EVALUATION

What an incredible enriching wonderful experience!  This project would not have been possible if not for Grants for the Arts Funding.  I wrote to all the individuals and partner organisations who supported and made possible the last nine months with five residencies, three exhibitions, two installations, with me finding that being artist in residence is great fun, and totally makes for thinking on your toes, when you think of being installed in a basement of an art academy, arranged between large print and travel section in the library, exhibited in a carpenters yard, one bishop's meeting room, a village hall, plus hidden away in a closed museum, and arranged to experience quietude in a pop-up camera obscura transformed into a hermitage by a pond, staying in a tudor room in an abbey, included.

"I never knew it was so big" wrote Rachael on the project,when replying to the letter which outlined the journey and asked for feedback.  Meanwhile, Gemma writes from the RWA saying how thrilled they were that I was so ambitious with the awarded bursary, and how it has been a delight to see the project growing and developing, particularly with regard to storytelling and performance.

Now there is a right performance again, as I try to get the business side of the project management into a box.  How to transform myself into being someone who is brilliant at Excel spreadsheets, paperwork, figures and ticking the right boxes; battle to get envelopes and tiny brown paper bags stuffed full with receipts in order, and worry did I ever settle up with Julie, the incredibly wonderful artist assistant, for that cup of soup from Friska in Bristol, the plastic grass and unicorn, let along the flickering electric bulb or say enough thank you's for the endless trays of teas made at RWA, the library and Lacock.  Time now to complete the Arts Council application form budget and activity report, and there is a gasp when I see that the evaluation report is up to 2,000 words.  That's about a dissertation worth, but a friend reminds me I work well under pressure. I keep muttering never again, whilst thinking, what next?

An invitation is received from Janice Botterill, new curator, for me to take the artist in residency at Lacock project to a new exhibition, A Time & A Place, at Brewery Arts, Cirencester, January-21 March 2015.  She asks me to mind-map the series of residencies, to show people how I think.  Impossible, I muse, as I don't know myself.  So, much for an year of reflecting on practice!  Then suddenly this giant scroll of thought unfolds.... great stuff, back to making, playing, being responsive, having creative fun!

Richard Jefferies Museum

An invitation to run a children's workshop as part of the Swindon Poetry Festival, with an opportunity to install an exhibition at the victorian writer's once upon a time home, from festival organiser and writer/poet Hilda Sheehan.  However, the workshop is cancelled due to poor numbers and I discover the museum, run by volunteers, is now closed for the season. You could be artist in residence, it is suggested.  I install in the hidden away room, my first ever makings of bundles, which had been inspired by working with artist Alex Madden at Coleshill, and developed whilst on holiday in Cornwall.  I present outcomes from Lacock Abbey artist in residence project, and hang the book/bag/bundle created in collaboration with Glen Mason, leather artist, on the quiet walls of the empty space.  With no footfall, I wonder why I am here?  Perhaps, time to meet specific professionals, and a photographer comes to take my photo, and a journalist called Juliet Platt, who also loves journaling, writes a feature on my practice for a local magazine The Link.  New curator, Janice Botterill, comes to talk about possibilities of taking the artist in residence @ Lacock project forwards in a new collaborative exhibition.  Perhaps the museum is a good space in which to write, suggests Janice. Hmm, I say, Yes, I could, I had originally thought to stitch bundles and write, but it doesn't feel right.  Richard Jefferies was a stalwart enthusiast for the great outdoors, but here, outside the farmhouse window a major redevelopment of the landscape takes place, with the building of hundreds of new homes.  I consider how to respond to the spirit of the place as the roadworks outside the window drill loudly.  I decide to call it a day, gather my books, bags and bundles and go home, to reflect, review, write up my notes, evaluate the year, and prepare to bring things to a close.  On arriving to bow out, I discover the jackdaws have nested in the chimney, and their nest has collapsed into the Victorian fireplace.  I think this is a sign, but I not sure what of....!

The Hidden Room

Book, Bundles & Writings,  inspiration from spirit of place - Prussia Cove, Cornwall

I find tiny medicine bottles, and Shiphams Paste jars and decide to borrow a small item.

I reflect on how central it is to my practice to engage in creative conversation and the importance of a dynamic of an audience.  However, it is also about balance.  A quiet space to distill, remember and reflect. I have been asked to give a lecture to Swindon College M A Drawing students.  I decide I best use my time to write up and review, put together affairs for the final days towards the Curious Narratives journey, complete the accounts and report for the Arts Council, England.  Also, consolidate and put together a creative portfolio of best practice which I can share with others, hopefully in the creative/professional/academic circles and think about how the Lacock archive of images can be presented for the future.

