Frigg




Well it's the end of the week and it's all coming to a close, I'm looking forward to a weekend of work and play. Tomorrow I'll be in the studio for a short period getting a few things finished up. Namely preperations for our participation in Project Space Leeds next project 'Town & Country'. We're creating some large scale letters spelling out the juxtaposed word 'Hortuseum' made up of words Horticulture and Museum, referencing an installation documenting plants, a living sculpture. We're building approximately 1msq living letters, which will sprout grass and grow throughout the exhibition period....hopefully....???? See Williams' previous post for images of experiments we've conducted using a similar method. The brief was simple. Typographically reference the installation and spell out the word 'Hortuseum' - so it's visible from the trainline, adjacent to PSL.



I'm going to break the day up by visiting the Kirskstall Festival for an hour or so, a 2 minute walk from our studio, set in Kirkstall Abbey, a lovely setting, which we induldge in from time to time when getting overworked and brained out.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I set off to the Isle of Man last weekend to attend a Family Wedding. I wore full Manx Tartan including Kilt (including underwear) the weather was fantastic and it was lovely seeing all my family in one place. Family were over from Canada and Scotland, coincidentally one of my family members lives very close to 'Yuquot' / Friendly Cove / Nootka Sound a place in British Columbia which I have been researching for drawings I've been working on, so it was really interesting to get a fuller insight to the place and potentially have a place to stay nearby if I can ever afford to go there.







My venture back home has inspired some thoughts regarding our next exhibition in Newcastle's Square Yard Gallery 'Massive Contact'. Me having to travel such a long way home, crossing the country and sea, made me think about maintaining contact and how hard I find it especially when I'm busy working, it was such a nice thing talking to my family and friends, having that contact, taking a moment, not talking specifically about work, people truely caring about you. So my thoughts were to extend that feeling, in some respect, to vistors of our exhibition by installing a custom made phone. I'm going to set about designing and constructing this phone as soon as other obligations are out of the way. This in turn led to the idea of building useful items, creating useful objects by hand from materials I have either in my studio or out of redundant objects at home.

The only thing I've observed this week other than the above was a show on TV the other night, Richard Dimbleby Lecture, on Wednesday, BBC 1. Price Charles gave a talk about sustainability and the countries economics. I found this fascinating, he was a great speaker. I'm obviously skeptical about people in a position to speculate and talk about issues, especially when the way in which it is being projected into the public indicates there is a huge class / power division between the viewer and the speaker. But I have to aside from that it was a very positive lecture about the future, explaining, in a very common sensical way, about what should be done to mend issues. I'll watch the rest, if I change my mind I'll let you know.

Ta ta