marginendeavour progress with Eyesore

A scattering of letters

I want to experiment with combining the various character patterns into a single image, and have created some smaller square cards that I will then cut up into triangles and arrange in a tessellating pattern.

marginendeavour progress with Eyesore

Only Artists - Writer Tracy Chevalier meets ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal

I came across a fascinating conversation between the writer Tracy Chevalier and the ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal when catching up on older episodes of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Only Artists.

Tracy Chevalier has written eight novels including the international best-seller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Her latest book 'A Single Thread' is set in Winchester Cathedral. 



Edmund de Waal is a ceramicist and author. His book 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' is a family biography about the loss and survival of art objects through time. His porcelain installations often respond to history, museum collections and archives.

 

The conversation took place sat at the potter's wheel in Edmund de Waal's studio. As de Waal demonstrated the process of making a small cup, he spoke of the importance of touch and the connection with the material.



Chevalier agreed and the two authors discussed how, when writing they use pen and paper as opposed to using a computer because their mind is connected to the hand which is connected to the paper, and they think at the pace of writing, not typing. Chevalier also noted how she likes to be able to see the 'road maps' of edits - the bits that she has crossed out, the mistakes and edits. Although 'track changes' does a similar job, she finds these hard to follow. Both shared the importance of feeling what they are doing without overworking it; for de Waal this is in clay, for Chevalier, this is in words. 

Chevalier spoke about the importance of authenticity, and remarked that she can't write about something well unless she has done it herself. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00094hg

Artwork delivered for Newcastle University Fine Art Postcard Auction

I have just delivered the latest marginendeavour artwork to Newcastle University Fine Art Department to be included in the 2019 Postcard Auction.

 

Each year, the fourth year Fine Art students of Newcastle University raise funds to finance taking their degree show to London. As part of their fundraising, it has become tradition to host an annual Fine Art Postcard Auction. Artists from across the UK, ex-alumni and students have been asked to submit their creations ‘on a postcard’ (or any other preferred format) to be exhibited and auctioned professionally. 

The auction is always a popular event, attracting artworks from acclaimed local and international artists and interest from galleries and collectors nationwide.

This year the auction will take place on Friday November 29th 2019 in the Newcastle University Fine Art Building. 

4:30 pm - Doors and bar opens

5pm - Silent Auction commences 

6:30pm - Live Auction commences 

Artworks will be displayed in The Long Gallery before the event.

For those who cannot make the event, there is also an option to go on the postcard auction website  to view and bid on the works.

https://nclpostcardauction2019.format.com/

Katie Watson Studio Visit

Entering somebody's studio can be like getting a glimpse into their brain. One's studio can be a place for making, experimenting, playing, producing and testing but it can also be a place to contemplate, think and reflect.





When I visited Katie Watson's studio she said that it had been a really good exercise for her to treat my visit as an opportunity to organise her work and form a display of the things she had been working on.





There was an exciting vibe - not an exhibition, but a working process. Some work in progress, some work finished, some research giving an insight into ideas behind the work.



I am drawn to such shapes, patterns, the repetition and the colours within Katie's work. I enjoy the sculptural nature of the paintings as she works on wooden boards rather than canvas. 



Katie is interested in the language of instructions and building. Signage, flat pack instructions, warning and safety notices. She uses the shapes and colours from such things.

 

I couldn't help notice (perhaps because I also am guilty of this) that Katie's use of colour within her work is mirrored in the things around her. Her blue desk lamp alongside the orange mug with blue lid is surprisingly similar in colour to the work on her wall directly above. Art and life really do blur!

marginendeavour progress with Eyesore

marginendeavour progress with Eyesore

Alphabet Series drawings installed in White Cube Space at The NewBridge Project, Newcastle

Alphabet Series animation

Recent drawing - alphabet series - Z

marginendeavour website launched - www.marginendeavour.co.uk

www.marginendeavour.co.uk

Please let us know what you think.

marginendeavour - progress with eyesore

Recent drawing - Alphabet series - Y

ODD COMBO - marginendeavour discuss collaboration - Wednesday 6th November - 6-8pm, The NewBridge Project: Newcastle

Odd Combo
Wednesday 6th November
6-8pm
The NewBridge Project : Newcastle
Free

Odd Combo: How to make working together work.

