Transformation of the studio bunker ...

The bunker at the back of the Queen of Hungary Studios, now behind the Nissen Hut, has undergone a transformation. The ivy has received a haircut and an impromptu playground has appeared. Here is a before and after comparison. What a surprise when I went to empty the cafetiere. Perhaps this is an inventive type of camouflage?

Inspiration for a sculpture

I rediscovered this old photograph from our Guernsey family side. I think it may be of my Grandfather's beehives - I certainly remember him keeping bees. I like the accretions of the storeys of this wooden tower and imagine it gradually increasing in height until, under the final weight of the blanket, it topples over.  It looks like a tower on the edge somehow and not long to reaching that critical point. 

Make more models

A visit to The Hepworth Gallery to view some of Hepworth's plaster maquettes and other model workings. They were a joy to see, but highlighted my own woeful lack of 'finished' maquettes for sculptures. My studio is littered with half-baked working models abandoned and interest and focus lost. Hepworth's maquettes have inspired me to do better and to value them more for their own, intrinsic value and character, as well as useful steps in the creative process. Whilst at the gallery I took these images of boat shapes to help with maquettes for a work that currently is either too boat-like or not enough.

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.