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On Sunday we reached a milestone in the creation of our Eyesore billboard; we finished covering the billboard frame on the back of the board.
We have to do a few small tidying up jobs on the back before we give the whole surface a coat of varnish to protect it from the outdoor elements. Following that, we will need to build the structure that will hold the board in place. We intend to make the board detachable from the structure so that it can be easily moved.
Last night's event at The NewBridge Project was a chance to meet Holly Willats, founder and Director of Art Licks, and hear her introduce the new project that she has just begun with The NewBridge Project.
Holly began by giving a potted history of the life of Art Licks, and introduced us to it's various facets.
After graduating with an English Degree from Newcastle University, Holly returned to London and began working in a commercial Gallery. She wanted to meet artists, talk ideas, and see non-commercial art, but felt frustrated about how difficult it was to find information about artist-led galleries and art networks. Her response was to establish Art Licks. It began, in 2010, as a website listing the exhibitions and events happening in London at artist run spaces, project spaces, galleries, collectives, curatorial groups and non-profit galleries and organisations.
In it's 10-year history, Art Licks has expanded
"to provide an essential platform and voice for the lesser-known and under-represented activities that form the grassroots of visual culture in London. Art Licks exists as a website, tours, printed magazine, learning programme, commissioning programme and annual London-wide festival: the Art Licks Weekend, all supporting the work of artists at a critical early stage in their careers, providing the situation to create new networks & audiences. This has become vital given the financial pressures on UK-based artists with increased costs of living, lack of studio provision & competitive funding streams."
For 2020, Art Licks are carrying out a new project for its printed magazine: producing three issues from different cities across the country, starting with Newcastle.
This trilogy of Art Licks magazine aims to explore the varying practices and artist communities across the country: their entrepreneurial methods of collaboration, structures of support, adventurous programming and tactics for sustainability. Based from Newcastle, Birmingham, and Bristol; with host partners The NewBridge Project, Recent Activity, and east bristol contemporary.
Newcastle is the first of the three cities to host Holly, and conversations sparked during the three-week residency at The NewBridge Project will form the basis of the magazine. Rebecca Huggan, director of The NewBridge Project, will guest co-edit the magazine.
Holly and Rebecca had a few prompts and questions to get the group thinking and talking about what we would like the Newcastle Art Licks to include.
To follow the project blog with updates from Newcastle visit
http://blog.artlicks.com/art-licks-trilogy-newcastle-introduction/
I'm looking forward to talking more with Holly and seeing how the project develops.
When we began collaging Eyesore at the beginning of July, we could only hazard a guess at how long it would take for us to cover the entire billboard with the hundreds of different margins that we had cut off newspapers. It seems a little unbelievable that this momentous occasion (for marginendeavour, at least) were to happen on New Years Eve 2019, during our final marginendeavour session of the decade!
When we next meet up we will turn the board around and begin wrapping the margins round the rim of the billboard and onto the back. We want to differentiate between the front and the back of the artwork, and so do not intend to collage over the entire back surface.
2019 has been a year of ups and downs personally, socially and creatively. It began with a serious foot injury which meant I was bedridden for a couple of months. During this period I turned to writing as my creative outlet. Over the past few months I have lost touch with this aspect of my practice, but writing regularly is one of my priorities for the forthcoming year.
My understanding of time changed during the months of my recovery and on my return to the studio I referenced this in the watercolour paintings that I made of diaries, calendars and notepaper.
Throughout March 2019 Caitlin Merrett King was resident at The NewBridge Project, working closely with studio and associate members to record Group Show, a podcast acting as an informal archive, giving voice to the inner workings of NewBridge, friendships and current collaborations.
Caitlin's podcast became the ideal opportunity for the group of women (see image below) who were involved in the realisation of Bobby Baker's Great and Tiny War, to talk about collaboration and some of the associated issues.
Episode 8
https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/listen-group-show-caitlin-merrett-king/
The work of marginendeavour (David Foggo and Helen Shaddock in collaboration), has become an increasingly important aspect of my practice.
We also contributed to Caitlin Merrett King's Group Show podcast (episode 1) with a work titled 'The Back and Forth'.
https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/listen-group-show-caitlin-merrett-king/
Much of our work in the studio has centered around the idea of an eyesore on a billboard. We produced a number of 'mock ups' for billboards, and are currently working on a life-size billboard to be exhibited in the Spring/Summer.
I was delighted to have my work included in a new publication WordPower: Language as Medium.
As life became more turbulent, drawing became one way in which I tried to deal with what was happening.
In August 2019 David Foggo and I hired the NewBridge Project Space for a small exhibition, Bits and Pieces, featuring some of our solo works as well as one work by marginendeavour. We collaboratively curated the exhibition to emphasise links between individual artworks and our practices.
Working within the grid structure of the Frieze listings page, I set myself the challenge of using coloured hole reinforcers in different ways to fill the blank spaces.
marginendeavour created a new eyesore artwork for the Newcastle University Fine Art Postcard Auction.
marginendeavour continue to work on the life size billboard.
After a few months of creation and development, we launched the marginendeavour website. Please visit it at https://www.marginendeavour.co.uk/
I also updated my own website http://www.helenshaddock.co.uk/
One of my artworks was included in the Gallagher and Turner Open Exhibition 2019.
https://gallagherandturner.co.uk/open-exhibition-2019
Another series involved collaging complementary colours in the blank grid spaces within the Frieze magazine listing pages.
In November marginendeavour and Lesley Guy from TOTALLER joined Theresa Poulton, Jill Tate, and Matt Pickering for a roundtable discussion in which we exchanged ideas and experiences with other artists with a shared interest in working collaboratively and collectively.
My most recent series of drawings has been based on the 26 letters of the alphabet. Each A4 sheet features one letter
As the world counts down to the start of a new decade, I am currently working on a series of number drawings.
I'd like to thank you all for your support throughout the year.
I look forward to continuing to share my artistic process with you.
May 2020 be filled with creativity.
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