Whether you've been practicing collaboratively for years or don't know where to start, this informal and open forum will explore the nuts and bolts of collaborative and collective practice.

The event will be a roundtable discussion introduced by artists Theresa Poulton, Jill Tate, and Matt Pickering, and is an opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences with other artists with a shared interest in working collaboratively and collectively.

We will be joined by artists Helen Shaddock, David Foggo and Lesley Guy who will share their own experience and learning from their work on collaborative projects. We welcome individuals with any level of experience or interest in collaborative practice to join the discussion or listen in.

Snacks and refreshments will be provided!

Recent drawing - alphabet series - X

Art on prescription on Front Row

Last Thursday's episode of Front Row on BBC Radio 4 included a feature about Art on prescription. 'Earlier this month Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that "arts on prescription" is an indispensable tool in tackling loneliness, mental health and other long-term conditions. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001bqn

The programme features Wellcome Research Fellow Daisy Fancourt, Gavin Clayton, head of the Arts and Minds charity and GP Dr Simon Opher, and they discuss arts and healthcare.



It is based on the thought that changing people's environment can have a positive effect on mental wellbeing. Although ideas like this have been around for some time now, it is believed that about 20% of GP's are now making use of "arts on prescription." Sometimes artists are based in the doctors surgery and the GPs refer the patient directly to the artist, and other times the patient is directed to an organisation such as Arts and Minds that are based in museums and run workshops for groups that involve making art inspired by the heritage artifacts.

Something worth noting is that the government seem to acknowledge the importance of the arts for health, but its status within the school curriculum and in libraries and museums are under threat.

Move over Britannia, Bobby Baker rules!

For the past three months I have been immersed in the world of Bobby Baker's Great and Tiny War, a project that is very close to my heart. I have been working for Wunderbar as a host, guiding visitors around the house, talking to them about the artworks, operating any equipment, making lots of cups of tea and coffee and providing hospitality. Being involved in this project and working with such a supportive team has been an absolute joy and I am really going to miss it. Along the way there have been plenty of challenges to keep us on our toes such as the time when the mechanics behind the surprise element in room 3 broke, and I had to phone Steve, the Technical Director of Great and Tiny War (based in London) and follow his problem diagnosis and damage limitation instructions or the time that the venue for one of the workshops was changed due to an emergency situation, and so we had to change to a space without an oven (pretty essential for a bread-making workshop), resulting in me going back and forth between Nunsmoor Park (where the workshop was) and 133 Sidney Grove where the unbaked bread sculptures were put in the oven and the baked bread sculptures were returned to the workshop and reunited with their respective creators.

There have been some amazing stories gathered throughout the exhibition, and I have plenty of fond memories to take away.

My final day of tours brought with it lots of happy memories. On one of the tours in the morning I was host for a couple of Sidney Groovers (people who live/have lived) on Sidney Grove one whom carried her young son with her. The baby was really well behaved and the women loved the exhibition. When we were talking in the kitchen, one of the women, Olivia, told me how her other (3 year old) child, Frida, walks past the house every day and gets very excited by the sign outside 133 Sidney Grove, pointing at it and exclaiming "It's Bobby Baker'. Unfortunately Olivia did not think that Frida would have enough patience to go on the tour, and so she had explained that she would not be able to see inside Bobby Baker's house. I couldn't bear the thought of her little girl having her dream shattered, and so tried to think of a way that it would be possible to tailor the tour to her. We were fully booked for the rest of the day, but proposed a way that Frida could get a magical experience. I asked Olivia whether she would like to bring her child at the end of my last tour and I would do a special little viewing in a few of the rooms. She thought this was a great idea, and said it would fit in with their bedtime routine. Indeed, when I was in the kitchen at the end of my final tour, the doorbell rang and I opened it to find Olivia with Frida in her arms, dressed in her pj's all ready for bed. I took them to the room of bread sculptures and the room with all the peppermint sculptures, and talked about the work. After we had used the pictures on the wall to identify all the peppermint sculptures, we went to the kitchen for Frida to choose herself a biscuit as a treat. She asked if Bobby Baker was there, and as I explained where Bobby was, I showed them the photo of Bobby Baker wearing the bread antlers that she made for a previous performance. These were hung on the wall, and I asked if Frida would like to wear them and be like Bobby Baker. The result was an extremely happy 3 year old with the biggest grin on her face, an incredibly grateful Olivia, and a very happy Helen! I could not have asked for a better way to end my Great and Tiny War hosting duties.

