For four days only

I'm setting up the exhibition in the garden of my home in Ardfern for four days to coincide with the open studio event that I am taking part in From Friday 7th August to Monday 11th August.
I have draped a canvas over the branches of a large lime tree and suspened it over the figures as a canopy.
I still need to set up the sound and add the sand - hopefully it will all be fiished by Friday.
The open studio event is run by a group of artists in Argyll - www.artmapargyll.com. I hope we have some visitors - we are a bit off the beaten track - some local visitors would be great too. Anyway, Its a good excuse to tidy up the studio and to take stock of the succeses and failures, in artistic terms, of this last year.

Installation

This weekend we set up the exhibition. The usual last minute panics and happy concerns. AnTobar staff were consistently patient and sensitive. The figures sit well in the space and AnTobar has provided great floor trays to hold the figures in a base of sand. The sand was more time consuming than I expected but nobody seemed too cross. I am happy with each piece and because of this I want to relax and enjoy these last moments of knot tying and checking.. Now is the time to contemplate it all, to gather what has been learned and experienced before heading on to the next piece of work. Gordon helps me perfect my sound piece. I meet an old friend Jenny Soep who pops in to see the exhibition http://www.jennysoep.com/
I come home and tidy up my studio.
The exhibition runs from November 13th to December 31st. There is a christmas party 13th December evening and I hope some friends will come to here me give an artists talk then.

Kairos

An Tobar came on Sunday to transport the figures to Tobermory. The studio now seems so empty. There are paintings hanging and stacked up against the wall and there are scraps of string everywhere. I sit and read among the chaos half wanting to start another sculpture and half enjoying this moment of inertia in the project. In the middle of this, Lee from AnTobar phones to ask some difficult questions about the artists statement that I sent her last week. She is preparing a Gallery text and some phrases need clarification. To answer her questions meaningfully, I feel that I need to be less ambiguous about my reasoning and ideas which, although painful is a good exercise. Also, I find myself deliberately leaving some things unsaid, filtering my thoughts to try to stay coherent. and I think that this voicing, editing and reiterating of ideas is important and it is great that AnTobar supports an exhibiting artist in this way.
Later, reflecting on the conversation two words still seem key to it all - "Time" and "Optimism". This sits well and I spend some time thinking about my fourth sculpture figure "Kairos"

Kairos (or Occassio), the god of the “fleeting moment,” is always running. Mark R. Freier writes
"…. refers to the right time, opportune time or seasonable time. It cannot be measured. It is the perfect time, the qualitative time, the perfect moment, the "now.".... It is not an understatement to say that kairos moments alter destiny. To miscalculate kronos is inconvenient. To miscalculate kairos is lamentable.
http://www.whatifenterprises.com/whatif/whatiskairos.pdf

Me and Mr Saatchi

Sympathies towards the Arte Povera movement of the seventies makes me wonder what materials are free in these new times. Yes, string ofcourse but what else?

Data and information mountains are gathering all around us - fortunately data bits are conveniently small - and as more and more people across social and economic bands have access to computers and the internet, much is free - is this another inexpensive media for art and where are the best rubbish dumps?

Mr Saatchi has a good site - http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/. So I make use of it. I put an advert for my exhibition on the "events page" and enter the showdown exhibition where artists come head to head.

I post the image above in the showdown area and think and write;

These life-size string women down by the waters edge have been made from string washed up on our beaches. They represent both the immigrant arriving and the beach wanderer who has been here for generations. They are markers of our joint defiance in the face of poverty and environmental crisis

Will anyone vote for me on http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/showdown/index.php?showpic=175248

Congratulations and thanks to Charles for an excellent artists site

Rethinking Sound

I've been thinking a lot about the aspect of sound in the exhibition. I'm not sure that reproducing the sound of the waves crashing, or trickling, on to a beach is really what I'm after - even if I could achive it with my limited recording experience and equipment. Yes, I want to invoke the particular feelings of space and air and optimism that can be experienced near the sea but I'm not sure of the value of reproducing an atmospheric that may be better suited to a yoga studio or a reike room. I think if the sound is to be part of the exhbition it needs to bear the hallmark of art - or at least experiment. With the string sculptures almost complete, I allow my self some time to experiment - digitally manipulate the beach sounds and layer significant sound that I find around me. I stay close to home, this time, for my sound inspiration My daughter has a natural musicality - like many children she sings with nonsense words - language is abandoned and only the notes and herself and their relationship with each other take on value.On the other hand, on the sea loch outside my house the yachts rest in the natural harbour - early in the morning the wind drives up the loch and howls through the masks rattling the halliards and the mainsails. The sound it makes is random and musical and full of the air it carries with it. This is my sound of the sea. This is where I will look to for the base of my exhibition soundscape. But still something is missing - something beautiful - I know I will recognise it when I hear it.

Making A Plan

With the string figures made, I place them in their relative positions to plan how they will feel together. I mark out a rectangle in the garden the same size as AnTobars exhibition space and arrange the figures. I make paper templates on the ground to be used for making the sand trays later. John Reevie, a friend, passes by with his camera and takes a couple of photos to use as a reference when we set it up for real.

