Saturday, 22 May 2010
numbers
Numbers make no sense to me. I can't see them, feel them, hear them, I can't understand them. But things I normally think I can understand, see, feel, hear, etc, must all be made of numbers and that means I don't understand anything at all. That is my logical conclusion today.
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Flyer
Have just received the flyer for the exhibition, how exciting. Really should get going now, as a trip to London is planned in the hope that the exhibition space might be viewable. If not, it will at least be a chance to catch up with Kate and Jo, and talk about the Market Estate Project performance we're doing, as well as this show. More will follow.
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
pancake day
A strange and largely unattached anxiety is bothering me tonight. I suppose the remedy will be to either watch or read something until it goes away, or at least until I go to sleep.
I had a very pleasant and productive music session today with Mr Edge, then attempted to take some more of my art-junk to the studio. When I got into the building, I discovered that the door to my space has been fixed and can be closed and locked, which is good, but that it was in fact locked and there was no one around to ask about getting the key. So I left the box outside the door of my space, and have made arrangements to get the key tomorrow. I'm sure the other artists are honest types, and anyway I doubt it's anything anyone would particularly want!
Pancakes were made, and went wrong. I quite like having these rituals that pin the years together.
Planning for 'Danger' still underway - the event details have now been made available:
I had a very pleasant and productive music session today with Mr Edge, then attempted to take some more of my art-junk to the studio. When I got into the building, I discovered that the door to my space has been fixed and can be closed and locked, which is good, but that it was in fact locked and there was no one around to ask about getting the key. So I left the box outside the door of my space, and have made arrangements to get the key tomorrow. I'm sure the other artists are honest types, and anyway I doubt it's anything anyone would particularly want!
Pancakes were made, and went wrong. I quite like having these rituals that pin the years together.
Planning for 'Danger' still underway - the event details have now been made available:
DANGER: an exhibition
Art exhibition including video, drawing, sculpture and performance
at The Rag Factory, Heneage Street (off Brick Lane), E1
Private view is Thursday 4th March from 6 - 10pm
Show then runs 12 - 6pm Friday 5th til Sunday 7th March
Curated by Kate Wiggs.
Exhibiting artists include:
Sonya Chenery
Joanna Austin
Liam herne
Kate Williams
Robin Clare
Chloe Uden
Charlie Hurcombe
Paul Kindersley
Jemma Watts
Razvan Anton
Anne Kermarrec
Kevin O'Keefe
Mick Bateman
Victoria Lucas
Martin O'Brien
Adam Dembski Bowden
Mathias Tujague
..others to be confirmed!
Sunday, 14 February 2010
Maisie's day out.
Last night's dream is possibly quite revealing. It involved being trapped in a studio building with various other artists and they were all either very intimidating or very annoying, or both. I was trying to get out of the building but the exit codes for the doors kept changing, and I could never remember which key I had to use.
In real life, I ended up having the kind of weekend which didn't allow for going to the studio, but I have managed to get a clearer idea of what I'm doing for the show, and made some sketches of ideas, so that's something at least.
Today I was over-seeing the painting of some scenery I'd designed for the Stevenage Lytton Youth Theatre production of adapted fairytales, called Once Upon A Time. I was very glad to have an excellent team of people keen to help with the painting, and it's pretty much done now and, I must say, looking rather good. I had to take Maisie the springer spaniel with me today as she would have been home alone for too long otherwise. I don't normally dare take her anywhere she might get into mischief, but I didn't have much choice today. Luckily there were lots of people around who were kind enough to keep her entertained while the painting was going on. There was one point when I thought she'd eaten a large amount of chocolate (complete with foil wrapping), which belonged to one of the painting team, but it turned out to be a false alarm. I hope she didn't annoy people too much. She certainly seems to have enjoyed the excursion, in any case.
In real life, I ended up having the kind of weekend which didn't allow for going to the studio, but I have managed to get a clearer idea of what I'm doing for the show, and made some sketches of ideas, so that's something at least.
Today I was over-seeing the painting of some scenery I'd designed for the Stevenage Lytton Youth Theatre production of adapted fairytales, called Once Upon A Time. I was very glad to have an excellent team of people keen to help with the painting, and it's pretty much done now and, I must say, looking rather good. I had to take Maisie the springer spaniel with me today as she would have been home alone for too long otherwise. I don't normally dare take her anywhere she might get into mischief, but I didn't have much choice today. Luckily there were lots of people around who were kind enough to keep her entertained while the painting was going on. There was one point when I thought she'd eaten a large amount of chocolate (complete with foil wrapping), which belonged to one of the painting team, but it turned out to be a false alarm. I hope she didn't annoy people too much. She certainly seems to have enjoyed the excursion, in any case.
Thursday, 11 February 2010
Things that move
The exhibition opens 3 weeks from today. I am getting scared. I need things that move. Also something that plays sound, though not loudly. Studio time will happen this weekend. I will start next week with a much clearer picture of how this is all going to work. Nerves cause short sentences.
Been reading Beowulf, adapted by Penelope Hicks. I find it both funny and sad that after Grendel the monster is killed, they have to get past his mum. A she-monster. I could possibly do something with this, but maybe for something else.