The following day I received a message from Olivia thanking me for engineering the opportunity for Frida to visit the installation. She reported that Frida had been talking about Bobby Baker all day!

I've met lots of very special people and made some life-long friends. The other hosts and the Wunderbar team have been such a support to one another and we have shared our experiences and thoughts via a Hosts Book. I'd like to thank all involved for making the experience so powerful, nourishing and stimulating. I really hope that the project continues to live on in some form, and that the hosts and Wunderbar team keep in touch and work together again.

A live discussion on the current state of arts education

"Arts education has become the focus of a great deal of passion and concern recently, since the core, knowledge-based subjects took precedence over the creative subjects when the EBacc was introduced in England by the then Education Minister Michael Gove, announced in 2010.

With the arts not being a requirement in the GCSE syllabus for the English Baccalaureate (the EBacc), leaders in the arts and the lucrative creative industries have been very vocal in their criticism of government policy."

Last Wednesday evening in a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Front Row, Stig Abell chaired a live discussion on the subject from a Soar Valley College secondary school in Leicester with leading figures in arts and education.

On the panel were:

Deborah Annetts, the Chief Executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians or the ISM

Trina Haldar, graduate in chemistry and engineering, and subsequently director and founder of Leicester-based Mashi Theatre

Branwen Jeffreys, the BBC’s Education Editor

Mark Lehain, interim head of the New Schools Network, a free schools advocacy charity, and the Founder (and former headteacher) of one of the first secondary Free Schools. He also leads the Parents and Teachers for Excellence campaign

Julie Robinson, the headteacher of Soar Valley College in Leicester

Carl Ward, Chief Exec of the City Learning Trust, which is a partnership of schools teaching a combined total of 6000 pupils in Stoke on Trent

The episode can be accessed here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00013vs

Bobby Baker on what it takes to make an exhibition accessible

Great & Tiny War is the most ambitious show I’ve ever made. Or maybe I’ve said that before?!

How to Live where I launched my own Therapy Empire at Barbican Theatre in 2004 was really massive. When I had the idea of 2,000 ‘pea patients’ dancing the Mexican wave as a finale, accompanied by a choir and full on light show, I hadn’t quite thought through how much work (and money) and pure skill by the production team it would take to pull off. But we did. Which I suppose encourages you to be optimistic you can do it again with the next big plan…

Great & Tiny War takes a whole house and transforms it into a complex art installation where people come in groups of 4 and go on an audio guided tour from room to room with a host. It opened on 9 September and has proved to be so popular that we are keeping it open 3 weeks longer than planned until 28 November.

The team

The most important part of any show, and why it succeeds or not, is the people in the team and their assorted talents and skills. The Great & Tiny team are exceptional – mainly due to Ilana Mitchell and the amazing Wunderbar team. Their strap line is “extraordinary projects conceived by artists and made by audiences.”

Wunderbar has a long track record of creating great art in unusual places, and we share a passion and belief in doing what we can to reach people where they are, and to make the art as easy as possible for everyone to see.

It takes a lot of technical skill to achieve this so having a good team is vital.

I’ve worked with Steve Wald, technical director, and Miranda Melville, production designer, for many years – their skill and experience is the reason the dancing peas worked so wonderfully for How To Live. Each of the 5 rooms in Great & Tiny poses complex design and technical challenges.

Wunderbar recruited talented local artists and technicians to help install the show and host the tours. Lots of them have been drawn to the project because of what it’s about – transgenerational trauma, feminism and the politics of domestic labour and health care. Many of us have experienced hard times and felt excluded. So it’s been great working together and really fun too. And it’s definitely meant everyone shares a focus on the ethos of fairer access.

Inclusion and equality consultant Sarah Pickthall has been part of the team from the start – helping plan and budget the work needed and oversee the brief. And for the first time we used the opportunity now provided by Arts Council Grants for Arts to receive extra funding for extra support for me.

