ARTISTS TALKING

# 38 [27 June 2007]

The enjoyable but extremely busy period of doing workshops is drawing to a close for a time at least. I love running workshops, being immersed in a process of working with other people and seeing where their creatitivity leads them but I am also looking forward to being able to focus again on my own work. Looking back at the last couple of weeks. There have been some really good moments. The school workshops were held within the school buildings which is a shame because they weren't able to make work about a specific place. Instead we focused on materials and process using coloured paper pulp to form elements within one large piece of work.
I really enjoyed the adults workshops at St George's. There were some nice thoughtful responses to the materials and the building and it was good to meet everyone who came along. It was great to meet Roz, I just wish there had been more time to talk because as she said we are working in parallel or at least with linked interests and within the same small virtual community.

# 37 [19 June 2007]

Since the beginning of the Exhibition / Open Studio on the 4th June there seem to have been streams of people visiting, workshops being run and new contacts being made. There have been lots of local visitors, many of them asking for workshops (so I have programmed some more in), teachers asking if their schools can be involved in some way and just people wanting to have a look at the artist in her natural habitat. So one of the requirements of the residency, that it brings people to St George's Church seems to be being fulfilled. I have really enjoyed the whole process too.
There have been some visitors from further afield. One of whom was fellow blogger Roz Cran who dropped in on a papermaking workshop enroute to a cousin's house. We were looking at basic papermaking techniques and then embossing paper with words from flagstones around the church. Roz left me with two enigmatic scraps, one labeled 'Hope' and the other 'Sorrow'. I think one of her aims had been to talk about how a residency works in the context of a church but things were too busy to have much of a discussion. Another time maybe.
Other visitors from Brighton were Amy Turton and Edith Eyo from Arts Council SE who braved the wilds of Esher. It was good to actually meet them in the flesh as it were. It will make me feel much more in real communication when I send off my next update or evaluation. Bettina Linstrum my wonderful mentor from Arts Agenda also came up to give me some very sensible advice which so far I have been far too busy to put into action!
There have been four workshops apart from the one Roz attended and each in their own way has been a really good experience for me. I hope everyone who came along enjoyed them as much as I did. They were such a lovely bunch of people. Or 'bunches' I suppose and I am very glad to have spent time with them. Some lovely work too. Each person who comes to a workshop leaves me a page or more for a 'book' which is growing fairly fast at present.

# 36 [14 June 2007]

So busy I can't think at the moment. There have been lot of visitors and I am in the thick of workshops; both planning and carrying them out. Good fun if exhausting.

# 35 [8 June 2007]

The private view went well. Lots of people and lots of interest in the project. The remaining places on the papermaking day on June 15th were booked and now there is a reserve list. So I am organizing a day in September.
The event was useful to me as it made me stand back and see what I had done so far. Often it is difficult while you are working to see how it is going. People were very encouraging and it was lovely to see the the building full of life and activity, which I suppose is part of the remit of the residency. I printed out my blog from the project website and made a timeline of it to show the development of work and ideas (not necessarily in that order!). One of my aims in embarking on this project was to open up this process and move the emphasis from the end result.

# 34 [6 June 2007]

The Private View is tomorrow. If anyone is in Esher at 6pm do drop in. It has been a fairly busy day today preparing for Thursday. The work is up, most of the info is ready. I just feel that I want a holiday! Or at least to go and see some inspiring work or make some work myself. Next project I want to be able to concentrate a little more on the central issues and spend less time working out how to get 1500 two colour leaflets designed and printed by the 15th for minimal cost while also devising and organising five days of workshops. I sneaked out and took some photos today in the woods. It was absolutely wonderful.

# 33 [4 June 2007]

What an incredibly busy week it has been! I feel as if I havent had time to draw breath let alone write anything. The trouble with doing a project like this is that as well as 'being' the artist you are also everything else as well. I am learning so much about the whole process but sometimes I just long to be able to get on with the main core work. However if I had had the choice I would have got someone else to do things like the education work and I would really have lost out on a valuable and uplifting experience. It does make putting up an exhibition difficult though. An exhibition of a project like Papertrails which has a fairly large outreach and community aspect is incomplete without reflecting that work. I have sometimes envied other bloggers who are engaged on projects where they can focus on one aspect and develop it thoroughly wheras I sometimes feel as if I am being pulled in all directions. But when I look at the whole project rather than just my 'work' I feel rather differently. In the first three months of Papertrails I worked with 355 people and had over 125 visitors to my studio. One group of children wrote poems about the work they did as a result of the project and I have had such good feedback. It has been a good thing. So those elements have to be reflected in the exhibition as well as what might be more narrowly described as my 'work'.

# 32 [25 May 2007]

Back on track now. Invitations for the private view of my 'Work in Progress' exhibition at St George's on 7th June are on their way out. When I decided to put this event into the calendar some time last autumn I had no idea of course that this was going to be bung right in the middle of a period of work and therefore at a point when one could do without a hiatus but it will also be useful to take stock and assess things. I think I could do a lifetime of work here in this situation and one of the hardest things is deciding which avenues to follow and which are siren voices luring me off course.

# 31 [22 May 2007]

Beautiful weather and so I was able to get outside and make some work. I also caught up with Bettina (from artsagenda) who is mentoring me and being sensible and calming at times when I feel far from it. I think we worked out that I was about a week and a half adrift but otherwise things are fine!

# 30 [17 May 2007]

At last some let-up from the rain. I went into the woods at Littleworth Common today. Everything was so lush and almost underwater feeling. The air seemed green because the sky is so overcast and any light is filtered through so much growth. Even with the low light levels I was able to get some photographs and make a small start on my 'Way-marker' pieces. Just feeling my way back into the work.

# 29 [16 May 2007]

To me its a bit of an irony that in the month when my blog might receive more attention than usual because it was in printed form in a-n, nothing much seems to be happening in my project. This isn't entirely true, there is much behind the scenes sorting of materials and making of work. Much of my work is made up of large numbers of nearly identical pieces and although I find the process of making them satisfying and indeed almost meditative I find it hard to believe that other people will enjoy reading about it. Its one of those repetitive tasks like darning or cleaning which feels good for the soul but would be boring to watch someone else doing. There is also the little problem of the weather. Working ouside in the landscape with paper and paperpulp in a downpour would probably be very entertaining to watch but ultimately unproductive. So picture me calmly , meditatively making small handmade paper sheets and pages and shapes, casting paper over other forms in my calm studio in the north aisle of the church all the while keeping a weather eye out for a bit of a dry spell. Meanwhile my enforced period of work indoors at the church is seriously threatening to divert me away from landscape in the outside sense and into a different sort of landscape entirely. The church itself is a fascinating building with all sorts of stories attached to it. On one side of the church is the Newcastle Pew; a secuded and separate balcony pew where the gentry or indeed royalty sat with their attendants. Its a white painted area which is by contrast with the rest of the church, filled with light yet seems melancholy and unused. I find this solitary, lost space very interesting and have been making some more work which seems to fit there better than in the main church. I know I will find myself making other things for that space.