Artists talking - about their work and the business of being an artist

This week the lecture was by Simon Ryder, discussing collaborative practice.  Simon described the complex and changing process he has taken to be able to do the types of works he envisions.  The key messages from this talk were that it takes persistence, flexibility of approach and the willingness to shift the key strategies used as the financial and cultural climate changes.

He showed examples of his work, some of which incorporated sound as a key feature.  One of these was working with transcriptions of the sound made by the Aurora Australis, the light swirls caused by electrons and the solar win around the south pole. I was startled to realise that I had never given a single thought to the fact that the south pole would have its own light show.  I was caught out on a trip to Australia, trying to navigate by the sun, and it wasn't until we went around in a full circle and passed the same person pushing a pram that I realised I was so completely and unthinkingly a northern hemisphere person and had forgotten that the sun would be northerly at midday.  I have lived on three continents, but always north of the Equator.

Simon regards the audience as integral to the planning of his works.  The production of any guide to the work is carefully thought out to be a meaningful part of the experience.  This is a useful point to remember with the work I am doing, as I have the audience clearly in mind but hadn't thought of the accompanying handouts as an essential component that should be given as much thought as the works themselves.

Managing expectations during a collaborative process can be difficult.  Artists have their own strong drives, public bodies have their own expectations and these can change at very short notice.  Simon agreed to a prison residency, and the prison closed a week after he started.  It was to be turned into an immigration detention centre, but was empty for a long time.  The work produced here became an exploration of the history and space of the empty building.

There is uncertainty of process.  There can be anxieties that there will be something that will fill the expectant space.  Have to keep opportunities open, and manage the uncertainty that comes with it being hard to predict the pathways and process.


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Library books- the university has helpfully changed the renewal system so that books are renewed automatically unless requested by someone else.  It takes all the pressure off reading them.  Not a good idea.

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Chapel Arts Cheltenham

A beautiful new art gallery opened last week in Cheltenham - Chapel Arts.  The building used to be a Baptist Chapel, then the Mormon's took it over, the the Christadelphians ( I hear the cries of 'splitter' in my head from the Python's 'Life of Brian').  The clear open space has a gallery with movable walls, a lift, wide glass balustraded stairs, an excellent little cafe, and a determined, inventive and witty owner.  The first show is Contemporary Royal Academicians, and includes prints of many types and some small sculptures.  An artist talk by Emma Stibbon and Anne Desmet produced an interesting insight into the impact of both Rome scholarships and being elected to the Royal Academy.

I used to be a member of the Royal Academy- an annual fee allowed entrance to all their shows and, even more important, to the Members Room.  Not only was this a good place to stop for a rest on a busy day in London, but one was almost guaranteed an excellent and amusing insight into the life of some of London's eccentrics.  The little cafe with its sofa is already producing some of the same delight- yesterday I met a woman who got an entire first class honours degree from the Open University using Tesco Vouchers.  I have a Certificate in Science from the OU gained the same way (done for amusement), but I've never met anyone before who even realised that the OU used to be a partner with Tesco and the vouchers could be used for four times their face value for courses. As an outcome of that conversation I am now going to be helping her find a home for a large slide archive.

The artists who spoke were Emma Stibbon and Anne Desmet.  The both spoke about their processes and motivation.

The election to the Royal Academy was a very significant moment for both of them.  Anne talked about submitting year after year to the Royal Academy Summer Show, with some success.  Her work was rejected one year and she was wondering whether to continue but submitted two small prints, having one chosen.  The next year she was elected- which brings with it the right to hang six images without any selection process, and that shift being enough to mean she could give up an editorial job which had been essential for her financial stability (she hastened to say she had enjoyed the job, but had done it for a long time).

Anne said she wanted another 200 years to be able to work thorough the ideas she wanted to explore.  When she talked in detail about the works hanging in the show she explained some of the processes she used to modify prints to get different images from the same block.  One useful tip for collaging was to use Pritt Stick ( a child-friendly glue) rather than 'archival' glue. The Prit holds well, is a pH of 9 so won't damage the paper, and allows immediate work without buckling the paper.  If she used archival glue then each time a piece was added to an image she would have to put it in a press for a week to keep it flat, and would forget what she was trying to achieve between stages.

At university people have talked about 'materiality', and I have been struggling to understand what they mean and why they think it is important.  I hadn't really got past 'it's the stuffness of stuff', which is fun to say but doesn't really advance my understanding.  Listening to these two artists talking I begin to glimpse a different form of relationship with their materials - Anne talked about the " deliciousness of ink".   Her favourite drawing tool is an old Bodyshop bottle filled with diluted Quink ink- it fades rapidly, but allows her to sketch strong light/darks in a scene.  She explained how  woodcarving was a process of carving with light - each stroke of the carving tool takes away from the black of the image, rather than starting with the white page and adding black.  She wants her (usually) small images to pull people into a miniature world.

Emma uses polymer resist plates as her primary medium.  She has produced works which refer to her time in the Antarctic and Arctic, and large prints of icy flat vistas are included in this show.  She aims for a theatrical sense of immersion.  One of the challenges of working in these places is not only that she gets cold when outside but that ink freezes - adding salt or gin were suggested as effective solutions.  She also incorporates found materials, so, for example, images of volcanic eruptions may include ash in the final print.  Emma described the process of working with photographs, photocopying to get grainy images, collaging, painting, mono prints, manipulating in various ways- creating a fiction that has the essential qualities of the place she is documenting.  She also said it is possible to spend three weeks on a work and then decide it is not working and needs to be abandoned- leave the studio and shut the door.

Both artists use photographs, but agreed that drawing in situ imprints the scene in a way a camera doesn't do.  When looking at a drawing can remember what they were thinking at the time, how the breeze felt like, how the air smelt.  Photographs are useful data but the attention given during a sketch produces a very different relationship with the scene.