I have been to the big city today to go to the Kiefer at the RA and the Tuttle at the Whitechapel where I was allowed to use the reading room in which to work on today’s piece. I have to say my piece is batter than anything in the Tuttle show and better than the burger I had in the gallery café and actually the splendid and much misused post box is more interesting too.
Well that headline is a lie. It’s just trying to add a bit of drama. I spent a decent amount of time at the studio today. I had hoped to do a bit more sorting but really needed to try out working on something much bigger than usual so I can assess the best way to set up the studio. So after sweeping out and cleaning some fo the drawers of my recently acquired plan chest I created a paper work area about 2.8m by 1.2m. I was going to leave it at that point so I could get the #Letter365 piece underway but well…I had to try out something!
There was never any intention that I was going to force such a large (in any case as yet unfinished) piece into the envelope. My #Letter365 artwork today is more modest in scope and somewhat more refined I would say.
For a change I am showing a larger view of the double-mouthed post box I have been using of late. There is also a return to a picture of the back of the envelope:
We went to see Kilter Theatre‘s “The Last Post” tonight, a sensational performance that takes place inside the Mobile Sorting Office, which was parked on Bridport Arts Centre‘s forecourt. We really enjoyed their piece and the guys from the cast agreed to take responsibility for the delivery of my #Letter365 artwork. I have given them a free hand to deliver it in whatever way they choose and they have a Mobile Sorting Office stamp which they will use on No212’s envelope. So pleased to be able to link with other artists working with a postal theme, though since the MSO handles a lot of undelivered and undeliverable mail, who knows what will happen!
As to today’s piece itself: I love it! It is also somehow quite fitting for the delivery mode too – not sure why but I feel it is.
The postie was just collecting when I got to the box: not the last post (we are seeing a performance of that, a play performed in a mobile sorting office van by Kilter Theatre on Saturday at Bridport Arts Centre).
Today’s piece re-approaches some work I did a while back and I want to re-explore in that area again soon so it was worth doing something for #Letter365 in that vein.
I want to talk about the interplay between contrivance and serendipity, but I can’t without telling too much about today’s piece, but it is interesting how I had an idea of what I wanted to do and how it would look (though as it turned out I changed its orientation in the making) but the moment I started to play with the materials I noticed something else, something very subtle, which really enhanced the idea and the piece.
After a period of popping my offerings in various mailboxes I posted today’s back at my local post box. I am just so tired I couldn’t be doing with breaking my journey and all that palaver. I really don’t want to be doing this blog, I didn’t want to do the envelope, I didn’t want to do the photography and if I am honest I didn’t want to do the artwork! I used up an idea I was wanting to develop elsewhere and in fact it worked pretty well and I was prompted to experiment a little so it was all pretty positive. But now I want to sleep. Well I have wanted to sleep since I got up at 7 this morning. Our poor cat is not eating and I am grieving. So that is all.
And the sealing wax was so brilliant I didn’t want to spoil the back by annotations, then failed to take a decent photo!
The piece inside sort of caught me by surprise. I was keen not to just take something from the current stream of work and was at first stumped as to where to turn only to turn up trumps.
It’s perhaps that I am still upset by our cat being unwell that it took me three goes to get a piece good enough. I think that I may have been over critical of one but the other was crap! Well perhaps that is not fair. The piece didn’t work as a finished artwork and I would not have been happy seeing it on my wall or anyone else’s, but It was useful to have tried it and understood why it didn’t work.
The piece I did complete for the project started a bit tentatively – not surprising after two false starts – but turned out well in the end.
Now I have reached the halfway point I need to crack on with all the things that will make the whole project come together: things like this blog’s design and additional content and being able to buy on-line and sponsorship perhaps.
As mentioned yesterday, I had a plan for today’s piece which worked out just great. Executed after seeing the Malevich and Matisse shows at Tate Modern I posted it in a double box just round the back.
All a bit of a rush today and because we went to a concert this evening I didn’t have time to post this on the blog till late. It was posted in a post box I have not used before, in East Street in Bridport.
The piece inside is carrying along the line of the idea of the previous two days. It suggested something else which may or may not get taken up in this project or elsewhere: it’s all so fertile this do-something-each-day stuff!