theshowisupandrunning

The show at the Museum of East Anglian Life is up. A great day hanging work that I have made over the past 9 months. Really pleased with how it looks and feel that the focused time I have had on this project has enabled me to create a rigorous body of work that has at its core the research, testing and thinking embedded within it. More images will be taken in a couple of days - a big thank you to all the people who have supported me with finance, knowledge and kindness.

exhibitionsited

A most excellent day at MEAL hanging the three site specific pieces. I am really pleased about how they look and more importantly feel in the space – they feel right, as if they belong there. the experience is for me a full circle of being inspired by the space and then making work that enables me to revisit that inspiration. The work is difficult to photograph, especially the settling house piece as it is a 360 degree piece of work.

Some notes on the thinking behind it.

Settling house – ghost exchanges

the book - a space of debate – a place for the storage and dissemination of information – an exchange -  a position – a settlement.

24 bookworks have been created as part of unpicking and rebinding and sited within the settle house.

The work takes the form of structures that are created from joining (binding) two book structures together. The arrangement of two book forms joined together enables reflection on the hierarchy of negations that took place within the building in its former incarnation and site.

The stables – gathered furrows

The large-scale yet light structure has been created as part of unpicking and rebinding and sited within the stables.

The work is positioned specifically to reference the link between the construction of the smock through the process of smocking and the ploughed land worked by the people who wore the smocks. The specific qualities of the melancholy light attracted my attention.

As part of the project unpicking and rebinding I handled many objects within the collection at MEAL and I felt previous owners of these belongings ever present. The objects surfaces embellished and burnished by repeated handling, their presence embedded within the objects. I thought of the past, the repetitive act of ploughing, loss and the line and responded with gathered furrows.

finalvisualtouches

putting the final touches to the work for next weeks hang - meanwhile some publicity.
http://www.culture24.org.uk/art/sculpture-and-installation/art448751

timeandthebook

The first public encounter with the project went off well with a bookmaking workshop within the record office at Lowestoft. As we were in an archive it seemed appropriate to focus the workshop on the idea of time and its relationship to the book – ‘this morning happened before now and later will happen next’ - it’s quite a complex concept ......the members of the group made individual books with original images and text. The formats of the books were inspiring and they all went away with starting points for new projects and ways to fulfil books and stories that they had started, some of which they brought with them.  If all the sessions are as positive as this it will be a joy.

latextitles

Working on what really should be the final piece for the show I'm putting up in a couple of weeks at MEAL – made from latex, metal rods and tension!

Some titles I'm working on –

fabricbox – grouping things

 between this and that

 a gathering

 sowing and sewing

 locating

 geological folds

 the hidden creating shapes

 link

 furrows and folds

 gathering

 psychedelic minimalism

bound landscapes - bends become folds

folded line - rolling and drawing

reduce, diminish, and withdraw

an object becomes an object?

folding-unfolding

evidence of action

is smocking evil?

collecting together the stored and saved

personal truths - naturally occurring things

creased on the body

joining space

reveal - the folds and the trace of what once was.

constant - flow from the outside to the inside and

back again.

presence – fold and layer gather and join

a thing is just a thing without a story

knowing Not knowing

striking a balance

the idea of collection

evidence of action

connect

under over

quilt - history

ghost quilt

hidden - the past providing a clue

all clothing is personal

welcomed into the fold

language - glossary

action of folding

inside enveloped enclosure

inside contained collected

pair - order and control

conversation

ghost deed - singular

a box - ghost deeds

the rules of acquisition