I don’t mean the evidence that shadow rabbits can hold credit cards between their ear and nose (see picture) but the evidence that the post box day plate for Tuesday has been “mislaid”. It hasn’t been there the last few weeks and MON is displayed on Tuesday. That’s why all the people in Bradpole look confused! Well, one of the reasons.
I got very frustrated creating the envelope for this one. For some reason the printer would not recognise the settings set up for this particular document – the ones it has used for the previous 25 days – and chose to use the settings for the other documents that were open!
It’s odd that there is a pressure in me to produce a completely new and unique work each day. While I intend each work that will be unique that doesn’t mean that I have to summon up a totally new idea each day. I have only just realised that I could work on developing a single idea over a period of time – I had already thought of doing special series, say at Christmas – and I had sort of forgotten that part of this process is the final installation, so perhaps I will do series of similar work for stretches at a time. It will perhaps be like the wave-carved ripples on the wide sand beaches, the same but totally different every day. And some days there will be a rock or a crab. But mostly it will just be the same but totally different. There again I may not do that!
Drizzle and drivel – No25 goes in the box
I thought it would be sunny today but it turned out dull and drizzly. So today’s #Letter365 offering got everso vaguely damp in the 30 paces to the post box.
Having spent a busy day making the most of the sunshine, painting the new solar wax extractor and digging and raking one of the vegetable beds, then spending some useful time in the studio I am exhausted! Losing an hour last night probably didn’t help either. So no energy for deep thought.
I will just mention that I watched Powaqqatsi this evening. Interesting to see it again after 30 years I guess. Still stunning even though not as powerful as it was in my memory, but now we have such a deluge of visual images available to us that it is hard to remember how remarkable this was when it came out. The Philip Glass score is of course a masterpiece in its own right and certainly not just a film soundtrack. Two sections might get plundered by me for some ideas!
Belinda & Heidi deliver #Letter365 No23 to Jill Beed
After a blistering performance at Bridport Arts Centre acclaimed folk duo O’Hooley & Tidow did me the honour of handing over today’s #Letter365 to Jill Beed. It’s the third time we have seen Belinda and Heidi and they never fail to delight. Tonight their cascading harmonies were tighter and sweeter than ever. I just hope whoever buys No23 will be delighted as me.
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.
An unfolding artwork created a piece each day for a year
