ARTISTS TALKING

# 61 [8 April 2008]

Typical! I was determined (but evidently not determined enough) to write something here on 3 April 2008, as that was the date in 2007 that I started this blog. I can hardly believe it. And now it's the 8th....

Anyway, on Thursday, which happened to be 3 April, I was out having a look at a new art space in King's Lynn: Greyfriars Art Space. Set up as a not-for-profit organisation by two West Norfolk 2007 Fine Art graduates  it looks good and its presence is a welcome boost to the Eastern area, which is somewhat impoverished when it comes to non-commercial galleries. Greyfriars consists of studios and a gallery, with the idea that studio rental will cover the cost of running the building so that shows don't have to be *commercial* but can be selected on other criteria. That's what we like to hear!  Clare and Jill, co-founders of Greyfrairs, have really done their homework and the frontage has the restrained appearance of a good, small London gallery. 

Clare had phoned initially to ask whether I'd like to show some work in a group show there in June and suggested I go and take a look at the space. I'm looking forward to participating. The show comes a month after the formal part of Festial comes to an end - finishing, as it began, with Rogationtide in May - and will be a good way of ensuring I actually start making some work afterwards.

# 62 [16 April 2008]

I realise I haven't recorded the fact that Easter 'happened'! It was always going to be a challenge to work with two festivals that were only a week apart, but Easter was so huge in the medieval mindset that it seemed to be a must from the very beginning.

In fact, as a festival to interpret in my own way it wasn't as easy as I had  imagined. Yes, my research confirms that there would have been a lot of weird (to our eyes) stuff going on at St Andrew's and emotions would certainly have been running high, but I didn't want to get caught up in the Christian devotional frenzy as such. Nor did I feel it was enough to go with the Spring equinox pagan festival thing - a bit obvious, maybe. So????

Well, all I did on the day (Saturday 5 April by the Julian calendar) was to have one of my 'seeing what happens' sessions up at the church. But I did take some eggs with me... I think that whatever theme or feeling is going to emerge will (hopefully) become apparent as I start to put Kalender together. 

But right now I'm still finishing off the Palm Sunday edition ... nearly there though! 

# 63 [20 April 2008]

Today was the day I intended to 'quickly' put the little finishing details to the Palm Sunday Kalender -  but my, what a long time those little details take! The problem was that there were still a few pages to resolve and I felt that the remaining unused images were a bit staid and repetitive of what had gone before.

So I've been making collages! Real collages with scissors and pritt stick and I've really enjoyed doing it. I think I'll continue with this technique as a way of exploring the material from Kalender once my medieval year is over. And that won't be all that long now.

Sometimes it does feel difficult to keep up my initial enthusiasm for the project over such a long period of time. I admit I haven't retained the resolve to keep pushing away at promotion and trying to keep the project in the public eye, especially locally where I really haven't encountered very much interest in what I'm doing (with the exception, I must quickly say, of my lovely new friend Kay from Wood Dalling who is a fantastic source of support and encouragement).

But I'm managing to keep focussed on producing Kalender, and I'm starting work on a proposal for the solo exhibition within the Eastern Region that I need to secure as one of the conditions under which I received my Grants for the Art award. Indeed, the funding won't be forthcoming until I receive the offer of such an exhibition, so I'd better get on with it!

# 64 [24 April 2008]

I feel as if I've been writing about this Palm Sunday kalender for weeks - and probably have! But at last all is ready for the printers, and I hope to be able to collect the 180 finished copies tomorrow afternoon. 

Meanwhile, I've been getting on with the Easter edition ... and the pritt stick has come out again.

Also, it seemed like a good idea to put a flyer for the exhibition that will follow my Gresham's residency this Autumn into each copy of Kalender. The mentors would be proud! Anyway, that was put together this morning with Trevor's help so we're on track for another feverish bout of rubberstamping and free gift attachment this weekend. Never a dull moment. 

www.world-tree.co.uk/festial

# 65 [29 April 2008]

All went to plan and I collected Kalender on Friday afternoon. After several rather dark issues (I mean in the sense of printing darker than was planned rather than any analysis of their content!) the Palm Sunday Kalender is almost unfeasibly light. It's nice that the publication is meant to reference cheapo fanzines and crappy parish magazines - so, no problem.

