Ipstock stacked bricks at Birtley
Its been a couple of months since I blogged anything about my Shipley Commission. I have been busy with other work things, but the commission has been bubbling under all the time. In a commission of this kind is that there is a long period of researching and collecting information – out in the field – visiting libraries, doing consultations and workshops, attending events, walking and photographing. Then there is the web research – scanning eBay for Gateshead related objects, flickr galleries of images and web based Gateshead archival material. … but at the same time is the consideration of how the artwork is going to be resolved from all this stuff. Concentrated periods of time processing the research – sorting images and materials, placing objects – alone, together, in sequences – reading documentation, drawing etc., take place in my studio, but alongside there is a sort of fermentation process that goes on in my head all the time. This involves assimilating the research – images, text, conversations, impressions, experiences with the need to create an artwork which distills all the stuff into something visually coherent. Sometimes the process is very much in the background – so even when I’m running a print masterclass in Denmark for example, ideas are being formed – slowly, imperceptibly somewhere in my brain.
My intent was to blog as I collected and researched – but as confirmation of the commission slipped the planned exclusive concentrated research time in the early part of the year became taken up with other work. Instead the research has taken longer and been more broken up than intended, and as a result I have not been as diligent in blogging as I had wished. Now I’m in a period of realising the artwork, so a series of blog entries and photo albums are likely to appear over the next week or so as I catch up on the dissemination of stuff that has ben going on for months and months. Things may not appear in timely or themed sequence, and some images will simply be posted without explanation, but the textual commentary in blog will I hope provide some illumination into the creative process and its realisation. Anyway here goes with visuals of some of the material I’m going to work with – here
