ARTISTS TALKING

Most weeks I find myself looking round the flat for all the things I’m going to need for the next few days, depending on the occasion – sketchbook, slides, diary, laptop, mobile phone, academic timetable, seminar papers, tutorial lists (if I’m teaching), fabric, scissors, needles, paint, pencils, felt tips and my trusty staple gun (if I’m installing an exhibition). As well as scouting round for the tools of my trade I also seem to spend a lot of time deciding what clothes I’m going to wear. A lot of time gets devoted to counting whether I’ve got the correct number of socks and pants for my intended stay. Irresistibly I can’t help but get distracted by this activity, however sometimes it does go a bit ‘tits up’.

I arrived in Newcastle recently to install a solo exhibition, ‘Uncontrollable’ at Vane and all I could think about was the fact that I’d only gone and packed enough pants for the following two days. As you might imagine I was distraught. But what would you do in that situation? Wear the same pants on a three-day cycle... I couldn’t, my upbringing wouldn’t allow it. Maybe wear them inside out? No, that wouldn’t work either³ No the only answer was that I was going to have to find the nearest Marks & Spencer and stock up. Only after resolving this situation would I be able to get on with the job at hand, installing my show.

I’ve decided over the last couple of years that preparation is key to success. Thinking about it, just last week with the trip to Newcastle fresh in my mind, I count my socks and pants one last time, place them neatly in my bag with the rest of my ‘stuff’, and make my way to the train station. Can you see where I’m going with this? I had to catch the train to Llandudno because I was going to install a large-scale sculptural installation, Suspicious Circumstances that had been selected for the 16th Oriel Mostyn Open exhibition.

I seem to be spending a lot of my time wishing that I had more time to spend in the studio and less time sitting on trains. Actually, the train has become my studio. It’s a place of production and contemplation, whether drawing or hand stitching my latest creation. Some of my best ideas have occurred while travelling at a hundred miles an hour: security fences that don’t do the job; head-on collisions where everyone manages to get back up; beautiful sequinned and beaded pools of puke; an assassin’s tool kit that is soft to touch. Thankfully, these are the things that occupy my mind while I’m going from A to B and back again.