ARTISTS TALKING

# 119 [18 May 2008]

As Roz says in her post today, she has spent the week organising & planning for us & has covered a lot of ground. It's very exciting to be working towards something definite now, especially as the first project space week is only a very few weeks away.

I'm pleased to say that I have made progress at the studio too this week. I have built my greenhouse and have set it up as my Breaking Ground work space. I'm enjoying the strange semi-opaque cover & the zip-up door cover which, when unzipped, flaps open just enough to be able to peek inside.

Yesterday I went shopping and bought seeds, beans, compost, seed trays and pots.

# 118 [18 May 2008]

FIRST PROJECT SPACE BOOKED

Spent a lot of time this week thinking about dates and spaces.  Booked our first Project Space at the Phoenix in Brighton for first week in July with draft dates for the Open Afternoon and the Platform Dialogue.  Whew.  And we have a facilitator and a consultant sorted.  And have nearly booked the second Space for October.  How much of my art life is now project management.  I get to make the art during residencies - this is when there is dedicated time to 'get down to it'. 

# 117 [11 May 2008]

CHANGING SEASONS

I started to make papier mache casts of my spade and fork some months ago after work on the allotment had stopped.  The white shapes looked like skeletons of themselves and I began to think of them as Winter.

When I unwrapped them to continue this week, they seemed misplaced in the sunny day.  May is a time when everything has turned green and is shooting up. There is loads of spadework to do on the allotment.

# 116 [9 May 2008]

I think at last, after much trial and error, I have decided on a way to mount & count my dandelion fairies.

They are numbered and trapped under sellotape on black card which makes both the fine white fluff and the darker brown seed both equally visible.

Then, when they're all counted, I'll think about how I'm going to use my microscope slides.

# 115 [8 May 2008]

ANOTHER DANDELION

As I thought about dandelions I remembered another dandelion.  This time from my Foundation Show in 2000. I showed  this slide at the University of Brighton talk 2 weeks ago.  Pressed flowers again.  My first pressed flowers were collected when I was five years old.  I can see the book in my mind's eye - a school drawing book, dull blue paper cover, a flower on each page and the name I had identified and written carefully in pencil. The names are pressed in me: red dead nettle, yellow archangel, bistort -  there was a dandelion too.

# 114 [7 May 2008]

OLD DANDELIONS

I looked at Judith's dandelions  and remembered my dandelions.  I made an etching, back in 2003.  Two flowers were pressed onto a soft ground layer on a steel plate, overlapping, intertwining.  This was etched in acid, inked and put through the press to produce this image.  One of a set of flower etchings named Apparitions.  And the dandelions have appeared once more.

# 113 [6 May 2008]

A busy day today with many things to think about - progress with our BMPD Professional Development initiative, planning Eastbourne Festival 2009 as I have recently become a Director of the new Eastbourne Festival company, and, now that we have been given funding  for it, planning the next stage of Breaking Ground.

I'm still puzzling over how to mount and count the dandelion fairies, with little success. I have ordered my greenhouse & marked out its area in the studio. It is small - 144cm x 71cm x 191cm high. Just big enough for one person to stand or sit in. I put my chair in the space to make it mine - My Space.

# 112 [5 May 2008]

I have decided to order a greenhouse - just a little one. The sort that comes with a tubular steel frame - a bit like the frame of the gazebo we used at our Allotmenta Open Day - and a pvc cover - almost a cross between a greenhouse and a polytunnel.

As a child, my Uncle had a market garden & the memory of the smell of warm, moist soil and ripening tomatoes is still strong in my mind. Greenhouses are places of potential, productivity; places where natural processes are rapid and rampant. Things happen there. Exciting things, unexpected things.

# 111 [4 May 2008]

Last week I cut all the 45 dandelion flower and seed heads that have grown on my doorstep dandelion in the last couple of weeks. I have pressed them in one of the wallpaper books which I was using on the allotment as a sort of experimental sketchbook.

I have selected 7 dandelion seed heads which appear to be completely intact so that I can mount & count the seeds. However, the "fairies" are almost impossible to see when mounted on paper, so I have been trying other ways of mounting them and discovered that it seems to work to mount them on glass. I have ordered some microscope slides.

Also been experimenting with drawing seeds & have gone back to our "School For Artists" starting point, using a technique which has been productive for Roz, but not for me - until now perhaps.

# 110 [1 May 2008]

BIRD BOX AND A GRANT

Two presents this week:

the first was a bird box made by my daughter - a home for the stuffed thrush.

The second was the award of an Arts Council Grant for the Arts for Stage 2 of Breaking Ground - Hooray. 

Now we have to get cracking with arranging the Project Room development work and Platform Evenings.  How will we fit it all in - exciting.