ARTISTS TALKING

# 10 [2 July 2008]

It's July!! I can't really explain what happened in June - just a mix of frantically making work, working at the Tate and spending so much time writing applications that I couldn't face blogging.

I've also had my elbow popped back into place by a kind doctor. Apparently it had been out of place for a while - about two months in fact, which explains the sharp pains and inability to  saw wood or wash my hair with that arm. For goodness sake Emily.

The Liar, The Witch and the Wardrobe is being packed up today. It was a lovely exhibition full of whirring noise, pockets of light  and inventive displays. However, my dodgy knowledge of electrics let me down again when the circuit I made kept blowing the tiny bulbs. Another lesson! Images to follow this afternoon when it is documented properly. I also met some interesting artists working in Liverpool, and had my suspicions confirmed about a small place it is. 

Now it is all eyes on Berlin. Whilst standing in the gallery (Tate Liverpool) I have been formulating plans on the back of the rota each day and am desperate to get there and make. As there are five of us going from the studio: www.wolstenholmeprojects.org it will also be a great opportunity to spend some time together, to hopefully bury some niggling hatchets and have a really good chat about future projects and aspirations. We have a week to set up and the gallery owner has given us an apartment to stay in - what more could we ask for? Bier perhaps. 

I am also making a piece for Pontoon, an exhibition on the River Thames in Oxford in August. After promising myself no more unpaid work, here I am again.  But I have been hankering to make something colossal for a while now, and this seemed like a good deadline to work to. But another project that will cost me up to £200 to make is not something I can really afford at the moment. But I'll think about that tomorrow...

# 9 [13 May 2008]

Marriage.

It feels no different, except I am relieved that it (the fabulous day of dancing and fizzy stuff) is done and now a new chapter can begin, i.e. making work instead of invitations/decorations etc. 

I have been approached by the Bridewell Studios to put some work in a show, The Liar, the Witch and the Wardrobe, opening at the start of June.

www.bridewellstudios.co.uk'

I love the work of the other artists who are showing (I believe Birgit Deubner also has a blog on here) and I love the building -  so it's good. But I worry, well I always worry about showing work, it just seems very soon.

But the sun is shining, so the studio is like a sauna now, rather than the chiller it was until about a week ago. I shouldn't complain that it's too hot.. I am also furkeling about making short films, although I now need to borrow a camera after the last one had to be given back. I hate this dependency on borrowing equipment, but there is certainly no budget for electronic goods at the moment. I may just have to use my super8 camera for now and project. 

Plans for a group show 'Facade' in Berlin this July are also under way and I'm very excited about it. Again, worried by it, but more excited. 

# 8 [23 April 2008]

I am also finding shadows to alter, another thing that has been popping up in my practice for the last couple of years. I want to say something about the history or potential of objects and this seems to be a tool I keep returning to.

# 7 [23 April 2008]

I have a book factory going on the flat at the moment - I will despair later when I have to clean up the mounds of paper building up around me, but it is a good feeling to be producing at the moment.

I will screen-print the boxes that will house the book later today(I guess it's a build-your-own kit really, pictures soon) and then the assembly can begin.

I am also working on a glossary of my practice at the moment. A hefty A-Z description of my practice, which will probably never be finished! This is something I started on my MA and keep adding to. Now I am formalising it slightly and making it into a bookwork. I would like the finished product to include extra sheets and space for people to add their own vocabulary into the glossary. 

# 6 [21 April 2008]

Well, the exhibition is up, and what a massive kick up the behind that was!

I struggled with this one: possibly because I'm trying to organise my wedding alongside life (less than two weeks now!) but I really don't like to use those things as reasons, so perhaps it's because the work wasn't (shock horror) ready?

I made all the pieces upstairs in my bright, white attic space and then plodded down to the much darker ground floor, and was surprised when half the work basically disappeared into the walls. Don't get me wrong - the basis of the work is to be quiet and give some pleasure of discovery to the viewer, but half of it was too close to the door and got trodden all over, and the other half is only visible at night when lit by miniature bulbs and torchlight (there is just enough light in the day to render all my mini-electrics invisible). Pah. One drawing was noticed only by my mum (I may have pointed it out) and a super alert visitor, but was actually intended to be the point to which the eye was eventually led. Alas.

