I was trying to concentrate on preparations for Dorset Art Weeks today and getting frustrated by the changing light for photographing largely white pieces. So I didn’t attempt to do #Letter365 until after dinner. This is another one that I nearly kept – I think it would be good fodder for Dorset Art Weeks – but I had a plan and I’m sticking to it.
You can see I have left a piece of the border of the stamp page attached to the stamp. As a child I used to love seeing registration and other printers’ marks and can remember my father explaining how they were used in printing. Still like them now especially dotty colour ones.
The new #Letter365 box has arrived! Polly Gifford, Director of Bridport Arts Centre, emailed me yesterday to tell me she had taken delivery of the new perspex container for my #Letter365 pieces to be collected and displayed. The box is going to be installed tomorrow in the foyer of the Arts Centre next to the box office along with information about the project as it progresses. Hopefully it will become and remain a talking point and help to create interest and momentum. So thanks Polly and sorry that the team will have to walk a little further to store each letter!
I started on today’s piece quite early this morning as I was going to be out all day. I am glad I did because I was out longer than expected and got a bit hijacked by other events. My car is a bit poorly and I thought it best not to drive to Dorchester today, so it took a bit of extra time out of the day, especially as it was quite late on the way back. What with everything else (including a nice Curry at the Taj Mahal) it was gone 9pm before I got to the studio again. Fortunately I was pretty happy with it and just needed to make a few adjustments before packaging it up and posting it (in the drizzle)
Sometimes there just isn’t anything to report. I did the piece; signed and date-stamped it; photographed it; made the envelope text and printed it; stuck a stamp on the envelope; put the piece in the envelope and sealed it; put a sealing wax seal on the back of the envelope; date-stamped the envelope; photographed the envelope; walked to the post box and took pictures of the envelope in front of the post box; pushed the envelope and its contents into the post box ; walked home; downloaded the images to my PC; and wrote this.
It’s what I do without much variation every single day. That’s all ok and I usually enjoy doing most parts of it, but there is a limit to what I can write about. It’s part of my job at the moment that’s all.
No53 goes in the box with hints about its contents and a little slightly poetic message on the envelope
It’s only fair that people who will only see this on the internet will not be disadvantaged, should they be interested in buying it, compared to someone who might see it physically at the Arts Centre for example. This one is fatter than average! So fat that I was worried that it might not go through the little 5mm slot that says you can pay ordinary letter rate and so left off the sealing wax except for a tiny bit at the edges where it’s a little thinner.
No53 has only a small dab of sealing wax at each side
Of course it could be a very tiny and thin work that I have wrapped up with stiff, thick material to protect it. Whatever it is I like it very much and for anyone who likes my work this would be a good one to pitch for. I’m going to post a couple of other works that I completed today on my David Smith Artist blog – these will not be anything like this #Letter365 piece so that will help you guess what area this might be in!
Most of the afternoon it has been raining; sometimes so hard that I have found excuses not to make the walk up to the studio or back down to the house. It has been so dull that photography of my #Letter365 piece was not so easy. Almost the second I got back from the post box it stopped raining and the sky cleared. Isn’t British weather wonderful. Actually the day was relieved at times today with some wonderful skies that went a small way to compensate for yet more rain.
Take a look at the edge of the stamp sheet I have left attached. Royal Mail clearly doesn’t understand socio-economic groups: Buckingham Palace is definitely not the house of someone in group C1.
No51 displaying its custom Library of Birmingham with the iconic building itself as a backdrop
I made the decision long ago that I would not try to use sealing wax when I am away from home. Last time i was in Birmingham I used some spotty tape as a seal, I believe, but I forgot to take anything with me this time so created this custom seal. It was windy in the city today and a gust bent the letter at the moment I clicked!
No51 goes in the box in Birmingham
I posted it in the box near to Gormley’s “Iron Man”. The box has a helpful picture of a hand and a letter. I was unable to replicate this with my letter as I was unable to get the envelope to stick to my hand long enough to get it in the box and soon gave up as it began to rain. Also I wanted to pop in and take a look at Grayson Perry’s tapestries as it would be my last opportunity to see them. They were quite entertaining, amusing and in places very beautiful but I’m not sure if I would feel the same if I hadn’t seen the TV programmes.
The box plate WED tells you I missed the post with No47
Following on from my last post, all was good with this in the end, but I think I am just having a poor art day. There was another piece hanging around in the studio – a reject from a previous #Letter365 attempt! – which I thought I could use to do an experiment on, rather than risk the piece I was working on (not #Letter365 related). It was looking amazingly good and I was really delighted with it then I added the final process and found that the ink I’d used was not waterproof and it went from looking interesting back to a mess like the one that got it rejected last time!
So I missed the post, but there would have been a backlog with the Easter holidays so it will even things out a bit!
I have been forced to go into extra time today. I suppose I have got a little casual and assumed that each day my #Letter365 piece would just flow, that the picture I had in my head would get transferred into physical form and be quite wonderful. Alas today’s just turned out to be a crock of proverbial! I have to say I was quite deflated to have produced something that missed the mark quite so badly and which had no discernible redeeming feature! It really was quite depressing. Made worse by a growing headache, the fact Radio 3 keeps playing warbling women and the realisation that I had run out of envelopes and had but a little time to dash in to town and get some. So I have had to take a deep breath and relax to the fact that there was no way I would get No47 would be in the post box before collection time! That’s OK as my deadline is midnight and I have turned things round in my mind and realised that I am working in an OK way on my other stuff and this was just a hiccough that caused an overreaction and loss of confidence. We will see if all is well when I return to the studio in a few minutes to look what I have done so far!
I was tempted to start trying to make the post box images a bit arty, but when it came down to it there’s only so much you can do with a post box and I was very hungry and looking forward to Cottage Pie for dinner. So this is what you get!
As it says on the envelope we have been busy with bees today. We had a look at two colonies at one of our out apiaries. One was one we had been worried about as they were badly raided by wasps last autumn, but they have bounced back well and are really strong and gentle. The other one is enormous. We left a lot of honey on it over winter as it was a big colony (it’s always been big!) but we has to give then some more room for honey already. I could barely lift the last box full of honey back on the hive as it is about my height! There is probably about 80lbs of honey on there already and the season is only just starting really. The bees are working the dandelions now, so the new comb they are building is stained a wonderful sunshine yellow.
There was never any way that I was going to complete my piece today before the post. We had some shopping to do this morning and the post is around noon. Getting some nice local, organic asparagus from Bothen Hill Produce was more important than catching the post. That gave me leeway to do my piece when I chose and i decided to do a drawing first. As it turned out some friends popped round in the early evening so there was a little pressure to do #Letter365 before dinner, which is why I am so late posting it here.
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
