Where next?

I have been on a trail setting out my stall.  It is definitely not the favourite part of my practice.  It would be easier if I just made a particular object, like a painting, and set them out for sale. It is so involved talking to different venues, writing proposals, putting together evidence, researching etc,exploring possibilities, when it is so difficult to explain what my practice is about and the process of working ORGANICALLY. However, discussions with Swindon Central Library together with my portrait looking out at me from the Swindon Literary Festival programme started to focus my mind.  Then a peek at the new exhibition room Richard Jefferies, a visit to Lacock Abbey, where the visitor experience manager kindly took me on a tour of the place, looking for ideas of how to respond to Lacock/story and find appropriate setting.  Then to Swindon College to follow up an idea of wondering if I, as an alumni, could organise a pop-up exhibition alongside their B A Degree Show. Hmm, there is a lot to think about, I don't want to appear as an odd on.

"Have you been making work?", said friend Curator, Karen, as we sat in John Lewis I mutter about my aching shoulders and we talk about blogs, clean cavasses, and stir pots of tea. I reply yes taking out from my bag my made-by-Nancy Chinese Sewing Book, in which I am popping out of the garden inspired folds. Discussions turns to what next? 

My Desk Thursday 10.00 am

I have been wondering how to respond to next setting and event, which will be a residency at Swindon Library 6-8th May, with installation up until 18th to link in with Swindon Lit Fest.  The notion of words/writing/speaking stories inspired me to re-find the warmth of friend and poet Hilda, her literary circle and time at Writers Kitchen at Lower Shaw Farm.  This meeting different people is interesting, we all inhabit different worlds. What will you be doing at the library, asks this rather nice lady called Eve.  Painting? I sigh, if only it were that easy. I think of emails I have been exchanging Sara, who has been brilliant at helping me research the Sibyls.  She has ordered me two books from the British Library, rich with verse, stuffed full of apparently:

Oracular Utterances 

We have been exploring the idea of collecting words, marking the element of time. I write to say thanks for email exchanges, they are so supportive and I tell her I shall be researching too, other women, who were keepers of the books. I tell her of the doll inspired by  Ela, Countess of Salsibury, once upon a time, Abbess of the Augustine Order who were keepers of the books.  Meanwhile, I find another couple of words here and there.

Miracle Child

The evaluation process

I am wondering why I thought I could manage to take my work, ideas, project on a journey. How mad was that?  I really miss being part of a team, which time at the RWA allowed me to remember how valuable that feels.  Working as a sole trader, free-lance artist, means you have to be everything the full colour palette, warm and cool, sensible and brave, calm and focused, very patient and yet self-motivated. I am thinking you have to be your own Mr Motivator, plus have the patience of a saint to stitch together events. After being in a very formal academy/art setting, I am feeling I need a lot of pins, tape and stitches to hold it all together.  It is taking soooo much time, time I never could have accounted for...What I notice is though how when I reach a point of electronic / organisational funk, I go make work, it makes me well. I can reflect on process and produce creatively.

Remember to take care of yourself, she said

I am considering the follow questions:

1. Observations of the whole process.
2. Why did I do it?
3. How did I action the idea?
4. What, who, where and when was involved?
5. How did the interaction with the public work?
6. How could I have done things differently?
7. What has been the feedback?
8. All in all...
9. Moving forward...

"Where are we going"...Sound Installation

Over the three week research trip to Italy I decided to keep an audio diary on my iPhone 4s.  I wanted to explore the space between sounds, conversations and silence.  Each morning on waking I would enter the day through observing my thoughts, how I felt and the sounds surrounding the space.  I would observe and record my thoughts,  document plans for the day, and out and about record ambient sounds and distinctive points in the journey.  The women talking in the town square at Tressimino, the entering of a church or chapel, the murmurings of my travel companion and the Italian friend Cristina who we met in a very rural setting high in Le Marche Region.  The shopkeeper in the fabric shop and the beautiful lady in the hardware shop where I bought a hearth brush to make into a travel doll.  Each night I would again document my observations, of work made along the way, discoveries, impressions and how I was feeling as part of the travel log.

