ARTISTS TALKING

# 36 [23 September 2008]

I am in that dazed state I seem to enter at the end of projects. I suppose what I really would like is a couple of days off just to look at stuff and recharge a bit. Instead of which I am trying to get my mind focused on the next steps. On Thursday I am having a meeting to discuss setting up an art space and residency programme at a beautiful building in my home town. The redundant church where my residency in 2007 was based is in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust and also the Friends of St George's Church. They were very pleased with the way that an art residency brought the building into a purposeful use and have asked me to oversee and advise them on establishing a future strategy. In fact it isn't as distant and theoretical as that sounds. One of the requirements is to set up a residency for next spring / summer as well as a series of other events. At the moment my r and d is funded in kind but I can see a large funding application looming! To see more about the building and it's potential as a project space see the website from my project there: www.papertrails.org.uk

In October my next project as an artist starts in Caterham where I'll be working with various groups centered around the Arc. I am in the process of researching this area and developing approaches to the work. There are huge amounts of writing and photographs etc to look through so it will be interesting.

# 35 [22 September 2008]

I have a couple of workshop days connected with the project still to do. One of them on Saturday in fact so I'll have to spend a while preparing materials later in the week. Until then I am working on research for the next couple of things coming up.

# 34 [18 September 2008]

It has been a bit of a week. I have been moving into a new studio (by coincidence back at St George's in Esher where my 'Papertrails' residency last year was based), emptying a store where lots of my work and loads of our personal possessions were kept and also installing my work from this year's project at the Lightbox in Woking. I have also been delivering (and helping hang) work for an exhibition at the Guildford House Gallery. Its all been rather hectic!

The exhibitions are the culmination of a project which has involved artists who use found materials or reuse discarded ones. (This project has been the main subject of this blog.) The exhibition at Guildford House Gallery is an overview of different approaches to materiality as shown in the work of a range of artists and designers whereas the Lightbox has selected  five artists to make installations of work throughout the building and courtyard between now and May 2009. My slot at the Lightbox was the first and the reason that I have been a little uncommunicative in the blogging world. My Lightbox installation: 'Translations' has grown out of a residency at the gallery where I have been working teaching paper-making, bookbinding, printmaking and other good things to a group of 8 to twelve year-olds. Some of the work shown has been made collaboratively and the rest including a fairly large wall based piece is my own reaction to the particular place and theme of materiality and transformation. I have a sense of anti- climax now that it is got to this point, partly because there isn't a specific event launching that particular bit of the work but also a huge sense of relief. The work looks good there; it could do with a bit of lighting, but they are working on that!

For more information about everyone else's work see the websites below. Over the next few months Lucy Fergus, Nick Sayers, Tim Gentry and Paul Matosic will be making their installations at the Lightbox too and some of them and Cas Holmes will be working or will have worked with other groups at schools and colleges.

www.thelightbox.org.uk

www.guildfordhousegallery.co.uk

# 33 [12 September 2008]

Being chosen as 'Blogger's Choice' by Stuart Mayes has made me feel rather fraudulent. Firstly because I haven't posted to the blog for ages and secondly because of his lovely comment about my 'up-beat analysis'. It may be up-beat and even analytical in the blog but I am a major practitioner of the 'midnight worries' as a way of avoiding analysis and just heading straight to panic! However, onward!

I am in the middle of a real working-slog patch at the moment and will resume posting after I have got past this particular bit. I would urge everyone to go and look at Stuart's blog. It all seems very positive at the moment.

# 32 [12 August 2008]

Busy working. I'm not going to write much but I want to post some images of what I am doing at the moment. Ideally I would like to have a bit of time to step back from things but I'm not going to have the chance to do that. Most of the things I am doing right now have that feeling of being an endless or impossible task, like emptying the sea with a teaspoon or spinning gold from straw. Some of this work is for the exhibitions coming up in Guildford and Woking in September.

# 31 [6 August 2008]

I am hard at work now finishing off work for the 'Recycled by Design' project. The group show starts on 20 September at the Guildford House Gallery and my solo element goes from 16 September at the Lightbox (my home-from-home). I have just begun to be able to relax into the work again after all the competing bits of this and other projects. Sometimes you have to turn off the editorial / organizing voice in your mind and just work things out through doing them. It is a huge relief to find that it's possible to do this even though the deadlines are hanging over me. I am very happy to be involved in all the things that I am involved in but it can get rather stressful. I'd better confess here that I am involved in another project or two straight after this one. This year has been more like a fun-fair ride than a calm meander through things; although I think I described it as 'free-fall or flying' at one point.

