Testing-Testing : Without Borders

I’ve been working with elysium gallery, Swansea for over a year, planning a group show together. Without Borders, which is now planned to open in July (fingers crossed) will have work from creative people associated with different groups in Wales and beyond. Each submission will be exhibited, included in an e-book and tour to different galleries in the UK, Europe, Japan, US and Canada. At the end of the tour it will be bound into a book and handed to a library for public viewing.

I’ve begun thinking about my pages – these are drawings based on my Pocket Remains project; objects collected in 2019, testing out compressed charcoal, hard and soft graphite, conte pencils and pastels.

The plan is to attach the tissue to the A3 page and fold it back in when the book is bound.

Around the House – update

I found time to do a little man handling of these latex skins again recently. It’s frustrating that my attic studio space has a pitched roof but I’m making the most of it until I can venture out. There are lots of possibilities for these strips – I’m looking forward to seeing what takes shape when I eventually get into the gallery.

1SSUE 46 : the Artists

I don’t usually do this, but for 1SSUE 46 I scanned one page from each of the contributors before compiling into books. Here they are – a great collection of images. They will be on show as part of the forthcoming exhibition Without Borders at Elysium gallery in Swansea from July 3rd (pandemic permitting….).

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Thank you to all of the artists. Top left to bottom right: Alan Rogers, Chris Bird-Jones, Chris Nurse, France Woodley, Hazel Cardew, Heather Parnell, Masahiro Kawanaka, Matthew Fasone, Nic Pimlott, Paul Hazel, Peter Davies, Phil Mead, Richard Cox, Yumiko Inagaki.

Pocket Remains 2020 – 1SSUE 46

In the tradition of our rotating editorship, I’ve been the editor for 1SSUE 46 artist book and these are my pages in sequence before they are distributed to the fifteen artists who have contributed.

My pages are another Pocket Remains series; drawings around the paper receipts, lists, tickets etc found in my pockets in 2020. I’ve been very conscious of edges, perimeters and borders during the pandemic; what forms insides and outsides.

The pages run in sequence from January to December, made with silver, gold and bronze sharpie pens.

Quarantine quilt – Peaks and Troughs

As the surface of the silk fills with stitches each evening, I’ve begun to wonder what will happen when I stop stitching – what next – how will this be resolved ? One thing I’ve become aware of is the undulations of the quilt when I move it across my lap. The inner wadding gives it support, it holds its form creating plateaus and ravines.

There’s an intimacy, difficult to articulate, between me and the fabric I’m stitching as it settles on my legs and I slowly work my way with needle and thread up and down, in, out, in between. The action looks mindless but each stitch signifies a decision, a moment.

Quarantine quilt – a stitch in time…

It’s hard to capture the entire surface of the quilt – as I step back, details diminish. It’s interesting how the photographic record has influenced my decisions; a way to look and revise.

Stitching between stitches has had quite an effect. Still, the image holds far less than the tactile object. Up close, the eye can roam and the hands can investigate rippling peaks and troughs.

Quarantine Quilt continues….

The quilt I started during the first lockdown continues on. It’s evolving. This silk scarf is in my ‘Pocket Remains’ collection, one of the many items awaiting attention. Contrived as this may seem, I’ve used other pocket objects to mask off parts; to stitch around, leaving negative spaces.

Underfoot – Around the House

I’m continuing to think about how to use the latex skins cast from around the periphery of the house. The strips on the walls here, run around in the same linear sequence as the floor around the house (but in reverse!) ; they touch the walls of the house – you can see where the strips are cut away at the bay window.

There’s a lot more material than wall space. I’ve propped the remaining skins in rolls.

Underfoot – Backyard IN Attic

I’ve begun looking at ways to choreograph the sixty linear metres of latex skins gathered from the ground around my house; a tangible response to the past nine months. It’s not easy. It’s complicated – the situation is ever – changing – we are still in the thick of it.

Underfoot – Backyard to Attic

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I last reported on this project in June; a record of the floor space around my house – ; back, front and side – the boundary, perimeter, edge of outside / inside; danger / safe space as Covid – 19 continued to escalate. Over spring and summer months I collected 60 metres of latex floor skins. It’s been in my attic for months: overwhelming smell, grubby, abject, oppressive.