Although the print quality leaves something to be desired, I'm quite excited by the potential in the collages I'm starting to develop, even though I go through bouts of self-doubt about them. Those art school crits were useful!  But anyway, now that the images exist I can always go back to them once the madness of the Kalender schedule is a thing of the past. And madness it is.

Despite saying in my last post that the weekend would be spent rubberstamping and stapling, in fact none of that has even started and I have so far failed to source the sugar flowers I'm committed to providing as the 'free gift'.

On a more positive note, somehow the Easter edition is practically ready to pdf for the printer ... how did that happen??  Probably ia combination of the recent pritt stick frenzy, Trevor nobly documenting a new performance to make a photo-story for the centre spread, and spending the whole day and part of the evening yesterday on those 'final details'....

Oh yes, I don't think I mentioned that the Palm Sunday Kalender is now online -

www.world-tree.co.uk/festial 

# 66 [2 May 2008]

It seems an incredibly short time since I was collecting the Palm Sunday Kalender last Friday, but I found myself at the printers again after work today, collecting the Easter edition. I like its egg yolk yellow cover, and the printing itself is better this time, too!

As for the content, well, as I remarked wistfully last time, it was great being at art school and getting that critical feedback. Any students out there, I would definitely advise you to make the most of it as you'll probably miss it afterwards.

Anyway, there's little time for critical reflection right now as the time for double helpings of rubberstamping, putting as yet non-existent free gifts into bags, stapling, guillotining and inserting flyers draws nigh. Not to mention mailing out the 30 copies of each to press and gallery contacts.

Oh well, at least the two issues can be mailed out in one envelope.

www.world-tree.co.uk/festial 

# 67 [14 May 2008]

The last festival of my medieval year has happened! It was Trevor's idea to repeat the first festival again at the end of the project, and I was very happy with the prospect. For one thing, Rogationtide is a three day event so there's plenty of time to really get into it. It's a significant commitment of  energy too, but the rewards include an enormous feeling of achievement - and masses of material to work with later.  Plus, I enjoy working with Trevor. He was magnificent! All the documentary photographs and video are his - I just had the ideas and performed them.

It was fascinating to see the differences in the landscape from last year. 'You can never step into the same river twice' said Heroclitis, and how right he was. Rogationtide fell earlier this year as it's linked to Easter, but the differences in vegetation and feel of the various locations seemed to go deeper than that, and not only because of the vagaries of the weather.

The first day was gorgeous sunshine, the second was kinda on and off, ending up quite chilly, and the third was sunny again, though incredibly windy.

Deciding what to do at each of the 14 crossing-points this time, I knew I wanted to incorporate sound, words, ritual activity and an action that involved taking something from one crossing-point and doing something with it at the next. 

So, at each site, I played a note on my treble recorder. There were 15 of these (including the first crossing-point twice to seal the circle at the end), and this lent itself to travelling up the octave and back down again, finishing with the note I started with. I'm hoping to edit the result into a video. I chose a recorder as it's related to medieval instruments and also I liked the idea of 'charming the fields' like the Pied Piper. I held the note for as long as I had enough breath to do so, so the video will amount to 15 of my breaths.

Then there was the ritual pouring of a mugful of Festial Ale at each crossing-point. This looks quite strange in the video footage. I hope it evokes libations and other kinds of territorial marking(!). When it came to the last pouring the mark of the first was still visible on the road, and it felt very good to be able to hit the same spot.

# 68 [15 May 2008]

Part Two, continued from yesterday.

At each location I gathered something that grew there in abundance; that seemed to characterise that place. Luckily I was able to find something different for each ... and then, at the next place I made a four-letter word using the plant material. Each word would have some relevance to the place where I found myself or how I was feeling at that moment. So, like last year's action where I took earth or water from one crossing-point and tipped it out at the next, it made a strong link around the boundary.  I found after the first day that I wasn't convinced that this idea was really working, but kept going with it as it's probably better to judge its validity later on. Even if it doesn't work as 14 photographs forming a 'boundary', some of the individual ones are quite nice I think. Others feel somewhat contrived - sometimes it was difficult to find an appropriate word with just four letters in it.

