A slightly damp update

Well the weather has not been kind to us but we are artists and we adapt to circumstances!

All the artists converged on the gardens on Wednesday, all prepared to start putting work up but everything had to be delayed until the Friday as the rain was just too incessant to be able to do anything constructive. As far as my pieces went, I am glad to say, the night before I gave the surfaces an extra layer of silicone which I am now very grateful for.

Friday was very exciting seeing months of planning and construction finally go up and as my pieces were one of the first to be assembled, the public started to interact with them almost immediately. One thing I have to thank the weather for is that the storms held off for our private view, which was a glorious evening. The Mayor and Mayoress were genuinely impressed with what we had all achieved and a good time was had by all.

Now comes the hard work! On Tuesday I have the first of two assessments where two tutors come down to the gardens and critique my work. These sessions are interesting and you never quite know how they are going to pan out, but hopefully it will give me a bit of a kick towards what to discuss in my end of year presentation. So now I am going to spend the next few days documenting, drawing, recording and writing so that I have plenty of information to call upon when I stand up in front of my peers at the end of the term. I will keep you posted as to what I am planning – stay dry everyone!

The day before the chaos

So, tomorrow is the 'put up' for Benchmark. I feel scarily calm at the moment but I am sure when we all arrive in the Lower Gardens, it will be very different. Wednesday and Thursday will be spent making sure everyone has what they need and Friday is the opening but in actual fact my pieces aren't going up until Friday as I have already tested that they work in the space and won't take me long to install.
The last few days has seen me refining the work that is going on display and for me, this is the most fun part. After a lot of tutorials and late night discussions with my very practical and down-to-earth boyfriend I came to the conclusion that as the whole piece is called 'Are You Here?' it required some sort of visual map. So as you can see from the photographs, I have (quite clinically) illustrated the views that are directly in front of the information points in order for the rest of the piece to take shape around.
I have been thinking a lot about Susannah this week and as always, have returned to her correspondence to provide me with that little spark of inspiration that is required when I need it most. So I have been feverishly practicing my copperplate handwriting and experimenting with how I can document what I see and hear while I spend time in the space. I am actually quite excited now about what is going to happen over the duration of the exhibition. I will endeavour to keep you all updated as it happens so all I need now is to do a little sun dance and pray for good weather! Hope some of you can make it to the exhibition and if you do, make yourselves known it would be great to include you in my piece.

Time for some experimenting

When your car breaks down and it's hailing outside, something tells you that you need to stay in and experiment. Today I am looking at the actual way I can document what I see and hear while I am in the gardens and how my documentation will look in the displays that I have built.
The concept is to document conversations, observations, really anything that I encounter while I am at my 'station' in each of the three locations whilst experimenting with aesthetics associated with writing, drawing and traditional correspondence. So this morning I have been looking at traditional writing implements - dip nibs, holders, indian ink - and styles of writing. With only a week to go (eek) I can't master the art of copperplate handwriting and after a few hours at it, have found it really doesn't suit the way that I write at all. So I have created a kind of 'hybrid' lettering drawing on traditional capital letters and my own, more staccato, lower case. I think that this is probably the compromise that I am after and while I like a challenge, don't want to make things too difficult for myself as this whole event is going to be such a leap of faith anyway.
So. happy with what I have got so far, this afternoon will see me experimenting with drawing the views I see in my locations and how I can pull the two disciplines together. Please visit again to see how I get on......

Susannah has returned!

 


O.k. so my blogging intentions have waned ever so slightly but I am now back on the straight and narrow! As a mature student I am finding it increasingly difficult to juggle all the things I have on the go but now, with the end of my academic year in sight, I am concentrating on this project started all those weeks ago with the seed of an idea. As you can see from the pictures, my 'carpenter' and I have been madly making my information points and last week we took them down to the site to see how they looked in the space. For those of you new or asking what these are about, let me explain. Our fantastic group exhibition 'Benchmark' will see 20 artists install site-specific art work into the Lower Gardens in Bournemouth for a 10 day exhibition. My piece will see me experimenting with documenting the activities that occur while I am there using traditional methods of writing and drawing and then leaving the evidence in these displays for the public to view and hopefully realise their importance in the space. Over the next week I will be trying out various methods of how I am going to achieve this and I will also be spending much more time on this blog in order to hopefully get some feedback from you all in the run-up to the exhibition therefore any comments will be most welcome!