Been reading Beowulf, adapted by Penelope Hicks. I find it both funny and sad that after Grendel the monster is killed, they have to get past his mum. A she-monster. I could possibly do something with this, but maybe for something else.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Pleasure Gardens
I've been having lessons in classical singing for several months now, and I had a lesson today. Afterwards I dropped in at Kate's house, which is round the corner from my singing teacher. We had a cup of tea and chatted about the upcoming 'Danger' exhibition - she was working on a scale drawing of the space, for planning purposes, which was rather impressive.
We also talked about the Market Estate Project, taking place on March 6th, which we will both be performing at, in a piece of work devised by another of our regular collaborative partners, Joanna Austin. I'd been reading about the history of Market Estate - a 1960s housing estate in Islington which is due to be demolished and redeveloped. Jo's work for it is based on its past as, amongst other things, a 'pleasure garden'. I thought I'd better read a bit about pleasure gardens as well - from what I can summise, they seemed to involve both tea and debauchery. When Kate and I were discussing our costumes for it today, which I think will involve a mixture of modern and historical outfits, and I dropped in the idea of wearing our corsets (which we got for the 'Voyeur' performance we did at a Red Velvet Curtain Cult night back in December) over hoodies. This reminded Kate of how, on a visit to Berlin, she had seen ladies in certain areas of the city wearing corsets over the top of winter coats, presumabley to alert potential clients to their profession. While we clearly don't want to cause any confusion by dressing in this way for a night out in Berlin, this does seem like it could be an interesting thought for the Market Estate costume.
We also talked about the Market Estate Project, taking place on March 6th, which we will both be performing at, in a piece of work devised by another of our regular collaborative partners, Joanna Austin. I'd been reading about the history of Market Estate - a 1960s housing estate in Islington which is due to be demolished and redeveloped. Jo's work for it is based on its past as, amongst other things, a 'pleasure garden'. I thought I'd better read a bit about pleasure gardens as well - from what I can summise, they seemed to involve both tea and debauchery. When Kate and I were discussing our costumes for it today, which I think will involve a mixture of modern and historical outfits, and I dropped in the idea of wearing our corsets (which we got for the 'Voyeur' performance we did at a Red Velvet Curtain Cult night back in December) over hoodies. This reminded Kate of how, on a visit to Berlin, she had seen ladies in certain areas of the city wearing corsets over the top of winter coats, presumabley to alert potential clients to their profession. While we clearly don't want to cause any confusion by dressing in this way for a night out in Berlin, this does seem like it could be an interesting thought for the Market Estate costume.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Danger
I am plotting what to do about Danger. Specifically, an exhibition called Danger which will take place at the Rag Factory in Brick Lane (?) and which my friend Kate is curating. She has been kind enough to invite me to show some work at the exhibition, which I'm quite excited to do. The last time I exhibited in London happened to be in the same area, at the Truman Brewery, as part of Free Range 2008. This was something of a sequel to our degree show, and in my case I feel it rather suffered as a result, since I for one felt so drained by the degree show experience, and daunted by the idea of racing to put up another show, that I really didn't make as much out of the Truman exhibition as I could have done. This time I intend to do better!
I've managed to spend a few hours in the Hertfordshire Central Resources Library this week - where I now want to live - the idea being to research what angle to look at the theme of 'danger' from. I've found a book called The Encyclopedia of Horror, which is mostly about the kind of horror film I most like, such as the old vampire/werewolf/zombie/monster ones. I've been thinking and writing notes on the different kinds of danger that exist, or don't exist as the case may be, and dividing them into 'everyday' - e.g. tripping over a shoelace, 'extreme' - things like natural disasters or severe but plausible catastrophes, and 'fictitious' - the kind of things that only happen in films, etc. I like the idea of mixing these around, in some kind of narrative.
But I seem to keep coming back to the idea of eggs. They are what I seem to think of as the most at-risk of everyday objects. I've made a video about eggs before, as part of a showreel I made in my final year at uni, and which was included in my degree show:
I'd like to take it a bit further this time, and set up some live scenarios, based on horror/adventure narratives, for the eggs to attempt to deal with. I need to decide whether the eggs would be as they come (raw and potentially messy), blown and hollow, or re-filled with something else.
I've managed to spend a few hours in the Hertfordshire Central Resources Library this week - where I now want to live - the idea being to research what angle to look at the theme of 'danger' from. I've found a book called The Encyclopedia of Horror, which is mostly about the kind of horror film I most like, such as the old vampire/werewolf/zombie/monster ones. I've been thinking and writing notes on the different kinds of danger that exist, or don't exist as the case may be, and dividing them into 'everyday' - e.g. tripping over a shoelace, 'extreme' - things like natural disasters or severe but plausible catastrophes, and 'fictitious' - the kind of things that only happen in films, etc. I like the idea of mixing these around, in some kind of narrative.
But I seem to keep coming back to the idea of eggs. They are what I seem to think of as the most at-risk of everyday objects. I've made a video about eggs before, as part of a showreel I made in my final year at uni, and which was included in my degree show:
I'd like to take it a bit further this time, and set up some live scenarios, based on horror/adventure narratives, for the eggs to attempt to deal with. I need to decide whether the eggs would be as they come (raw and potentially messy), blown and hollow, or re-filled with something else.
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