ARTISTS TALKING

# 41 [5 May 2008]

What other people do

I had a good day yesterday, doing my activities with people, most of whom hadn't encountered Marquetry before. Preparing for something like this has given me more ideas for my own work.

The exhibition itself was very interesting -to see what goes on in  Marquetry circles -and though I feel quite removed from it on one level, I admire the skill, time and investment in this craft. It is quite amazing to see, especially listening to other peoples reactions when they realise the process behind it. It isn't like amateur painting or photography, it feels very unique, obsessive and unpretentious.

I like what other people do, particulary the public and I felt like I had something to offer.

# 42 [9 May 2008]

Back to the start 

I am thinking now about why I started this project in the first place and all the things I haven’t done or have, inadvertently. One reason I really came to thinking about Marquetry at the beginning quite simply because trees have featured in previous work. I wanted to work with wood and to make a connection to this aspect of nature in some other way than I had before. I suppose taking a more direct approach to a material I hoped to be able to actually make things for a change, develop a skill that was closer to the formal approaches that I had left behind or dismissed during Art College.

 I have way too many ideas on how I could develop what I have started and I don’t think trying to slot a very specific and skilful craft into my existing practice was  necessarily an easy thing to do. I now have this completely new angle on my work that I am trying to figure out where to place?  

I picked up the observer book of trees, an old copy and it was written by the same man who wrote the book on rural crafts that I dipped into at the start of this. I thought it was quite fitting that these two points met without me knowing it and that my interests too haven’t digressed too much either, I think I have kept things relevant even if they didn’t seem so at the time.

# 43 [20 June 2008]

June Post

I decided to write a final post here. I think the blog has run its course.  Continuing to write here might turn a bit counter productive now I've moved away from the intentions that I started with.  I dont want to write something that isn't at all interesting for anyone else either. I think there are certain things that you can do with a blog but also things that you can't- so its time for a change.

 The project will continue in some form on my own website where some of this work is already posted but I will be writing something to go alongside it. Currently I am chopping up twigs and drawing and although it isn't all about Marquetry- I have that there in the background and will be surfacing again soon I'm pretty certain.

 www.onethingandanother.co.uk