Paris and practice

Dear All

I am going to Paris today, so I am feeling quite excited, and a little anxious. I am going gto stay with a friend I haven't seen in about four years. I stayed with her when I was in Budapest on exchange, and she is now on exchange in paris, so it's the perfect opportunity to get away, to be somewhere new and exciting..... being away from all things familiar seems to open up my headspace in a way that I don't seem to be able to do otherwise....like being away feels like an adventure, where I create teh possibilities, rather than waiting to see what is on offer and playing on the side of precaution.

I know I keep coming back to this idea about habit in an artist's practice, but it seems to be how I think about my practice, or just an enry to how to talk about it. A couple of weekends ago I was sat at my desk on the sunday evening looking at photos and images that I have been wedging in the back of an empty sketchbook over the past year. I have seen all the images before, they are mostly my own, but playing with them, cutting them up, I felt excited about them all over again. One of the photos on teh mentoring website- a black and white one in which I have my head covered or partially covered with black..... I was cutting up some of these photos and they felt so precious. Not precious in the sense that they are objects, actual tangible things, but I felt precious about the images in themselves.... a hand cupping a breast. I have seen this image, I know it, yet I feel like it was like a new relationship.... when I went to bed I was conscious of how important that was- the activity, the time spent just me and the work. It was like having a lover and being really aware of how beautiful it was and how much of myself I had embedded into teh images, but them still feeling outside of me. It's difficult to describe, but it is so vital to my being an artist. Feeling like I can spend time with the work on my own and find it beautiful and precious and interesting. So often that transition into a public space feels diluted in comparison.... the relationship I have with the work is most important, even if no one else sees it or knows about it. Does this kind of cutting and sticking activity that allows me to spend time with the work exist as a habit? Maybe it does, maybe that it what my sense of habit is, and by that I mean an activity tat allows me time with the work- it is that time, time to do , make and think through th ework. Doing the work, being with it allows you to open up a thinking space that is otherwise more difficult to get into.

I hope some of this makes sense. I have been meaning to write about it here on the blog, but I feel like it's slightly exposing...talking about the work like a lover sounds so easy to write, and so easily sounds trite and obvious, but I really felt that. I felt excited and engaged...it gave me satisfaction that I don't think I often recognise in my work in that way. And it's just me at home with it, not being shown in a gallery or exhibited or getting it out there...just me being with it.

I hope everyone is well. I am looking forward to Monday....paris until Monday and thenh the FB mentoring scheme....yes, I am excited and I feel happy I think.....

With much love, Katherine.

im back

helo everyone milan , and rome was great but a bit crazy [ especialy rome] looking forward to the 4 .. x x x

to grow

I have just read your description of the performance Lucille. Very moving. I felt might chest tighten when describing how you would breath. Very powerful. the dis-connectedness you felt is compelling. Did you fell euphoric? Was is a rush to separate yourself, wrapped in cling film? I am starting to look for that in how i approach work, in its outcome, how it might make an audience feel. Isolated and separate. Having just curated 'outsider' (images to follow, i promise), I have very mixed feelings about audience. I am starting to want to forget them, or cast them aside when developing work. Up to now I have always imagined where they might stand or how they look as they approach.

I have still yet to have my 1 to 1, will have too wait until Franko is back. Things have shifted radcally in my head in terms of what and how and when.

How is everyone doing?

Katherine, super stars for Kettles Yard.

ttfn

Show in Cambridge

Hello

I hope this finds you well.

I just wanted to let you know that I have some new work in the Kettle's Yard Open show in Cambridge this year. The show opens on Saturday with a private view from 6-8pm. My work is being shown in the house, the opening hours of which are 2-4pm Tuesday-Saturday. However, the house will be open for the private view on Saturday 25 November. It would be great to see you there, although I appreciate this is rather short notice. If you do fancy a day out in Cambridge whilst the show is open, do let me know, as it would be nice to catch up with you.

If you have any queries, please do let me know.


Katherine

images that appear....

Images...

For some reason these didn't actually post the last time I tried...

