
I’ll dispense with the ‘Where the heck did January go!?’ comments and since we’re now half way through February get on with sharing some highlights of what has been happening in the weeks since my last update!
On the 26th of January, I was invited to participate in an artists’ networking event at Blank Space in Manchester. This was part of The Verb Project’s In-Between residency, and encouraged artists to engage in mini site-specific collaborations. This was a great opportunity to dust off the Placemaking Boards and I was genuinely pleased with the results of the day, which included some exciting developments (no pun intended!) in the temporary dark room that had been set up in the space. You can find out more about the day and see four sets of photographs here.
On the 26th of January, I was invited to participate in an artists’ networking event at Blank Space in Manchester. This was part of The Verb Project’s In-Between residency, and encouraged artists to engage in mini site-specific collaborations. This was a great opportunity to dust off the Placemaking Boards and I was genuinely pleased with the results of the day, which included some exciting developments (no pun intended!) in the temporary dark room that had been set up in the space. You can find out more about the day and see four sets of photographs here.

CRITgroup continues to go from strength to strength and having shared our first responses to the Creative Whispers project at the January meeting, (these can be viewed here) we are just two weeks away from sharing our second. My own response takes inspiration from a series of sketches, painted samples and photographs inspired by the repetition and concealing qualities of brick as interpreted from one of the original starting points. When discussing these, the artist I ‘inherited’ the work from briefly mentioned the concept of ‘bricking up’ memories and so I have moved a bit outside of my comfort zone with this one and used it as an opportunity to try expressing (or bricking up!) my emotional responses to some current personal difficulties. This was something of a departure from my usual way of working which doesn’t tend to be very self-referential and whilst I did find the process somewhat cathartic, I am really not sure I am either happy with the outcome or comfortable with the idea of sharing it. Still, in the interests of the creative experimentation that the project aspires to, there it is, in all its slightly adolescent glory! I have used envelopes to form the ‘background’ in a brick pattern, each of which contain fragments of various documents that relate to the aforementioned challenges that I am currently experiencing. On to these has been sketched a portrait of a family member who is involved in some of these with me, but the envelopes and the portrait have been ‘bricked up’ using fragments of the samples I was given. There is also a photographic reference to a friend who recently died unexpectedly. Despite my misgivings about the personal nature of the piece, I am intensely curious to see if the person who takes it on after me will be brave (or nosey!) enough to ‘un-brick’ the contents of the envelopes or whether a sense of moral duty to allow me my privacy will prevent it! Something of a risk on my part but one guaranteed with a very interesting outcome nonetheless!

In addition, we have been pleased to contribute details of our work on Creative Whispers so far to the Patternotion book, a project by Alban Low which seeks to document the various systems for creativity and living that many artists and creative types impose upon themselves in order to facilitate progress. This seemed to be a pretty good description of the CRITgroup in general but of the Creative Whispers project especially, and so we were happy to send along a bit of ‘work in progress’. This can be viewed on the project Picasa album.
That’s about all for now; the days are getting longer, the weather’s getting warmer… (Well, It isn’t actually but we can dream) and the next SketchCrawlevents at Nexus draw a little nearer ever day!
That’s about all for now; the days are getting longer, the weather’s getting warmer… (Well, It isn’t actually but we can dream) and the next SketchCrawlevents at Nexus draw a little nearer ever day!