ARTISTS TALKING

# 7 [27 August 2008]

Tues 19 August.  Loofer’s Food and Coffee Place recently opened in the Eastgate mall.  Very friendly and sponsors Fairtrade projects.  Subtle lighting and jazz.   

We’ve both seen an exhibition by students in a shop unit in Chelmsford and liked the energy and ideas.  We both need temporary studio space occasionally.  Wysing Arts have experimental space for their artists.  Currently Basildon town centre is our temporary studio space. 

Talked about the intellectual foundation for work and its “juddering” pace with production.  I’ve been reading Tom Philip’s “Works. Texts. To 1974”.  He describes “suffering the feeling that [his] work…is what [he does] while waiting to find ‘the way’ or ‘[his] own way’”. 

There’s progress towards final outcomes to this project.  Gordon has a mock up of an A6 publication – pictures and text.  I’m editing short videos and sound for the internet.  Ideas emerge for a further collaboration focusing on shop mannequins.

# 6 [10 August 2008]

Tues 5 August.  The Master Baker at Basildon bus station is small and clean.  It sells bread, cakes, sandwiches etc. and its round tables attract the neatly turned out, mainly on the far side of 50.  The tea is marginally more expensive than other places. 

I’ve been editing sound for a short video shot at home.  Showing the results on laptop, it’s kind of worked, but the editing software is clunky so adjusting video and sound together is a long process.   

We are thinking about outcomes.  Gordon wants to produce a printed booklet with photos of the fronts of the cafés and written documentation.  Needs a reasonably priced book binder or will make the books himself.  I am getting enough material for virtual work and maybe a booklet.   

We walk to Eastgate mall and I take sequential stills looking down on café and shoppers from the first floor.

# 5 [4 August 2008]

Tues 22 July.  McDowell’s Pie & Mash. Its unusual deep green windows are open; designed by the Proprietor’s father, she thinks. Flow of breeze, flow of people.  Traditional food - pie a particular shape, pastry and meat particular browns, mash and liquor their particular consistencies.   

We analyse reactions of people to our photographing round town and the use of pixilation to disguise identities or even locations.  We speculate on ways of using animation or building mechanised images within McDowell’s.  How different to working with neutral gallery spaces?  

A question arises.  What relevance are etching and hand-built mechanics (mine and Gordon’s interests respectively), once cutting edge of social development but overtaken by more viable processes?  Could I live in my great grandmother’s clothes or she in mine?   

We look for the next café.  How to chart them all?  Passing through the town square there’s thoughts about creating an inflated ideal landscape.

# 4 [31 July 2008]

Tues 15 July.  On my way to the Dream Café in the town centre I see ripe cherries on the pavement.  Parts of Basildon were built on cherry orchards and there are remaining trees camouflaged by landscape designer Sylvia Crowe's interplanting.  The cherries are small and taste sharp; they are difficult to reach – years of no pruning.  English cherries discussed on Food Programme just this weekend.  Gordon is logging data on cafés in Basildon.  Food is emerging as a theme.  The Dream Café has waitress service and v. affordable meals.  It’s busy. 

We talk families and weekend events; and what further arts training we need – short courses for skills or longer immersion?  A bit of dreaming.   

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand basic media process.  I play around with taking sequential stills/short videos on my low res camera - people walking in and out of shot in the market and town square. One sequence works – find I’ve been filming a young woman conversing on a mobile while people move in front of her.  Later play around with pixilation.

# 3 [21 July 2008]

Tues 8 July. Arrive at McDowells Pie and Mash Shop at 10am in driving rain.  Its green doors not open till 10.30 so we retreat to Esquires cafe in Eastgate mall for cappucinos.  Light and airy.  Marble and glass encapsulation.  Weather outside. 

Gordon has been reading about café life.  We talk about Max Beckmann, his use of space. I have an old catalogue to look through.  We look at what a drawing tablet might do.  It responds to pen pressure - biggest plus.  I have borrowed a small camcorder and we wander up the mall and out into the town square with it.  Short bursts of people's legs passing.  Some interesting framing with furniture, doors, shadows. 

Later I find I cannot download the footage from the camcorder.  Frustration with not understanding technology basics; not having a manual, more like.  Turn to noise making and editing sound.

# 2 [6 July 2008]

Tues 22 June.  Tea x 2 mugs at one of the outdoor cafes in Basildon market.  People at two nearby tables get to know each other while their dogs warn each other. We discuss recent experiences of being in the art world and the continuous process of finding out/ re-establishing approaches; “keep doing to find out”. I talk about exploring processes to develop work.  Gordon takes a step back to consider motivations and philosophy.   

We film passers by from the cafe table with a laptop’s inbuilt camera.  Can’t see the screen properly because of strong sunlight, but the results are OK for editing.  Some discussion about Google Sketchup for describing spaces.  Then we walk out to the first houses built in Basildon: generous gardens and living spaces.  Later in Eastgate shopping mall I spot a shop mannequin with light red eyes.

# 1 [22 June 2008]

Tues 17 June.  Coffee in Costa’s to kick start thinking.  We have yet to decide most of the parameters of the project – apart from working in Basildon and combining the hand-made with digital/virtual.  We would like a web site to play with the material that comes out of the project.

We walk out into the town square which is reshaped by building works and has a wind break awning at its west entrance, then on through the rectangle of the market.  Round to St Martin's Square with its adjoining enclosed garden and the concrete space of the church. Gordon remarks on the number of distinct spaces there are.  We walk away and up Clay Hill Road to where housing starts and look back on the town.  There, rising, are the backs of shops and offices.  They divide spaces for people and transport and stand like contemporary city walls.