COLESHILL CAFE/SHOP/GALLERY

Art exhibition, celebratory evening & workshop in a community setting, a venue where I had previously shown work after my travels to India.  Here now in the old carpenter's yard, transformed to volunteer run cafe/shop/gallery,  I enjoy contemplating how to install the artworks made on my travel bursary journey to Italy, in response to the RWA Residency & Solo Show, plus new works.  The event is days after the highly positive artist in residence one week only experience at Lacock.  I was feeling it was all too much.  However, with the amazing help of local artist Alex, it came together over two days.  Alex and I had been meeting and collaborating every Tuesday during the summer, and was she brilliantly decisive, practically helpful and encouraging about where and how to place work.  We are both deep in thought when Duncan, landscape painter and exhibition co-ordinator, enters the space and gasps, he is horrified my exhibition hanging gear resides in my handbag.  You need a proper toolbox, he said.  I have one, I reply, pointing to a carpenter's wooden toolbox now full of all my tiny treasures gathered on my journey around Italy.  The collection of work feels good in the space, with a shrine created in the alcove, with flicking lights and offerings.   I sit and ponder of the difference between being in the Royal Academy with a large room,  academia's, arty professionals and off the city street public visitors and this smaller informal rural space with a range of local folk, business and creative professionals, ramblers and cafe visitors.  

"Your textiles look good here" said a visitor sipping tea.  "Amazing"...said a volunteer offering me a slice of her orange polenta cake. "Spooky", said the cleaning lady.  "A cut above the rest", said another volunteer, "I just love looking at your work"... 

"The exhibition is generating many comments" he said.  

A visiting textile artist comments that the three exhibited story dolls
are like Peruvian Burial Chamber Dolls,
and tells me to put up the prices of my scroll books.

 Drawing Breath Sunday workshop:cafe/gallery transformed into pop-up studio, and participants,
draw with inks, write, knit, gather, bind, make iStop motion movies in the gifted doll's house, "I love your work ...very theatrical" said a mother of teenage daughter who creates her very own diorama.

LACOCK ABBEY RESIDENCY

"Where will you sleep?" people asked, over and over.  When, as Artist in Residence for one week at Lacock Abbey, Fox Talbot Photographic Museum & National Trust Village, I installed myself in a tiny wooden dwelling in the grounds, a camera obscura/hermitage/infirmary/shrine/hideway/pop-up studio.  You can be our "Sociable Hermit" said Rachael, Visitor Experience Manager.  And, so it was, the tiny wooden dwelling, as a camera obscura, usually placed in the front of the abbey, was, just for me and assistant Julie, moved to my favourite hidden away from it all space. The tree lined pond, the location, which the 13th Augustinian nuns would have used to catch fish for their supper.  The view across the sheep filled field towards the abbey, was, it was said, also, once upon a time, the place of the infirmary. A space to care for the elderly.  That's me, I thought, sagely, and started to move in my travelling museum of possibilities and transform the space daily, to respond to the myself, the people and spirit of place.

"Magical & Moving", said one visitor to my one week only transformed pop-up Camera Obscura, not so much a wooden hut, as a place of refuge, a hermitage/infirmary/studio.  "I feel so much better for taking time to sit inside the space, enjoy the quietness of this inside out, upside world" said another.  "Free and exploratory...I wish there was an artistic hermit here at Lacock all the time", said a beautiful young girl.A visiting elder lady from Switzerland, had such presence. She reached out to hold my hand and said "Tell me your story"...she went on to say, "I think you have started a way of being here, a place people could come each year, a space in which to take refuge and just be...Would you pray for me", she said, as she left.   And so, from the tiny wooden dwelling, located, just for the residency near the old pond, I would make small pilgrimages around the grounds, resting with my book/bag/bundles here and there.   Julie Brandstatter was my 'tender' assistant, who served endless cups of tea, whilst Leather Artist, Glen Mason, from Corsham, came to the rescue with making a fabulous book/bag out of found materials, to which I added my drawings, sewing, dolls and bundle offerings.  The National Trust staff were brilliant and were hugely supportive. Visitors and collaborating artists, engaged in creative exchange, and participated by photographing me at work, rest and play. A rich archive of portrait photographs were created, in response to spirit of place, people and imagined stories.  Thanks to all who participated, documentary photographs taken on my iPhone 4S, yet to be uploaded.  Watch this space!

