ARTISTS TALKING

# 26 [11 May 2008]

With this beautiful weather I'm finding it quite hard to get motivated. I was in Uni on Friday and the space moved on leaps and bounds. My helpers (and a few others who were at a lose end) helped me get the space sorted ready for us to paint on Monday. I am hoping that I will only need a couple of coats and fingers crossed I can start putting the paintings up so I can work back into them.

We still haven't got the any wood or paint but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they arrive early monday.

The mood in the studios is quite tense at the moment. Students are worried that there has been so little progress, hopefully this week will be better.

We had the opening event for the 2nd Postcard show on Saturday at the Brewhouse, Burton upon Trent. It was really dissapointing, there was only a very small turnout, we sold some but not as well as we hoped for. I think the weather was probably mainly responsible for that. It was hot and sweaty and nobody wants to be indoors when it's beautiful outside.

I had another dissappointment yesterday too. I received a rejection letter from the John Moores painting prize. This hurt more than the New Contemporaries rejection. I was more happier with the painting that I submitted and thought I might get through to the second round at least. Alas it wasn't to be. At least by the time I finish Uni I will be hardened to rejections. I'm still waiting to hear from the Northern Design prize.

# 25 [8 May 2008]

It is really slow going at the moment. All the spaces are being re-built for the exhibition, none of them are properly finished with loose boards, missing supports and panels etc. It's all a bit of a mess really. Some students decided to paint their spaces today even though they look far from finished.

I went into the space this afternoon as I had to look after my little boy this morning. It took me about half an hour to locate some of my equipment and also to discover that most of it was missing. It has always been a problem at University. Certain students do not have any equipment and think that it is fine to use other peoples stuff. I wouldn't mind so much but it is never put back and often gets lost. I discovered that my drill and bits were all missing, I recovered my hammer and screwdriver but lost a quantity of wood that I had put aside for shoring up my walls. I also found one student happily painting her space with the remains of my emulsion paint that i use for priming my canvases. Sometimes it feels like I am funding more than just myself to be at Uni.

I will be in the university tomorrow. I have a few panels to secure to make a doorway and then repair the walls before painting which should mean that I can get my large paintings up on the wall and start painting back into them early next week.

I have a huge list of stuff to do that runs alongside the show. Career in practice, proposals, journals e.t.c I think that the only way to get it done would be to take a few days off. I'll have to see what the progress is next week.

# 24 [6 May 2008]

Today we were actually given our spaces, well correction. If they existed we would have been givent them. We had a meeting this morning with our 1st year helpers to find that only half the people had bothered to turn up..and incredibly that includes the third years.

The space we are exhibiting in has to be totally canged around and we made a start on it today but unfortunately we only got a few spaces done. We have to work around the fact that other courses in the area won't move out until next week and some who should have been out today just didn't bother. It all seems a little political. Anyway, the goog news is that my space is virtually built. I hope to tweak a few things over the next two days and then paint the walls on Friday...all being well.

I'm finding it quite difficult in this run in to the degree show. It's all a bit too sedate and slow paced. I must admit I am used to getting on with things as quickly as possible by putting in some good hard work but this affair seems almost static. It's really frustrating as I just want to get in my space, finish my paintings and then hang them. I suppose patience is not my strongest point so i'm just going to have to keep biting my tongue and groaning inwardly.

# 23 [4 May 2008]

The last week was not very productive at all. I got a few paintings done early week but that was all.

The postcard show took more time than I expected it to do. 2 full days in total setting up. To be truthfull I was extremely dissapointed with the majority of my fellow students. We asked for help in putting the show up and we only had the three of us. Vitor, Patrick (Husband of one of our students) and myself. To be quite frank I am fed up of doing all this hard work so the rest of the group will benefit.

Anyway, enough of the moaning, the show got put up and it looks really good. We start on the 6th May and we have a get together on the 10th May 12.15pm at the Brewhouse Arts centre, Burton upon Trent. I will post some photos up later.

I had a small setback on Saturday morning. I received a letter back from the New Contemporaries competition informing me that I hadn;t made it through to the next stage. To be honest I wasn't too surprised (just dissapointed) I had a problem with the work that I submitted. I found it very difficult because of the timings that the work needed to be available in putting my current work forward. They clashed with my degree show so I submitted images from last semesters work. The onlyproblem was that this work is not fully resolved. Oh well, you live and learn. In retrospect I should have submitted my strongest work and if it got through then I would have had to deal with the problem.

It does seem odd though that a graduate student competition requires submission during degree show times. Surely it would be more sensible to give us time to finish our degrees before we apply.

We all meet as a group on Tuesday with our first year helpers, whose help I will be so grateful of. To discuss the matter of setting up our shows and timetables. 

