For some reason I considered myself to have got off rather lightly with my week-worth of activities, that was until I tried to cram them into my already exhausting schedule. Task one: document a seventies dinner party. This was a great success leaving behind a selection of gaudy photos (the majority of which seemed to be of a cheesecake which distinctly resembled scrambled egg) and a rather cloudy hangover. Our authenticity to the era did not stop at a few wide brimmed cocktail glasses but alas continued into the booze budget - rather meagre by today’s standards as sadly we went for quantity over quality.
Through the week I dutifully ploughed my way through tasks 1-5. A selection of readings prevented me blankly staring at the wall during my official post as a gallery assistant. Many of these I have summarised and analysed already in past blog entries. In the evenings, rather than venturing to the pub or the cinema (or settle down to yet another episode of ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’) I was content to blog/twitter/papier-mâché the night away. I smuggly started to reorganise my day to day routine, putting my past lethargy down to sheer laziness.
Then I started to feel ill, tired and run down…
Whether this was psychological still remains to be seen (a universal aversion to over-activity). It did however seem to tweet its way through the group with surprising speed as the week unravelled. Head aches and snotty noses were presented with pride at the final meeting - signs that we had all worked ourselves an unhealthy amount. A warning of the perils of over-zealous activity. By the end I had made a small stop-frame animation, negotiated You Tube, Skype and Twitter aa well as give a power point presentation at Stills. A closing event took place on Sunday at Sierra Metro where we each presented our boards with our month long project documented over the surface. It is only now that all the paper has been ripped down, the curtain closed etc that I have time to reflect on the whole experience.
I think the pop up school went the first bit of the way towards kick starting me into action and the rest now has to be up to me. I was looking for a way to realign my opposing methods of practice, bring them out of the studio and back into home/work and leisure. I needed to inject my practice with the dose of playfulness it somehow lost along the way. There were also some unexpected perks, for instance learning how to use the technology I had been avoiding for so long. Having confined this to time-wasting I now appreciate how the web can become a valuable source of self-promotion. I took a small icing nozzle away with me from Mairi’s collection of objects and who knows, Part 2 ‘From Fish to Fantasy’ might be out sooner than you think! Many thanks to Francesca Miller, Mairi Taylor and Travis Souza for a month of great interaction and manic activity.
No comments:
Post a Comment