Anna's blog

A New Year's resolution is to write more on my CJA website blog spot, as well as on my own site. Not because I think it will be widely read, but because it is a good exercise in keeping my mind focussed and helping me to reflect. I moved house in the Autumn of 2009 and have had limited internet access since which explains the absence of my words.

A brief update on recent artistic activities and my plans for the year ahead follow...

In November I took part in an exhibition called 'The Red Dot Sale' where I was abel to exhibit a series of prints not shown before in Jersey. It was a luxury to get art work framed, en mass, and share an exhibition space with many local artists I admire. The exhibition was for one night only, at the Grand Hotel, Jersey and was a successful event featuring art, music and banter.

In December I was involved in a week long lantern making workshop with two UK based artists Sean Braithwaite (London) & Kirsten Taylor (Lantern House, Cumbria). We visited ten primary schools and engaged with Yr 5 & 6 students in order to form illumination for an evening procession. Sadly the weather was not on our side but the week itself was rewarding and entertaining.

Morocco has given my imagination a little jolt into action and I might end up using some colour after a very long pause in pigment. Liverpool sandwiched the adventure where I got the opportunity to see some fantastic galleries, public artwork, live music at the fabulous Par Street Studios, as well as some brilliant public sculptures and the Liverpool Museum.

This year I have been asked to take part in a project which will include the work of six Jersey based artists. The commission asks us each to customise an ostrich eggs for Easter. The work will be featured in the Spring Edition of the Jersey Now.

Workshops in local schools and youth groups will continue yet I hope that I can create a better work/art ratio where I can really submerge myself in some new visual investigations of my own.

A potential project will see a collaboration between Annetta Norris, Chantal Venton and myself, providing a series of contemporary postcard designs specific to Jersey. I am hoping this new, smaller format will suit me and spur on a more concise collection of new drawings, collages and prints.

Later in the year I am to exhibit new art work with colleagues from Highland's College. I believe it will be at the John Falle gallery in the Autumn term. Other exhibitors include Mark MaCarty, Glyn Burton, Jason Butler, Nick Romeril, Alison Richards, Sarah Jordan, Chantal Venton, resident artists Corey Moore, PJ Thompson, Jo Craven and very possibly many more.

'Histories' is a project I am currently curating and follows on directly form the exhibition ,'2100', instigated by Hugh Thomas last August. I am in the process of finding an appropriate space to show the work and secure funding. It is a 30 strong collaboration of mixed media responses to the detritus from modern life. The exhibition will open up questions of use, waste and function for the objects in our life, set out for audiences of 2100. The project will take the form of a museum fiction.

There are a million and seven other projects I hope to realise this year. One of them includes up-laoding many more images onto this website as they have been a long time coming. One step at a time, as I know the good ideas will stick and grow and those which were doomed to fail will effortlessly drip out of my ears whilst I sleep.

It is indeed half term and the welcome gap in my plans to get my new studio set up in my spare room. A whole uninterrupted week of drawing and image making, or so I thought. Instead I have house guests which initially made my nose twitch and my mouth to crinkle at the corners and head towards my toes. I am renound for not being abel to hide my emotions from my face which give live broadcasts when provoked.

"Fantastic!" I thought, "An art student, just the type of company I had been hoping to evade for just a few days." Full of passion, ambition, drive, aggression and unshakeable confidence which has seemingly seeped out of my veins and down the drain of late.  I wasn't looking forward to being grilled and cross-examined, I'd just wanted to potter about and make some work without any excuse for distractions. I like to sit and think a lot, read, sketch and then allow ideas to manifest and evolve with the hope of something visually delicious being born. Visitors were not part of my grand plan. 

I've instead spent the week being happily distracting and what has resulted has been a positive jump start to my brain and thought process. I think I've taken the time to check in with what exists and have to explain why I've made the work that I have created to date. Sharing my work, recalling my motives, intentions, concepts and inspiration does wonders for setting straight certain niggles in my artwork. I know the processes I've used for generating drawings and prints in the past have been deep and complex. No that time has elapsed and my focus has been altered due to other commitments I recall only the essential information. I can also identify the areas an ideas I want to purssue and those I can store away or discard. 

Far from being a burden, the undergraduate has probably saved me time in the long run by helping me to bypass all the various routes of phaf filled procrastination I would have chosen to take. Conversing reminds me of the work I want to make and the issues which remain key to my practice. I've been reminded about all of the advice I've given and heard and all of the artists who's work I adore. The energy and inquisitiveness I've been exposed to reminds me to question and never simply accept. 

Accountability and Responsibility. 

Plinths bring selected items of the human world to attention. They isolate from the everyday space providing spatial boundaries and raise objects to eye level or above confirming the scale and that of the observer. A plinth is a magical structure that can elevate the ordinary to art status.

The recent CJA exhibition on Hillgrove Street transformed a series of metal bollards into plinths two days. Mounted by gravity, on narrow platforms, were placed an array of mutilated ceramic objects, revived from the depths of local charity shops. This sideshow provided us with entertainment as the figurines were brutally by people passing by who casually knocked the objects from glory. The project revealed how unobservant and disconnected we are to a world which is directly in front of us. How can anybody fail to notice a series of waist high silver bollards iced with grotesque sculptures?