# 22 [29 April 2008]

It's a really strange week so far.

 We all got together Monday morning at a meeting, the major happenings were outlined. We get our spaces on the 6th. we get student helpers to assist in sorting out our spaces. We all meet on the morning of the 6th and we are told everything will be fine.

Maybe I am a fatalist but I can't help feeling something is going to go horribly wrong....It can't be this straightforward can it?

We are struggling to come up with a name for our show. We had a list up on the notice board with suggestions but a lecturer took it down as the suggestions were too abysmal.

I have been trying to find find fixing for my paintings. We have a few issues with the exhibition boards that we are using. They are really poor quality, lightweight monstrosities. They have a thin board front and back and the gap between is filled with a corrugated cardboard so it is very difficult indeed to get anything to stay fixed for longer than a day. Ideally everything should be double skinned to allow fixings to go all the way through but unfortunately they are only single boads.

We are putting up the next postcard show event on Thursday at the Brewhouse Arts centre in Burton upon Trent. The exhibition starts on the 6th May and an opening event takes place at 12.15pm on Saturday 10th May. All proceeds go towards the Derby University Fine Art Degree show.

# 21 [27 April 2008]

I feel in quite a comfortable position at the moment. I have enough work for the degre show but I will continue to make more work to allow me to be more selective.

I painted 12 small paintings on Friday and had more success photographing my work.

 My one concern is my journals. i am seriously behind in these and I am finding it hard to manage them. How can you explore and research when you already have done the work and have a clear idea of what your show is going to be like. I find it difficult to be creative in them atthe moment

# 20 [24 April 2008]

I've more or less finished my second large painting. There is still a bit to do in places as there is on the first one but I shall leave them to dry for a few weeks until I move into my show space then do the finishing touches in the space.

I feel a lot more confortable now that I have broken the back of the large paintings. I am on schedule and have enough work to show. I have two large paintings and 150 smaller paintings. The target is 200 so I've just 50 more to do in the next 4 weeks. I will only actually display about 100 in my show but I want to be able to be selective.

I still have lots of work to do in my journals and my career in practice as well making more work for a solo show that is coming up in July at the Chamber Art Gallery in Moffat, Scotland. I am also taking part in the Wirksworth Festival, Derbyshire so I will need to continue making paintings for the time being.

Our photographer is with us on Monday to shoot the work for the catalogue. I really don't know what painting or image to use. I don't know what is best, to have a shot of a whole painting or a detail shot of part of a painting. Decisions, decisions.

# 19 [21 April 2008]

I discovered today that I have been given the exact amount of space that I had asked for. Brilliant! and I've also been given the space I wanted, my own studio space which is great as I don't have to worry about moving the work eleswhere and I can concentrate on continuing the work in my space.

I had a minor disaster with one of the panels of my latest large paintings. The panels had stuck together because of the acrylic paint between the joins, it is what I had expected and has happened before but I got a little clumsy with the knife when seperating them and sliced a 6 inch gash on one edge! Oops, I've glued it back down and hopefully this will do the trick. Luckily it is in a part of the painting that I had planned to overpaint so not too much damage done.

I'm still having problems photographing my work. I don't know which is the lesser of two evils - A reflective glare over areas of each painting or a duller image. I have sought advice from some photography people so hopefully they can help me out.

# 18 [19 April 2008]

All the photography that I did the other day is just rubbish. I set up a tripod in a well, naturally area and took around 100 photos of my work. When I uploaded them onto the computer they were dreadful. They were all in focus with great detail but the natural light was a bit too strong and light reflected off of everything and looked just horrible. I guess I'll have to do it again but in a well naturally lit (but not in direct light) spot. I don't know if this spot exsists but I'll see what I can do.

I'm getting really fed up of documenting my work, I'm just not very good at it. They come out either blurred, distorted, washed out with light or just plain dull.

Has anyone out there got any tips for photographing paintings? please!

On the plus side I reached the end of the first stage of my second large painting. I'm really happy with it and can't wait to start painting into it with oil paint.

# 17 [17 April 2008]

I'm best part through yet another week albeit a productive week so far.

I've been working into my next large painting and reached the figure of 150 of my small paintings. I now only have to finish this large painting and 50 more of the small paintings and then i'm ready for the show.

I've got to start photographing my work properly starting tomorrow. I've borrowed a tripod for my camera so I will spend the whole of tomorrow taking shots.

Good news on the fundraising front. The Hilton hotel have agreed to supply us with red wine, white wine and sparkling for our degree show. All thanks to Jo Roper from the Fine Art 3rd year!

We are exhibiting the postcard show again (with new cards) at the Brewhouse Art centre in Burton upon Trent on the 10th May if anyone is passing that way - £15 per card and all proceeds go to our final degree show.