On return I collaborated with Gurchetan Singh, a Swindon based filmmaker, who I worked with previously on commissions projects, Portrait of Swindon, and also House of Absences (Travellers without Baggage).  We were both interested in sacred spaces, rituals, offerings and meditative practice, and enjoyed exploring the way that sound can bring a story together.  I edited down the three week archive and Gurch 'weaved' the soundscape.  I put together with images of environs in Italy and exhibited at the RWA exhibition, to stimulate curiosity and highlight a sense of calm journeying.

Diaroma

I documented my journey in Italy, performatively responding to different environs and using new technology, an iPhone 4S set in panoramic mode.  The series caused me much thought about how to present to allow the viewer to experience the feeling of the panorama. A design for a purpose made acrylic viewing holders, which, together with a large scale print, allowed me to create storytelling environs, to which other collections could be added, journals, bundles, books, dolls.I wanted to invite human scale interaction. I wrestled for hours at home over a shirt box to design a diorama, and that people could create their own story scenes, inspired by a collection of found objects, and then document with their own mobile phone photograph through the front opening aperture. Each day, looking inside to see the trace of people's response to the museum of possibilities, was a treat. Julie had resourced the collection with sensitivity, humour and great perception.  Each tiny world was like looking inside individual's personality. All this process was made possible through funding, but I was discovering having public money to support one's practice was very exciting and the have-I-got -the-receipt-for-that-small-plastic giraffe, a rather interesting, but worrying process, all in the same breath!

I loved the tiniest artist arriving in her stripy leggings with her Mum and friend saying she was 4.1/2, was an illustrator who wanted to be an artist and she loved my gallaree.  She played in the diorama, making an interesting picnic scene, choosing the backdrop of myself in the panoramic photo portrayed in front of the Wee Casa in Italy.  She carefully adds things to the scene and then drew a picture and posed in front of the golden frame for a photo. What was in your diorama scene, a fairy having a picnic, what is she eating, was asked, dead animals, was the reply.

Storytelling shoes, budgie, leg and watch face.

Where next - the Library?

The corridor to nowhere, with mint green walls and security barriers, apparently was no longer on offer for Curious Narratives. Instead, in the whirl to make the Swindon Festival of Literature programme copy deadline, I am offered at the award winning building, an intimate curvy corner, inside the main building, at the back, near the children's section of the central town library. I am told this is the ideal space, but there is nowhere to hang anything from a wall, not a shelf or a presentation case, but there is a table but there would be a charge.  Argh, I cry, and share that when submitting my Arts Council Grants for the Arts bid they wrote promptly back during the submission process to say that they didn't like the sound of SCL saying there would be a charge for a 'venue', "it did not demonstrate the spirit of partnership."  Stirring the spoon slowly through the offering of tea, it was agreed, hard times for everyone, but we must be realistic and make things pay! I reflect on the eight day only stay residency/exhibition at the Royal Academy, Bristol, and how much Julie and I creatively packed into a short period of time, how many visitors we engaged with...  I draw breath, and start to talk about how interesting library environments are, such warm and welcoming spaces.  Suddenly, a childhood memory surfaces of my Dad mid-flow in a row with the Head Librarian at Penhill Library, heatedly discussing my once upon a time favourite author, Enid Blyton.  He raged about her rubbish grammar, whilst I sobbed with embarrassment into the bean bag behind the shelf.   

Journal Page, Italy Series 2013

I wonder how I am going to set out my stories and why did I choose to bring my work to the SCL.  It must be the love of book arts. I ask, is there a cupboard, a table, a trolley, some out of date books I could use?  Hmm, was the reply, how many books would you want?  I find myself imagining playing with stacks and stacks, creating environs out of them.  There is a worried look facing me, I'm not quite sure exactly what you are going to be doing? Neither, am I, was the reply, realising that this would be quite a stretch of difference from inhabiting a high end art academy.  I look around and spy a tiny cupboard inset in the wall by the floor, any chance I could use that, I ask, thinking The Borrowers, another favourite read.  Whilst the search for the key was fruitful, the glow from within the cupboard suggested it was all about wiring and not about installing a fairytale scene.  Hmm, I am not sure how to proceed.  Aha, I cry, I see there is access to an electrical plug in the floor, there is hope I think about possibilities, perhaps bringing my sewing machine or something with a plug.  OK, I reflect, I must keep it simple.  The staff here have no idea how I work.  There is talk about changes in the library, I realise I can't just whoosh in and assume anything, the best way is to collaborate.