September - I take stock

Early September
With the figures almost ready and the beaches increasingly mean with their string, I decide to turn my focus to the other aspects of the exhibition. I want to create a sense of place, a context in which the figures and the visitors meet and understand each other. I imagine an installation rather than an exhibition. I decide to spread sand on areas of the floor space around the figures. This will cover the bases on which they stand and allow the figures to stand in sand but, more importantly, it will protect the visitor from any overcrowding of the figures. It will keep a sense of calm. Also, I will start to prepare a soundscape. Initially, I plan that the sound of the sea on the shore will form the base and that additional layers will form what could be a sound sculpture or at least the hint of a sculpture. The last thing I want to do is to take the sea shore and manipulate it. Sculpture is often about transformation – taking one thing and creating another and this is the case with the string. But I don’t want to create another thing from the sea sounds or from the sand. I think that to attempt to sculpt the sea is stupid and to sculpt the sand is silly. The sand can lie as it is. As for the soundscape, I think that I have two choices: either I record the sea and present it as is - as good a recording as I can get with my equipment - but at least honest. Or, I take elements of sound that may or may not be extracted from a recording of the sea and I transform these into something that references the sea and aims to invoke the feeling of being near the sea.
Gordon frm AnTobar emails to offer equipment for the soundscape – I will take up his offer when I spend a weekend on Mull later this month. In the meantime, I will explore the potential of soundscapes further.

There Is A Tide

The Story So Far

Early August

This is the first year of Artmap Argyll open stuidios weekend. I open my studio to allow visitors. The figures are well accepted and people seem to be genuinely excited by them One visitor writes “ I hear music when I look at your figures.” There is no music. I wonder what it means to hear music and what kind of music it was. Is it rhythm, or harmony or an anticipated movement of the figure itself.

End of July 2008

On Sunday this week, on a visit to Mull, I got a bagful of string at the stony beach up at Quinish point so that will help me give my fifth figure her legs. I love working on her. She is half leaping and half twisting and I think she makes nice shapes. Its really such a pleasure just now to see them coming together and soon I will be ready to tidy up the feet and hands and faces. I came to ANTOBAR on Monday with five of my family and they stood in their places, acting like sculptures, so that I could get a feel for the space – we had to be discreet because there was another exhibition on - I didn’t take photos - perhap I should have. I am sure that five is the right number. I have a few decisions to make. Garry Fabian Miller was exhibiting at AnTobar when I visited. It was a beautiful exhibition, full of peace and wonder. I wasn’t sure what process he was using, and it seemed petty to spend any time labouring this natural curiosity. Wasn’t it all enough just to look. What he has created goes beyond the material and set me thinking about my own work.Yes it is important about the source of the string and the the process but I want to create a thing that is beautiful almost regardless of its material not because of it. Yet , at the same time, I want to exploit the voice of this new medium in my work. I think, by its nature, the string is heavy with shared meaning and I want this to be part of the whole experience of looking at this work. But, more than anything, I want it to be beautiful.

July 2008

More work on the string figures ( and a holiday in the Lot Valley ) keep me busy. I begin the third new figure. I also have started to build my web-site - I think it would be good to have it for the exhibition - and maybe I can get it mentioned in some of the publicity. I reckon its pretty well deconstructed and as anti-IT as I can make it - I like it a lot. It has two urls http://www.bycmn.com/ and http://www.topasrtist.co.uk/

Mid June 2008

My nephew and godson, Simon, has died. He was diagnosed with Leukemia towards the end of last year. His death challenges everything and leaves me in the dark. He is buried in South Uist, in a stunning cemetery made of sand with the open sea within yards of his grave. After the funeral, we pick some string on the beach for the sculptures and in the evening we have a barbeque with his university friends, The relentless ebb of the sea tide and their young lives make it all almost bearable, almost good.

Early June 2008

June 2008 I’ve spent the last few weeks collecting string from the beaches and working on the sculptures. I need to rework the running man – he was my first full-size sculpture and I want to incorporate him into the exhibition. His string is dirtier and more matted than the others and he has no supporting frame. I will put a bar into his leg to hold him up and I will try to drive a metal spoke through his torso to make him stronger.I need to saw his leg off to allow me to add the bar. He is old and weary and will eventually hold the hand of the young girl figure that is near complete. I imagine him holding her back as they run towards their destination. He is a burden to her, yes, but he does not stop her on her journey. She turns back towards the gallery visitor in the doorway, pivoting at the waist while her legs still move forward. She beckons the visitor to join her, to move with her, not to compromise her progress, to join her on her hampered journey. have made a plan of the exhibition space on one of my drawing boards. I need to be able to see how the figures would work together in an enclosed space. Will there be room to walk round them – will they interact with each other or, indeed, with the gallery visitor. I use pipe cleaners to make scaled models of the figures as I imagine them to be when they are made. Five figures stand well together. I think any more would be too crowded – especially if there are a few visitors in the room as well.The pipecleaner figures are pretty pleasing and I wonder should I do the whole exhibition with tiny pipecleaner sculptures – – an exhibition for another day perhaps.

May 2008

This week I responded to ANTOBARs invitation for artists to submit a biography and an exhibition proposal. I wrote:This should be an exhibition of optimism and beauty, just a stones throw away from the sea and prevalent global issues.If selected for the opportunity, I would immediately begin work on a series of life size figures – visiting beaches, collecting and cleaning string then creating the pieces.To afford the gallery visitor some breathing space, and because the string comes to me from the sea, I would like to build a reference to this into the exhibition – this may be achieved by introducing some large seascape paintings or perhaps by introducing some other media. The details of this aspect would develop as I worked on the project and considered the dimensions and nature of the gallery space.To be honest, selection for this opportunity is a daunting prospect. But I suspect that it would be a significant event in my career as an artist. This is the opportunity, the tide, that An Tobar is offering and I, for one, would love to take it at the flood.

The name of the exhibition would be:There is a Tide

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar