Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
By: Jayne Lawless
I'm building a large tunnel like structure outside a theatre! I'm Artist in Residence at The New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich. Its madness and began as a project through The Making Art Work Scheme at Suffolk County Council with a budget of £1000 to be completed May 2006...I have now raised £10,000 and the build will begin March 2007 and I'm terrified!
Tunnel 2007
Currently Artist in Residence at The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich.
[enlarge]
Jayne Lawless, ‘Tunnel’
# 1 [22 March 2007]
This is now my 6th attempt at updating this blog! I dont get what I am doing wrong!
Anyway...we built Tunnel, it was amazing to see it all finished, very stressful and I'm in no rush to do it all again soon but what I've learnt from working in the realms of public art is priceless. I think we should be taught more about applying for public funding in college because jesus they make it hard. If I hadn't of had the support from the theatre staff I dont think I would have been succesful. Tunnel has been up now for nearly three weeks and is a pretty impressive structure, being covered in alluminium the light and movement constantly changing is beautiful to watch. The idea that I built it for the audience member to walk through in order to prepare them for the theatre experience seems to have appealed...but there has also been critisicm> Comments such as, "complete waste of money" and "what a waste of time", crop up in my coment book. I guess thats down to years of councils comissioning crap art that costs alot of money that people are understandably fed up with that waste. I think there is a long way to go to convincing councils of hiring the right artists (and that doesn't mean the ones who can write a brilliantly concise essay), after all you wouldn't ask a writer to produce a piece of visual art as part of his proposal would you?