Thinking more about words, I decided to do something with runes. This is very pertinent to Norfolk as an eastern county. It's often forgotten how strong the Scandinavian/Germanic heritage would still have been - both in place names and probably something more intangible - in medieval times. So, at each crossing-place I drew a rune marked on a stone from a special bag, and placed it on the puddle of beer in a seemingly-significant ritual action. Then I scratched the same rune in the earth of that place.

Lots to do at each crossing-point; lots of scrabbling about in bicycle panniers for the equipment; cold fingers yesterday that eventually rebelled, but on reflection it was worth it, definitely. It both feels like the end and not the end at all, as there is A LOT to do to actually make something of all the stuff I've collected along the way. Not to mention a final edition of Kalender. 

www.world-tree.co.uk/festial

imogenashwin[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk 

# 69 [19 May 2008]

I've had a chance now to go through the video footage ably shot by Trevor for Rogationtide. Can it really be a week ago that we started out in glorious sunshine? *shivers*. 

Video stills are great! I just love them. You can have exactly the moment you want, and pinpointing exactly when that moment is appeals greatly to pernickity types like me. I'm posting a few of them here, but already I can see much more work ahead if I want to take stills from each of the 14 crossing-points to include in the final edition of Kalender.  

I've been distributing the Palm Sunday Kalender around the public buildings and cafes of Norwich, and by the end of today I'm determined to have mailed out the Palm Sunday and Easter issues to my 30-odd gallery and press contacts. One of the things that's held up the Easter editon has been my rash commitment to a free gift of 'onion skins and a silken thread' for the lucky recipients to have a go at dyeing an egg. I've managed to collect enough bits of onion skin for precisely 37 little packets so far - out of the 180 needed! So this afternoon it's off to the greengrocers in the village to beg for some of the loose onion skins in the bottom of the onion box. He won't think that's a strange request - will he?

www. world-tree.co.uk/festial

imogenashwin[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot]uk 

# 70 [13 August 2008]

My last blog entry marked the end of the Festial year in a strictly technical sense, but of course Festial hasn't finished at all. For one thing, I still have the last few copies of the Rogationtide Kalender to foist on some unsuspecting members of the public.

The residency at Gresham's school - achieved through this project  as far as I can tell - is approaching fast. I will be in the school's art department every day (and as it's a public school it actually IS every day) for three weeks of September, followed by a day to set up a solo exhibition in their Nicholson Gallery, followed by a private view the following evening. Makes me tired/worried/nervous/excited just thinking about it! I will be teaching some Year 10 and Year 13 classes, as well as making a presentation about my work to sixth formers. When I first knew about this, I was in a complete panicky fuzz about the whole thing, but now I've worked out a lesson scheme and made my Powerpoint presentation things don't seem quite so daunting. Well, not quite.

 There is still the small matter of a two-storey gallery space to fill singlehandedly. Although I'll have a space within the department to work on my own stuff in between times, realistically I need to have the majority of work ready before I start at the school at the beginning of September. Which doesn't give me long at all. And I have no funding or guidance or anything, so it's all in the lap of the gods, really. Although, I hasten to add, I do like a challenge.

 Then there's promotion. Oh yes, promotion. Why didn't I think of that earlier?! So far, the only publicity for this exhibition is in the North Norfolk Arts Events Brochure and it gives the dates as a month later than they actually are. This information has been copied onto the What's On In The Arts page on the local council's website. Not a lot of use, then.

As usual, Trevor has calmed me down by sitting down with me with a pencil and paper. Many bullet points later, we have come up with an Action Plan. And so, the promotion starts here.

Imogen Ashwin

Closing the Circle: Ex Voto

Nicholson Gallery, Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk

September 26 - October 17 2008

Private View Friday September 26, 6 - 8pm

Hope to see you there!

www.world-tree.co.uk/festial (in process of updating)