Collage challenge

I went to the London Art Fair last night, managing to get there and back in a weather window gap in Norfolk's  week of snow and ice. The presentations from the newer and fresher galleries usually provide more stimulus and visual excitement - although they probably don't make as much money from sales. 

The visit strengthened my resolve to try and push my collage work further in terms of materials, format and colour and taking them more into the sculptural. I've been teetering on this edge for a couple of years now at least and blaming lack of time for not being braver in the work.

At a slight tangent, a delivery of A1 (not A0 this time) flyposter Iran stamp collage images was waiting for me on my return from London. They were not scanned on a black background this time, so the perforated pattern edging the stamp blends in to the background - not sure whether I like that.

Dirty Yellow Splodge

Still on the subject of dirty yellow, which just will not rest, this was the desktop scene in my studio as I was attempting yet again to resolve the (life)boat sculpture drawings. My thoughts have gone back and forth like a pendulum - origami, not origami, lace, not lace.  Last week I thought I had a breakthrough in the form of the piece, changing it to a big, sharp black object. Part boat, part architecture.  I got quite excited about it for about an hour. On reflection, I think that is a different piece, one that can sit alongside the lace (life)boat perhaps.

New Old Scissors

At last, scissors for collage cutting so that the house scissors do not keep disappearing, resurfacing next to a pile of postcard or stamp fragments. The larger pair, from Holt, North Norfolk, have been re-sharpened to devastating effect. I don't think tools are generally sharpened as much as they need to be, not now. The smaller pair were bought from Suffolk. Now to cut out some Martello Towers....

Cyrus Garden End & Beginning

Although the Cyrus Garden Project, as funded by the Arts Council, has officially ended, the visual research and inquisitiveness continues unabated. The initial points of interest and departure remain, although perhaps morphed or transmuted or diverted into new and different areas.  These new pockets of interest are connected by threads (perhaps silken, who knows) to the umbrella of WW2 and Persian Gardens. So much remains a continuing work in progress. And as ever, I have difficulty editing out these interests, so many are fascinating and perhaps distracting.

Perhaps a mini review is in order? A list of outcomes and shortcomings, such as those sent in the Arts Council report? Except I think that all these things are embedded within this scrapbook and there for all who care to delve into.

The end of the project calls into question the aims of this visual scrapbook now  - is this a natural conclusion or an arbitary deadline somewhat disconnected from the organic nature of the research process itself? This is, of course, one of the difficulties I experienced through all those months of creating the Afterlife -Docks Inventory book, trying to define the elements of a process whilst still in the midst of the process. (Incidentally, I am still working on different versions of the inventory, just as the research process has continued.) It is all a journey of discovery.

This image took my fancy today, not sure why.  It is a telephone in the Western Approaches Museum, Liverpool from The Touring Territories first research visit there.

Toiuring Territories East Anglian U.F.O Archive

We have finally delivered the East Anglian UFO research that Nicola Naismith and I undertook on behalf of Dave Evans, Co-Director of The Royal Standard, Liverpool. We journeyed up to Liverpool to give a talk about the project to the fabulously welcoming Royal Standard and had an interesting discussion about disparate UFO matters.  Part two of the evening was a snapshot of our interest in parts of Liverpool such as The Clarion Cycling Club (Nicola) and the Sugar Silo on Huskisson Dock. 
Coincidentally, we also displayed the Satellite Portfolio that our artist's group collated for Aid & Abet, Cambridge last year.
Nicola and I stayed with Dave and Fran overnight, but missed out on the Special Edition of Close Encounters, in favour of the local watering hole.
This is a polaroid of the archive table as laid out for Dave, and as we left it for him. The next day we returned to the docks, where my Polaroid camera decided to have a melt down.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1329759

Nine Perspectives

During a recent Satellite meeting, Nicola Naismith referred to The Becher's Typologies of varying industrial structures photographed from similar perspectives and formatted into a grid for comparison.  German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher had begun working together in 1959.  http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/95

I immediately realised that this was one of the implicit motives for me photographing from within the WW2 defence fortifications, so I've played around with a grid format, almost like a list or catalogue of the views.  Of course, by no means completist, even within my modest boundaries of collecting. I have other versions of these, but decided to try this one as a double-sided short-run A3 print. This is ideal for someone who cannot resist collecting sets of items and I could just aswell apply this to my images of cranes....

Ideas about boat sculpture

Whilst in France I spent some time thinking about my "bateau sauvetage" boat sculpture idea - another piece I have been circling round for over ten years. (approximate Guernsey French for lifeboat.) I discussed the idea during my In Process Residency at The Queen of Hungary Project Space with Nicola Naismith, which set me thinking in a slightly different direction. Bigger. No origami.

I'm planning a maquette first to test some of my thoughts and considerations. I'm still a long way off from even starting the piece, but small steps forward.