# 30 [1 August 2008]

Yesterday evening was the launch of 'Contemporary Art in the Surrey Landscape' which spotlights various art projects through Surrey and for which I had made an installation in the courtyard of the Lightbox Gallery. The launch went well, I think and it was good to see what everyone had been working on. Some of the individual projects will have their own openings over the next few weeks throughout August and September. There were speeches and thanks, the odd glass of wine and a chance to meet the other artists. Jonathan Parsons (one of the artists featured in the project and also arc coordinator based at Aspex) talked to me about some positive developments for networking locally. 

The last few days leading up to the launch had been good for me. I enjoyed installing the work at the Lightbox. It was good to see everyone again and they were all really helpful. It was also good to be working in a public place because all the other trails of 'Storytrees' had been installed through woodland. Although eventually they get seen by people it isn't necessarily when one is there oneself. I enjoyed seeing people reading the stories and talking about them.

Because of the funding situation the stories I had used for this installation had had to be drawn from my own research rather than direct contact with people. It would have been great to gather them in the same way as I had with the rest of the 'Storytree' project however I was really happy to have had the opportunity to do this installation. The stories I chose were partly from the oral history museum at the Lightbox which has a great collection of anecdotal descriptions of Woking in the recent past. I concentrated on ones about the landscape and how it was used; to play on, for crops, for industry and combined these with excerpts from the Domesday Book about the manors of Woking and the Woking Hundreds. The last set of texts I used were lists of plants found even today in the area. 

# 29 [29 July 2008]

I have been in France for a few days and came back to a rather busy time straight away. Over the weekend I ran some workshops at the Riverhouse Barn in Walton, Surrey. This is the base for the Robert Phillips Gallery where the current show is 'Breaking the Mould', an international  exhibition, curated by Hillary Sussum, of artists who work using paper. The exhibition is a really interesting survey of different approaches to the medium and I was pleased to be asked to run the course. I enjoyed the weekend very much, meeting a lovely group of people who responded to the materials and processes with enthusiasm and by making some wonderful work.  www.riverhousebarn.co.uk/ 

The last couple of days have been filled with preparations for Wednesday when I am making a temporary installation of 'Storytrees' in the courtyard of the Lightbox Gallery for the launch of 'Contemporary Art in the Surrey Landscape'. 

# 28 [10 July 2008]

I have been having a busy few days. I have been working on some pieces related to my last project, 'Papertrails', more of that on my other blog but I have also been taking advantage of the end of my workshops at Woking to get out a bit and see some other people's work too which I have really enjoyed. On Tuesday I had a trip to Brighton for a couple of good meetings and I also went to Judith and Roz's discussion about their 'Breaking Ground' project and its development through 'Outside In'. It was good to meet them again and interesting to see the fruit of their collaboration. Their space was filled with beautiful books and evocative images and lists of words. There is an interesting structure to their project with distinct episodes or chapters which can respond to what has gone before. All the visitors were involved in the discussion and had to bring a 'gift' from the outside to the project and before we left had to make something from stuff from the worktable in the project room. I made a small posy of daisies. It was a good event filled with interesting ideas mapping connections and marking exchanges.

# 27 [3 July 2008]

The last workshop went well. Everyone finished what they needed to finish and much paper-making was done. We also looked round the work from the Surrey Open which is showing at the gallery. At the end of this phase of the project it is good to be looking forward to the next bit. I still have to discuss a few things about the final show with Michael Regan and will be having a meeting on Friday. 

On Monday evening I went to the Jerwood Space to see the 'Contemporary Makers' show there and to listen to a talk with ceramicist, Edmund de Waal and choreographer and dancer Siobhan Davies. This was a wonderful evening and I came away really inspired. The exhibition itself is the new initiative of the Jerwood foundation to support and promote applied arts. The artists; Gary Breeze, Sara Brennan, Lin Cheung, Drummond Masterton, Deirdre Nelson, Nicholas Rena and Clare Twomey were selected and asked to make some work responding to the theme of 'touch'. Edmund de Waal one of the selectors, described this as being a way of bringing 'seven artists from a diverse range of disciplines into dialogue with each other.' 

The talk between Edmund de Waal and Siobhan Davies examined the differences and similarities between their own work and their approaches to their work. Both concluded that they were as concerned with the gaps, pauses and spaces as with what happens in-between.