Blog 21

I haven't written a blog post since the 27th September this year. It's not good. We have moved 600 miles from Mull in Scotland to Dorset on the South Coast of England. I am working at the moment, within a non art role, and time for making art work has been severely shortened, but it won't be for ever.

Excitingly, I have managed to start work on my solo show, piercing hundreds of holes into a roll of paper 1.5m wide by 10m long. It is going to take a long time to fill!

Time between working, managing my practice and home life will be a juggling act and writing will become a prize moment. I will dip in as and when I can.

Blog 20

I am now back to working in the van without the luxury of a studio space. It has been a productive summer with a number of new ideas to pursue further.

I am very excited for I will be returning to An Tobar arts centre on the Isle of Mull next year for a solo show.

My objective is to pierce hundreds of holes into a roll of paper 1.5m wide by 10m long using a needle.

This process based challenge will look at how an artist creates work, not just the physical making, but also the 'unseen' creative process - the thinking, the influences, the activities that surround the creation of an artwork.

I am looking for a film-maker to film me during this process and I would also like to create a sound piece using my own voice, to articulate the artist's thoughts whilst she creates artwork.

Film and sound will be new media for me and I'm looking forward to developing the work.

I'm in the process of sourcing additional funding for the show at the moment, so it's the time for writing proposals, filling in forms and calculating all the costs. I find it a minefield. If anyone has experiences to share, recommendations or advice, I would welcome that. If anyone would like to sponsor me, that would be great.

This roll of pierced paper 1.5m wide by 10m long will be the largest artwork I have ever made. I believe it will bring me discipline and a more defined direction to my practice.

As I start the work and we move into the winter, I would like to increase my reading and writing again. I miss it. Not much has been done over the summer, for this period has been a time for making only. It will be a case of time management - piercing paper / reading / writing. The three should compliment each other and the development of my work will unfold.

Blog 19

Over the last three months, there's three areas / types of drawings that I have done which I would like to pursue in larger format, or make more of them, developing the work further, a series.

I've been piercing paper with a needle, tearing the surface of paper up, and rubbing layers and layers of graphite on and off paper, altering the surface structure and appearance of the drawing.

I'm thinking of ways the work can be presented in gallery format - on the wall, or hanging from the ceiling, or on the floor.

Working postcard size has been excellent for quick response and to gauge development. Some works suit this size, others need to be much bigger.

I've found that I am not writing so much at the moment, and looking at my notebook there are a lot of drawings. Tiny sketches. As I look back at them, I don't know what was going through my mind at that time. It's quite an interesting observation. I am delightfully puzzled by them.

I'm not reading at the moment, which is bothering me, but I can't seem to focus on any particular book or text.

I can feel myself slowing down with a more considered and refined approach to what I am doing. The 'just making' playful phase is coming to the end for a while, and I need to fine tune those experiments.

My most successful work is the piercing of paper with a needle and I have been doing this process since 2009. I'm working on a large drawing at the moment, measuring the time it takes to complete the sheet of paper. I'm putting forward a proposal and I need to know how long it takes and therefore cost etc. I've done 19 hours so far.

Charcoal on pierced paper

Reverse side of charcoal on pierced paper

Graphite on pierced paper

Charcoal pushed through pierced paper

Torn paper

Graphite drawn and rubbed off paper fifty times

Blog 18

"What is the function of the studio?
1. It is the place where the work originates.
2. It is generally a private place, an ivory tower perhaps.
3. It is a stationary place where portable objects are produced."

"... it is in the studio and only in the studio that it (the artwork) is closest to its own reality, a reality from which it will continue to distance itself. It may become what even its creator had not anticipated..."

"If the work of art remains in the studio, however, it is the artist that risks death... from starvation."

These extracts come from the beginning part of an essay called 'The Function of the Studio' written by Daniel Buren in 1979.  Some of the text seems quite dated now.

I'm starting to think about the future, for in the next few weeks I will have to leave my temporary studio space at An Tobar and re establish a working arrangement for making artworks without a 'proper' studio space to do it.

It has certainly been a success this summer renting a space and I have been most productive these last few months. I hope that I can organize studio space at future locations we travel to.

It's time to take stock of what I've made, as well as keep making until I have to leave. I am continually thinking of ways to present my work beyond the 'studio' walls. Size of work (small or mammoth), number of pieces (one or a series), framed or unframed, location where the work could be presented, installation, cost etc. etc. I also mustn't let the constraints of possible presentation hinder the creative process.

Sarah, a colleague at the arts centre gave me an impromptu critique the other day. Not knowing me that well, and besides saying that I was mad, she commented on how I deliberate over my work and spend hours and hours meticulously mark making and then the work is done, over, finished. I cringed. That is me. Which does reiterate that the making of artwork is important to me, with the finished piece being as important, or not important at all. It can be either / or.

Which then links back to my creative process and the importance or unimportance of where the work is made. The studio, or other place of creativity, or in my head (the conceptual). The sense of performance really.

I've been thinking about Annette Messager 'The Messengers' show that I went to at the Hayward in London in 2009. She presented a number of collections of drawings, framed or unframed, spread across the walls. There was a room with sketchbooks and memorabilia, writing and drawing directly on the walls, and what I called 'clutter' - piles of bags, books, toys etc. All the art work had been thought out in terms of presentation and the show demonstrated to me that Messager's work is about making art. The practice of making art. There was loads of it.

So what do I do with what I have made, and how do I continue once I leave the studio.

Blog 17

I've been away recently and there is always a renewed energy when you get back in the studio. I've entered two shows, one which will be in August at An Tobar on the Isle of Mull www.antobar.co.uk/

Both shows surround the notion of the letter or postcard which is the perfect scenario for me whilst I am travelling and I've been continuing the postcard size theme with my drawing, a kind of document per se of my ideas.

I have been tearing up the fine layers of paper creating a 3 dimensional surface. I've then been rubbing graphite on and off the surface, adding and removing the shades of grey. Some are all over images that look a bit like landscapes or possibly water, mud or rock. Other drawings only partially cover the paper and look more like leaves, icicles or moons.

I am allowing the drawings to develop of their own accord, not really understanding why, trusting the drawing and myself to work it out over time. Suddenly you make a new mark and the drawing takes a new direction.

It's probably the most I've drawn in ages, in the practical sense of continuity (proper blocks of time) and calm. Perhaps I should be more specific about my brief?

Palimpsest is still on mind. This adding and removing, trying to 'write' something down.

I have read the 1925 essay 'Mystic Writing Pad' by Freud where he talks about the idea of note taking and the preservation of a memory that can be resurrected any time, unchanged, unlike our actual memory in our heads which is in a constant state of flux.

Freud talks about writing with chalk on a slate which later can be erased when the information no longer is of interest. Sometimes it is because you have run out of writing space, so you rub something out in order to write a new message on top. The permanent trace of information is therefore almost completely removed. In our age of technology, computers and mobile phones, text messages are erased just like that, with no trace of the original message at all, not even a whiff of it. With Freud's 'Mystic Pad' the permanent traces of previous notes are no longer important. But, he says "it is enough that they are present".

Maybe, there is this sense, that the written (post it) notes I leave around the van, in books etc. are akin to the postcard size drawings that I am making in the studio. These are a pictorial interpretation of a memory or something to remember, or 'get down'? There is the destructive mechanism of tearing and cutting into the paper which I then cover with graphite, followed by the act of rubbing out and colouring in again. 

"Untitled" Graphite on Paper 170 x 120mm

"Untitled" Graphite on Canvas Board 150 x 100mm

for 'Poste Restante' Exhibition at An Tobar, Isle of Mull