No21 catches some rays before a stretch in the dark
One nice thing for me about this project is that the content of each envelope can be completely different to what I am doing with my main flow of work, a relaxation of concentration that can let fresh, new ideas pop out. Or it can be a little detour and experiment within that flow where I can develop a different fluency and freedom with those ideas and processes. But I am not saying what is going on today!
It’s the end of three weeks of the project and I am starting to put other things in place: things like looking at this website and adding a sales facility to it; putting together the foundations of a work book that might be a saleable artwork in its own right; thinking about sponsorship and grants; PR; etc. It’s exhausting and exciting just thinking about it!
I am going to have to get used to seeking publicity. I hate having my picture in the paper and doing self promotion, but I know that it is a vital part of the business of being an artist. So I am pleased to get a half-page slash in our local paper the Bridport News and know I have to aim for plenty more pieces – locally and further afield – if I am to make a real success of the #Letter365 project.
I wrote the outline of the press release and the Arts Centre tidied it up and sent it out but I am not sure to which other publications it may have gone. I think I need to build my own list of helpful press release recipients. Please help and let me know the best people to send out to.
Yup, another picture of my hand, an envelope (No20) and a bit of post box!
Well the sun went in but I had already printed the envelope – though I expected change so was hesitant!
I was a bit disappointed that the Post Office had run out of the Bridport News so I was unable to maximise my journey 30 yards down the road!
I spoke to Pete Bryan at Arts Development UK today (I set up their website) and he thinks I should apply for a grant from the Arts Council. Should I? I could make the application process part of the art process. Anyone got any thoughts?
Yesterday I was surprised that something other than the idea I had planned wanted to get made. Today it was me that doubted myself: I had a clear picture of what I wanted to create for today’s piece but as I was making it I began to doubt if it would work. I was beginning to thing I might bin it and start afresh and just made a final adjustment and bingo it suddenly became perfectly what I was aiming for. It’s magic all this!
“Wine and art – a perfect pairing” is what we called the preview evening for our group show “Five artists at the Chapel in the Garden” last August. Tonight’s delivery of #Letter365 No19 was a much quieter affair. Polly bought me a drink to celebrate successfully completing #Collage365 and the film was good so a fine result all round.
I was in time to get this in the post but as I am going to the Arts Centre tonight I’ll deliver it by hand. It’s the last night of the Film Society season and they are showing “Village at the End
of the World”, a Danish film about a village in Greenland that has a dwindling population of only 59 with a single teenager longing to escape. I bet it will be visually stunning in a bleak kind of way. A bit like the collected images of me posting #Letter365 I expect.
I am always interested how I can go to the studio with a clear idea of what I want to do and something else will turn up and it all changes. Today’s #Letter365 piece (not quite finished so it could all change when I go back to the studio!) has turned out different in size, shape, colour, technique and textures to what was in my head. It was as if this other idea was hanging around waiting for me to sit at the table and plug my head into it. Until the moment I sat down I had no intention of deviating from the idea tha had been brewing all morning! So what goes on? Am I just easily distracted? Or is there some other process going on in me beneath the conscious that is alert to opportunity and is prepared to, has the freedom to, run with the new.
This piece came together with certainty, clarity and speed and is a much gentler and calmer piece than intended: perhaps my systems were telling me to slow down.
This one took ages to dry – now there’s a hint: glue or paint or ink maybe – so I am pleased I started it early. I spent part of the day painting in the garden – black paint on a solar wax extractor – not sure that is going to dry properly now that the temperature has plummeted, but I don’t have to send it off to anyone only find it a place out of the weather.
I like the colour on this one very much. Perhaps I’ll stick with it.
The post from the village post box goes at noon on Saturday and there is no collection on Sunday. So at the weekend I feel I have more time. While the deal I have made with myself is that I will hand it over for delivery by midnight each day, where possible I am trying to get it in the post . At the weekend it’s all a bit more flexible and I’m not under the self-imposed pressure to do the piece early in the day.
So today I wasn’t happy with the first piece I created – well at least not for this project. I suppose I am ultra-critical and feel I must make sure I am delivering pieces of value as people will be buying blind. The first piece is fine I guess and it may get offered for sale (obviously I cannot use it as a #Letter365 piece as it does not meet the criteria of being substantially made on the day).
I just wonder, had I not had the luxury of the extra time would I have let it go?