Great & Tiny War access resources

Here’s a list of what we’ve done to try and make the show accessible to all:

• A downloadable easy read visual guide explaining clearly what to expect in advance

https://wunderbar.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/GTW-EasyRead-full-res.pdf

• A captioned film showing what’s upstairs. The house is on two floors so some people, including older people, can’t see the whole show without some sort of digital package. The film we’ve produced is shown on a tablet in the comfort of the kitchen downstairs.
• There’s a bespoke built accessible toilet in the yard at the back (the porta-loo Wunderbar ordered was denied access due to overhead telephone wires in the lane. The production team created a new one to fit.)
• Audio descriptions for the blind or partially sighted
• A portable hearing loop
• A transcript of the audio guide
• The option to listen to the audio tour on loud speaker
• Bespoke visits tailored to your needs, including relaxed and BSL on request.

There’s a dedicated page about access at the show here.

https://wunderbar.org.uk/gtw/access/

I’m pretty sure what we’ve set up is rare for a temporary art installation. We know we haven’t been able to do everything but, given our resources, we’ve done our best to make the show as accessible as possible.

And the best thing is that we have been able to be responsive to people and the tailoring of bespoke experiences – partly because we have the resources, but mostly because the hosts of the show are so welcoming and ready to adapt.

What we’ve learnt

Despite all our planning it’s been much harder than we thought to make this happen due to stuff we just hadn’t anticipated. So, for the record, here’s some top tips I would give myself when (hopefully) working on a massive project again and planning access work.

Time
Typically, and considering how complex the installation is, a team of about 10 of us worked right up to the last minute before the first preview to finish. What we hadn’t factored in was the time needed to also produce great quality digital access material.

The film, text, images and so much care went into making all this material. I mean, if you’re making a film of part of the show for people who can’t physically get round the installation then as much care needs to go into that as into the art work itself.

Filmmaker Alastair Cummings was brilliant . He worked around the crashing and banging of the installation but inevitably finished filming it all after the launch when quiet enveloped the house. So that took an extra week to get working on the tablets.

Producing the rest of the digital access work took longer still. Geography was challenging – Great Tiny War and Wunderbar are in Newcastle, Caroline Dawson, our access specialist from Daily Life Ltd, the sound producer and I are based in London and, after the launch, so was technician Steve Wald. Sarah Pickthall is in Brighton, Alastair is in North Shields. Communication and time and travel cost energy and cash… we hadn’t quite thought through the logistics of all that.

Comms
Sally Flemons, Wunderbar’s Communications Director, ran a really top class campaign for the project working with SFPPR and the 14-18 NOW team – hence the high audience level.

With Sarah Pickthall we had a plan for a special comms campaign to reach new networks – but didn’t make enough allowance for the extra time needed, including finding just the right people to reach. We could have done with local specialist help budgeted in.

Budget
How do you budget properly? It’s the most important thing surely? We did a pretty good estimate with Sarah Pickthall but what we hadn’t factored in was the extra time it took us all. Film, text, images, recordings, installing it on headsets, testing it required so much care and time. Next time we would budget for another local person on the team to help project manage the making of the access materials, as well as more time for comms.

And finally – Me
I’ve never tried to work out my own access needs and costs in advance for such a massive amount of work. I’m rather exhausted now with every joint in my creaky body aching. I’m seeing the doctor later today and the physio too, about pain management and recovering from it all. So I think reflecting on what I could have arranged better will take another blog…!

But despite all this we are so pleased with what we have achieved given all the challenges. Feedback from audience members has been very encouraging.

We’ve thought very hard about how we communicate our accessibility offer so as to be really clear (plain English) but not patronising and avoid ‘labelling’ – readers of my last DAO blog will know how I feel about this.

People have been getting in touch with bespoke access requests and we’ve been doing what we can to help support these. We are also very keen to listen to feedback and be dynamic in our approach so please do share with us any comments or suggestions.

There’s 2 more weeks to see the show… see what you think and let us know!

Tickets for Bobby Baker’s Great & Tiny War, an art installation in a house in Newcastle, are available until 28 November.