeper meaning.

Anyway that’s some thoughts about what it’s all about. They are my thoughts and it will be interesting to see what others make of it on Saturday. Hope to give some feedback on how it went early next week. Until then – wish me luck!

The dust has now settled, so there’s a bit of spare time available to compile some form of write-up. Sorry for the delay but I’ve had one final piece of written work to do and that has been taking all my time and effort. Well, that’s now out of the way, the final result rests in the lap of the gods (and the University authorities of course.)

Saturday evening was, as expected, a bit of a scrummage – but I suppose for an opening night that is infinitely preferable to rattling around in an empty gallery, trying to look interested and enthusiastic. Apart from parents and offspring (God bless ‘em) there were a good number of unconnected interested parties casting a critical eye over proceedings. Those tasked with wine dispensing were pushed to the limit as consumption reached an all-time high. Amazing the affect the word ‘free’ has on people’s capacity. By the end of the evening several red spots had appeared against exhibits and some six exhibitors had been chosen by a selector from the Exposure Gallery in Swansea for their work to be shown there. Many congratulations to those concerned.

The variety and quality of work was amazing. I had spent the previous two weeks head down slaving away in my own little world so it was good to come out on opening evening and witness the work of others. Charlotte’s choice of toilets as a backdrop to her photography certainly paid off judging by the comments I heard!

My own exhibit soon became known as ‘the black room’ (not my intention, but at least it showed that people were visiting it.) Unfortunately owing to the stream of visitors to the room it proved impossible to close the door and gain the full impact of the environment, but comments I heard suggested a favourable response all the same.

And the future? Well the exhibition comes down 2nd June and the pieces get packed away until the next time (if that happens). I’ve certainly learned a lot of lessons from the experience and have got some improvements/alterations etc. in mind as a result.

Oh, by the way it seems that I will get more time in this beautiful place. I’ve been offered (and accepted) a Postgraduate place at Aber starting September. Remember what I said a week ago about putting myself through it again?

Everything comes down today – exhibition over, finished and done, and with it possibly a final parting of the ways. Normally Graduation Day would provide an opportunity to say goodbye and wish people well for the future, but this year – who knows?

This is going to be my last blog so I want to wish all my fellow bloggers all success with their exhibitions. Although we’ve never actually met, I feel that some form of bond has developed over the past few weeks, and therefore, like all partings, there’s a trace of sadness as I type these last words.

A very big thank-you to A-N for giving me the chance to share these last few weeks with you all, plus, of course, the opportunity to give Aber a plug. I don’t know whether I’ve fulfilled the brief set, but I do hope that I’ve provided an insight into what’s been happening out here.

Now it’s back to the mountains for me; sun, fresh air, green fields, fantastic scenery, peace and quiet (apart from when the RAF flyboys do low-level practice over the house!).

Take care y’all, it’s been really great being a part of this.

(Tips hat, reins horse, rides off into the sunset; music swells, titles roll.)

(Sob, sob, boo, hoo, pphhaarp).