Observing the auidence I noticed a range of responses to the objects and I was surprised by a reflection of humanity and our lack of responsibility for the world we live on. The sound of broken china was quickly followed by obscenities or quickly moving footsteps as the culprit increased pace and walked on by. A lady knocked a piece of work over, "What did you put that there for?", was screeched rather than an apology. A group of boys stomped and jumped on the pieces of china and crushed it further into the paving slabs below. I suggested that they would have to pay for their breakages as they had just destroyed very expensive artwork. "It wasn't me...it was already broken...", more obscenities followed as they kicked fragments across the cobbles. A wink after my comments ensured that my face did not end up in the same state. Only one child wanted to take a glazed bear home but his mother asked him to replace the object on another plinth, creating an artistic deviation of his own.

After several breakages not one member of the public helped to pick up the objects which lay obviously on the ground in ruins. Why is it that the blame is always passed on? Even those who can see objects in their path will jump to their own defense rather than act on the obvious (which would be to pick the debris up and put it in the bin). We are so quick to blame others but equally guilty if we do not respond ourselves. ?This micro study echoes the way we treat our planet. The problems are obvious but we are simply lazy, always holding out for somebody else to assume responsibility. Perhaps there is not enough time to take the back seat with our environment.

Another artist currently exploring the power of the plinth is Antony Gormley. His project 'One & Other' has provided one hour time slots for members of the public to act as the exhibit on the 6th plinth in Trafalgar Square. This brings art to human scale and provides a soap box for our celebrity obsessed society. It also acts as limelight for those with deeper humanitarian, ethical and environmental messages to be explored and brought to public attention and a mass audience.

Early, but not dawn, on a drizzly Tuesday morning I received an e-mail from my friend, the performer. We hadn't had contact for a few days and decided that a rant over lunch would be the perfect time to see each other. I descended into St Helier, with my umbrella in full July bloom, to make myself comfortable in her office as I often do. 

In the past I have avoided town, too many distractions and too much chaos for my brain to cope with. On this occasion I was surprised by my aimless journey which unfolded pleasantly.

I am part of a growing number of young creatives living on this rock, all making a living using our skills and therefore contributing to our community. The creative arts have continued to merge and blend as artists are becoming increasingly multi skilled and multidiciplined which suggests that the notion of the tortured individual suffering for their passion in an attic are images of the past. 

Whilst running my errands I managed to remind myself of how many interesting people I am fortunate to know and how many people are successfully allowing their skills to lead them into a career. Many of us will never be wealthy but neither are we draining our community financially. 

The art world co-exists with the tourism, agricultural and finance industries already in Jersey and it is the creative industries which find links and routes between them. The local art world simply couldn't exist without the other. The subversive sub culture which artists like to imagine is intwined with everything this island has to offer. Artists are equally guilty of problems and equally victorious in success. I wonder if other destinations could boast the same levels of productivity or creative energy outside of a city structure. 

Before I met my friend I almost collided with a sculptural glass artist and exchanged wisdom on vegetables and fishing. He showed me his paper designs for a new commission. Following this I was entertained, engaged and delighted when I caught up with a moving image maker, an illustrator, a sculptor, art students on summer break and performers in the space of an hour or two. The day finished as I was served in a boutique by a recent textile graduate. 

Perhaps Jersey is not more or less creative than other places yet a high standard of living allows more people to tap into some of their most human qualities without the pressures that others face in their daily lives. The desire to create, invent, respond to stimulus and promote thought are all enabled by the location and the lifestyle. 

The situation which contemporary Jersey artists face is that of responsibility and choice. We are not hindered by financial constraints, political voices which which stifle our work, war, famine, natural disaster or other factors. Our insular culture produces art which is far removed from protest art or spurred on by oppression. It is often safe and un-intrusive. The responsibility we have is therefore to make art which challenges and inquires due to our perspective. Rather than recreating picturesque representations of our shore and horizon we should be expanding our notion of these, embracing a media savy generation, our imaginations, in order to put the world into perspective and offer possibilities beyond our immediate vision.   

The future of progressive art in Jersey looks bright as a result of recent exhibitions held by the students of Highland's College. 

The past four weeks has thrown open the School of Art and Design's doors and displayed the varying bodies of work. Artists ready to explore the mainland, as well as those based in Jersey, have put their creations on display to the public.

What has excited me the most has been the quality of the work produced and the sophistication of ideas form the youngest artists. This suggests an increasingly rich pool of talent which will grow if individuals return to the island.

The coherence and quality of the Highland's College Degree show, based in the temporarily converted Spectrum buildings, was a group exhibition which would have been comfortable in any major contemporary gallery space. 

All exhibitions have given me reasons to return to works and gaze thoughtfully. I've noticed the diversity in materials, techniques and themes and a dwindling of images produced in response to sunday sunsets at St Ouens.

Quirky kinetic sculptures, highly charged fashion installations, atmospheric collaged environments, fantastically slick animations, moving image projections onto the detritus of human life and mixed media 3D crafts only skim the surface of the wealth of creative exploration. 

