It’s been a while…

The show in the View Tube went up under the guidance of our “fearless leader” Ben Barbour supported by the wonderful Rosie and Alex from the View Tube. It was a great success, got some very positive feedback about my work and made a couple of sales!! I was so engrossed in making the work that I had given little thought to how the public would receive it.

I have been on a couple of training days with Artsplan and had a few very exciting days in Colchester with firstsite. All the Associate and Emerging Associate Artists got together for a day of talks and discussions, including a session with Sarah Cole She is such an inspirational woman and artist. (Seems to be some problems with her site so I put a link to one of her best known projects “Nest”).

Cinzia Cremona, firstsite AA asked me to work with her on a market stall for the Colchester Christmas Market, which was held in the grounds of Colchester Castle one cold December night!
Cinzia’s idea: “In an antidote to the winter shopfest, I would like to invite you to bring along objects of no intrinsic commercial value, which are imbued with memories, meaning or love! Your ‘object’ needn’t be something you can hold in your hand; you can also share memories or stories. We will exchange objects, stories and memories and make them into something special of our own imagining. I would like to invite you to be part of this project where we will be writing and sketching new traces of our memories on a cotton tablecloth that evening.”
Cinzia and I gathered numerous objects that represented a particular memory or story. We attached tags to each item with a word or short description of the memory. These were then laid out on the white tablecloth for people to browse through. The response was fantastic, so many people were so generous in sharing their memories and stories. Some responded to the object while others responded to the tag. It was definitely worth freezing our toes off for!! It was also great to have so many people willing to draw and write on the tablecloth. As a means of extending the project and the experience we will invite all the participants back to firstsite early next year to embroider the drawings and texts onto the cloth, making it more permanent.
I had my first taste of roasted chestnuts!

We at Collective Studio’s in Wandsworth have been on the move. We moved out of Broomhill Road and now call Wandsworth Plain our home. The building is part of the Ram Brewery which has a micro brewery on-site. We are there to stay!!!! It used to be apartments so it has a very different feel to the old building which had been an office block. There is a more communal, positive vibe about the new place. Think I am going to be much more productive over the coming months. Looking forward to getting down to work, well after xmas and the weather gets a couple of degrees warmer!!
In the mean time I am concentrating on the news and weather forecast, hoping I will get home to Ireland
in time for my Christmas dinner!