So, a valuable lesson all in all... to make more time for installation and a contingency budget of extra minutes for rethinking the whole thing if it disappears into the walls. I'm not so unhappy with it that I would rather not show it; there are successful elements. But overall, not my best work to date. Then again, I'm pretty sure I say the same thing every time my work is outside my studio! I have never exhibited much in the past; preferring to err on the side of residencies and project-based work, perhaps this is just part of getting used to the scrutiny? 

The show was a strong mix though, well done Brychan! I really enjoyed the critique that took place in the gallery on Saturday after the opening too, although I did learn from that not to stand up and slag your own work off in front of all attendees.

Ah, where for art thou confidence?

The show runs from Thursday - Sun 12 - 6 this weekend at: 

 www.wolstenholmeprojects.org

# 5 [10 April 2008]

All week I have been in my studio as much as the temperature allows. I have some work in an exhibition this Friday and am working in-situ in the gallery space downstairs. 

I wonder if all artists struggle with practice-management as much as I do? I have just about got used to the idea that I really enjoy the pressure of a deadline and the majority of my work is made later rather than sooner. I suppose there is also something to be said for taking time off and spending a sustained amount of time on one thing too; I find making work breeds more ideas and work all by itself.

The piece I'm making for Wolstenholme Projects is called 'no one home'. The abandoned and derelict frame of a building stands in for absence and the stairs and ladders in the work don't quite make it to civilisation. 

www.wolstenholmeprojects.org'

# 4 [8 April 2008]

The Joys of Letterpressing:

Today has mainly seen me make a mess in my flat as I clean up my three letterpresses, all Adana 3 x 5s, so quite small ones. They remind me a bit of those three blokes in Last of the Summer Wine (random I know) as they have different characters and a couple are not all there. I have also amassed a load of type, with some really beautiful fonts.

Anyway, I have finally printed some text; nothing very usable, but at least I know where I am headed.  

Letterpress Alive?

is an amazing list of resources for letterpressers, including places to get ink, plates made (from computer files - very useful for printing graphics!) paper, spare parts and perhaps most usefully for some - classes!

British Letterpress

is also a really interesting site and has a lot of info about Letterpressing /forums / resources.

Any fellow letterpress geeks who would like to chat more about it please e mail me: emilyspeed@hotmail.com

# 3 [1 April 2008]

I wonder about using text in my work. I am not a writer. Or perhaps I should say that I write but not spectacularly.  The first time I wrote a story I had a hundred people read it and give me feedback, but in fact, this made me defensive and insecure about using it in a piece of work.

Now I just write. I am better about spending time editing and I try to see the texts as works in progress. I love the possibility inherent in fiction for the reader to visualise places and actions and that's something I don't think I can do with images alone. 

My latest obsession with artists' books means that I can happily mix text and images. The form of the book is important too - the casing or binding is an integral part of the concept and should communicate as much as the content. 

Thanks to my friend Cherry who I met during my MA,  I was introduced to Moos. A Moo for those who don't know (I didn't) is a text-based on-line world that can be accessed by multiple users at any one time.  Working with my soon to be husband (four weeks!) who is a games programmer, we are making a moo as part of a conceptual website. The moo will map out my internal environment, complete with clutter and the various buildings I see myself as occupying; part caravan, part castle, part semi.  The website will also use Dan's fancy code to make it interactive/reactive as well as using it as a site to publish visual essays and images of books and other works. 

# 2 [27 March 2008]

I have spent the last week struggling with layouts.  The planning and quality control elements of making a book or multiple do not come easily to me: what, you mean they all have to be exactly the same?!

Instead of trying to work out which page sits on the back of which in my head (too much information to hold at once) I am now surrounded by small hill formations of paper, all with squares and scrawls standing in for the content.

It makes my brain hurt, but I am thankful I don't have to work everything out in inches like I did with my last book, although there is something slightly romantic about 16ths and 64ths.

I'm sure there must be some procrastinating I can get on with instead. I know, I'll add to my blog on a-n...

# 1 [17 March 2008]

After a very brief trip to New York last week, and a return visit to Women's Studio Workshop where I completed a book arts residency last autumn, I have finally been able to look at the book, Unfolding Architecture, that I made there. I think the intense nature of the residency (six weeks chopping up wood and frantically gluing boxes/ printing pages etc) had taken it's toll and I had thought I never wanted to see the book again. 

Upon my return last Monday, I unpacked them from their temporary home in a box at the back of my wardrobe and began writing the second instalment of impossible architecture.