What has been clear from this intense month of artistic viewing, and number of other exhibitions listed here, is the energy inserted into each idea compared with the short fragment for which the final response is seen by any extensive audiences. 

I understand that an artworks can be the result of a need to express or compulsion to create. Often the ideas explored can have more value to an artist than the monetary reward provided by audiences and consumers. 

This afternoon I took students to draw a sculpture installation at the town church, St Helier, Jersey. The responses, and absences, were less about the work and more about the space in which the exhibition is being shown. It instigated intense discussion surrounding the way in which art and design 'should be' presented to audiences. 

My aim was to bring proportion, setting, perspective and scale to the attention of the artists. I wanted them to tackle drawing a group, rather than a solo figure, isolated by the life drawing room, which itself is a loaded space.

Odyssey, by Robert Koenig, is a growing collection of male and female figures carved into native wood through a touring exhibition. Created from a single trunk, each plinth is inscribed with the name of a specific location.

I am drawn to the work because it is a sustainable project, with no necessary conclusion. I enjoy looking at groups of objects and work made in series. It feels like an evolving body of work which is underpinned by consistent criteria and a clear autobiographical concept. One student commented on the appeal of the sculptures as each chisels or tool mark can be seen and traced with the finger. The physical evidence of labour is obvious, there is an indication of the time and skill required to make such a gathering. 

The initial figures link to the place of the artist's heritage, to the Polish village of Dominikowice. Native lime trees reflect his ancestors a physical reference to Koenig's roots. The artist attempts to address "issues of migration, forced or involuntary" as well as "heritage, belonging and displacement".

Brought to our island by The Jersey Public Sculpture Trust and the Jersey Arts Trust, the exhibition sits well as it shares contemporary and historical relevance as well as a timely link to our Liberation celebrations. 

Being naturally drawn to the physical qualities of the wood work I didn't contemplate the setting they have been placed in. The young artists on the other hand could not see past it. It was a major barrier which fascinated me further as the sculptor is not openly religious. Koenig makes reference to spirituality yet the work doe not nod exclusively to Catholisism or any other denomination. Previous sites have included art galleries, exterior spaces, art spaces as well as cathedrals and churches. It is interesting to consider how we easily insert a new reading into an art work through its installation. 

A new figure made in Jersey, un-stained, recently worked assumes a religious context, the remaining become a crowd, a follwing, a gathering in their eyes. With this new reading, everything in a church assumes religious presence due to association. 

In my non religious upbringing I view objects within churches as demonstrations of great craftsmanship and skill inserted into a religious buildings. Churches, and places of worship, are records of our culture and history through textile, sculpture, glasswork, metalwork, woodcarving, upholstry, stonemasonry, silverware regardless of the themes and decorations they depict. On the other hand, the contents can be seen as historical branding, loaded logos for religion and evidence of wealth distribution. For me this does not affect the quality and skill on offer for our senses.

What I honed in on was the tall slender figures, skimming the ceiling of a sloping entrance of a church whose vaulted arches were once designed to lead the eye up, towards the heavens, and to an unreachable creator. Here the gathering of extruded bodies are part of that space, human but no longer a congregation. 

My interest in cultures of display, context and prior knowledge widens further. Through Koenig's sculptures we are opened up to a range of options for the way we react, read and interact with contemporary and historic objects.  

http://www.robertkoenig-sculptor.com/odyssey-00.html

SWG3, Studio Warehouse, Glasgow, Scotland.

Saturday, 18 April 2009 - Tuesday, 28 April 2009

An exhibition curated by MSc artist Oliver Braid at the Glasgow School of Art.

The exhibition featured the work of 71 artists who responded to the initial call for submissions. We were each asked to respond to a situation of unknown or unrequited love between curator and subject with limited information and images as stimulus. 

Some responses were simple, others complex. Artists performed, sculpted, drew, painted, wrote, sketched, photographed, filmed, installed, sold, devised and printed their ideas into being.

* * * * *

I was fortunate enough to be in Glasgow for the opening night, participating and observing.

Needless to say Jamie Radcliff did not attend the exhibition yet the night was a succession of private views in the warm April sun. Somewhere near a busy duel carriage way, under an arched railway bridge, the galleries of SWG3 were open and inviting. A LowSalt retrospective (http://www.lowsalt.org.uk/), housed in shipping containers was complimented by a bbq and beer bar.Traffic cones, binoculars, chalkboards, footage and documentation of past performances were on view as were a host of young artists. The intimate cube of Washington Garcia (http://www.washingtongarciagallery.com/) housed the work of Niall Macdonald where sculptures of animal parts, and frozen beer were on offer.

Such an exciting art scene was in full flow and the consumption and exchange of ideas were obvious between young artists. This is due to the scale of the city and the energy of the artists studying and practicing in the city.

These shows lead directly to the experience - the ultimate romantic gesture. The curator is all involved in the theme and I admire the scale of his project in facilitating the collaboration of such a volume of artists.

Key themes in the show were lions, upholstry, music and comedy idols, love unrequited, mustaches and sexuality.