"WHERE'S JILL?"

To find out more, visit website: www.jillcarterart.com

Curious Narratives is supported by funding from Arts Council England.

Artist in Residence, Lacock Abbey

I love books and I discovered a tiny book the other day.  It fell out of my bookcase.  It was a gift from a friend, a dream/wish book, the page fell open at ....  "I wish I could have a residency at Lacock Abbey".  Written many years ago, that wish has now come true due Curious Narratives receiving Arts Council funding, and amazing collaborations with Lacock Abbey staff.   Rachael, Visitor Experience Manager, has been outstanding.  Since my first meeting with her when I took a collection of curiosities, she has consistently been working to make a residency happen, as part of the Curious Narratives trail.  "You are our first artist in residence" she said.  "What do you think I will bring to this place" I asked.  "Calm" she replied.  She might have changed her mind by now after weeks of emails, phone calls, drawings, plans, correspondence, me visiting back at the location many times and walking quietly through the cloisters, wondering Ela Abbess of the women of the once enclosed order who were the keepers of the books, peering at the Brito, a fantastic book which sadly you can't touch, visits to the Wiltshire Heritage Centre to unearth the Lacock Archive, talks with Sue the Head Gardener, ideas and possibilities of being installed inside the Camera Obscura, transformed as a hermitage, then reading Tom Freshwater's, Head of Contemporary Art's, National Trust report, that said 'No to Huts'; being interviewed by Emma of BBC Wiltshire Sound by the beautiful pond, and later being broadcast on air on the new arts programme, as Emma said "a double parter", collaborating with other artists, the Abbey staff finding me and Julie who, kindly has agreed to support me, a twin bedroom for a week's sleepover in the Abbey courtyard apartments, Rachael bending over backwards to sort rooms to work in, do all the business side of things and keep everyone informed of goings on, then going to meet Roger Watson, Curator, Fox Talbot Photographic Museum, to see 'Capturing Light' and ask if he had a box camera or something I could borrow, and remembering it was Roger whom I had originally written an email to months and months ago after him coming to my exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, and I subsequently wrote asking could he imagine me being installed as artist in residence, and he replying that he was in Paris, and didn't quite know what I was suggesting, but the answer was yes!

So finally, it is a fact, Curious Narratives is listed in the events of National Trust, Lacock Abbey, 12 September 2014, for one week only:

How would Jill Carter, artist in residence, respond to the people and place of Lacock Abbey? How will she explore stories inspired by the spirit of this special place?  Discover Jill making contemplative journeys with book/bag/bundles, enjoying quiet time in hidden spaces, drawing, writing, sewing, gathering plants, unearthing objects, and placing offerings. You are invited to engage and respond in the making of this unique storytelling book of possibilities. 

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lacock/things-to-see-and-do/events/

Suitcase & Shrines

My practice is supported by collaborating with other creative practitioners.  I visited Glen Mason, Leather Artist, at his studio in Corsham, to explore ideas of how to transform an old 1930's suitcase.  The Harrods vintage case had been found by a book artist friend Nancy, who had rescued the case from a bin and gifted to me.  Glen and I worked in his garden, to look at ways of transforming the case into a book/bag/travelling studio, the intention to use on 'pilgrimage' during my residency at Lacock Abbey.  The materials inspire narratives, referencing the nuns enclosed way of life, a love of archives and portable shrines.  I share another collection of materials, found objects discovered with textile artist Monica Hicks drawing upon the once upon a time women's worlds; antique embroidery from an old seat, a mangle cloth, children's blankets, some hemp and sacks.  As we work to bring the case back to life and consider how to make a one-off book/bag, I talk of a visit to Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, looking at old books documenting Lacock life, and how the religious houses were once the keepers of the books, such as, at Lacock, the Brito. 

I had also been collaborating with artist Alex Madden, who had been generously sharing her outside studio space in her lovely garden at the National Trust village of Coleshill.  Every Tuesday we work and play together, exploring ideas, materials and process, experimenting with natural plants to print, arranging collections in temporary shrines.  It is interesting to take materials and transform their purpose to create a story in the making.  The organic process of undoing, folding, wrapping, laying out, becomes a mindful contemplative ritual.