Suddenly at the information counter I notice a lovely young librarian who had months ago helped me research in the reference section the mythological storytellers, The Sibyls.  We take a moment to share thoughts, to discuss how people use the library. We wonder if anyone notices the books, with faces in front of glowing lights of rows of computers. What do you think about it all, I ask, skimming through photographs of my exhibition works from the RWA on my iPad?  Later, she kindly writes an email to me from her home, saying how nice it was to see my work which she describes as EXTRAORDINARY.  What a great word I think, musing on its sound, shape and meaning.  Later that day I receive a medical letter saying symptoms were UNREMARKABLE.  Hmm, I thought, that is a boring word, how could anyone think anything about me was UNREMARKABLE.  I seriously start to think I am going to start collecting words.

A collection of words

Looking this way and that, the warm quiet contemplative room, with lights dimmed and voices murmuring, saints in niches,  unspoken words inviting visitors to take a risk; cloth book with resting  scissors, the shrine of Sibyls, calm and ready to share their stories, fragments of poetry, a tiny crown of women, the theatre corner, a museum cabinet table a home for journal, cat, brush and family; the heartfelt made unique storytelling shoes, diorama with its tiny museum of possibilities,curious objects including newly acquired plastic grass with daisy flowers.I love your collections had said the young mother, as her child carefully wished the storytelling shoes bigger, placing inside her imaginary world, adding a budgie, a broken arm with a once upon a time watch face... a bit macabre, though, she added, her child nodding, putting aside the rather odd Italian boy's head. 

Think of the hours of conversations, said Julie

It was great meeting so many people from from all sorts of backgrounds.  The creative conversations were interesting and hard to document, it could be a book in itself. The day before there was the young sweaty bloke who looked like he might have ridden a bike arrived and stayed for two hours with his head in the I wished I had charged 50p a go, diorama, arranging, re-arranging the interiors and writing stories.  Later another visitor said she stayed at the Youth Hostel and met this guy who black curly hair who couldn't stop writing, he said he had been inspired to write stories about interiors.  

The interior of the visitor book became burstingfly full with drawings and comments, with visitors apparently feeling comfortable in the space:

"I liked the artist working at the table, playing in the space, it made the art gallery environment human and alive...high end, contemporary art, made accessible...I felt strangely comfortable, not my usual experience in a gallery...your work is unique, original, individual...its a bit spooky in here, but I am going to tweet it...could you come and give a talk, what about a workshop, I can see I need to loosen up, would you run a textile workshop, how about a talk on the radio...Fabulous! Can I buy your saint baby and have a hug?

"Thanks for letting me play 
with the shadow side of my personality ."

It was commented, in such a female rich environment, a lot of visitors enjoying the work happened to be men, staying in the space, sometimes for a long time.  There was Christopher sent by Chris, from Southampton with his wife Eleanor; Maris and I discovered on hands and knees puzzling over what to do with textile text panels.  We end up having a brilliant conversation about creative thinking and curating thoughts in 3-d, later Martyn from Minnesota took a photograph of me dressed up with a tartan blanket on my head holding the Chinese umbrella my sister Jen had given me, in front of the golden frame.  Later I was to see the pic on his professional website, where I feature amongst highlights of a trip to the UK.  So, an international response! 

Interesting conversations just seem to unfold.  All supported by having first class assistance.  Julie, who has come out to play with me over many years, as the Travelling Museum of Possibilities, was also in her element.  I would observe her arranging things quietly and having in depth conversations with different folk, like the little young bloke who carefully made a self portrait book and discussed his little pony and the lovely old lady about her dead loved one Tony who used to sit on her pencil, until she got fed up and put him back in his budgie cage. Then there was the lovely girl and her boyfriend who repeatedly said sorry and mentioned Doctor Who references.  All in a day.