Hi Franko, been trying to call., but your phone is switched. How is a week this Saturday for you? or Sunday? for a 1 2 1 ,
Ninaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One year Trainee Bursary (£11,000 )

Dear fb'ers

Sure you all are aware of this opportunity but thought I'd post it up here anyway!
mx

-----------------
One year Trainee Bursary (£11,000 )

Artsadmin invites applications for a one year Trainee bursary.

A year long full-time traineeship aiming to develop project management skills for contemporary performance and Live Art. Enthusiasm and commitment to this area of work essential. A great opportunity to begin a career in the arts.

For details of the post send a SSAE to:

Liz Holmes
Company Administrator
Artsadmin
Toynbee Studios
28 Commercial Street
London
E1 6AB

or download the information pack from the website: http://www.artsadmin.co.uk

Closing date for applications: 5pm Wednesday 15th November 2006

Encasing

I'm being encased in cling film and gaffer tape at Chisenhale Dance Space on Saturday.



It is part of a day exploring where live art practice and dance meet and cross over.
http://www.chisenhaledancespace.co.uk/events.htm



Come along if you like! We will be performing the work from 3.30-ish. It is a work by Doran George, and is one of his series of encasing works. He is living in LA currently, and when I bumped into him in London over the summer, he asked if I"d be interested in performing.



There are three of us working together, and we did a rehersal yesterday, which is where the images are from. What an amazing experience. I am wrapped firstly in cling film. Then the gaffer tape. It will be completely in white tape on Saturday.



Transformative and intense.

Habit

Hello

I hope everyone is well.

In my head I keep coming back to this idea about habit in art, in art practice.
I think there are habits that come to form themselves in teh approach one makes to work....making notes, a particular way of logging ideas or images....the things we read and when and the dialogues we have...I think these are habits, but actually not habits, because they all require maintenance, they require us to engage in them.

Sitting in the Tate with madelaine at teh weekend the idea of habit came up.... some of the things on the blog I agree with and others seem quite alien, but I am thinking about it a lot....it kind of pervades my thoughts silently whilst I am doing other things.

Images seem to be things I gather frequently. There is little conscious decision making in what determines what I keep and what I disregard without a hesitation. But I think maybe this is a habit within my practice...although generally I think I am not too keen on the idea of habit, maybe because I hold habits in a not positive light....because I want more than mundanity and I think, well, I haven't really thought about it too much, but because in my head habit equates with doing it without thinking, those things that are banal and regular, and because I don't want to think of my practice in that way...

Just some perusing thoughts...

...and images that have become part of the big pile of accumulations on my desk at home.

With love Katherine.

Given Away

As a culmination to my time at CCA in Glasgow, I had an open studio. Showed a map that I'd created from my experiences navigating the city and its folk over the three weeks.



Collected anecdotes, notes of mine, informal ratings of charity shops, based on an appraisal of location, quality of stock, prices, and how much local folk seemed to use them.



I'd like to go back to Glasgow to realise the work. If I could get support, finances, build on some links I made whilst up there. Spend the time in a directed way, collecting the components of some sort of end product. Looking at audience in the very broadest sense in the realisation of what is a subject very close to my heart.



I now have the map on my bedroom wall. I want to do this project in several different locations. I feel privileged to have had this time to focus on process. This last few months, with Wysing, then Cornwall, and now Glasgow, well, they have been so precious for me, and for my confidence in reconnecting to my creative process.

blog settings

Dear all

I've been having a look to see what has been going on with the Blog as my comments to other people's posts weren't getting posted and I was getting fed up with writing stuff and losing it. It kept saying I wasn't allowed to publish without authorisation by the administrator. going into the dementored blog directly, I found a whole backlog of comments pending to be authorised and I selected them to be published so look back and see if they are there! I also have changed the comments settings in the settings menu - it was set for only registered users to leave comments. I have changed it so anyone can leave comments. There is also a members only option which might be better if we want to keep it more private, but until everyone has signed up as a member it means we can't post properly. I'm having trouble accepting the invitation that in pending in the members settings (again in the settings menu) can Nina, Steven, Lucille or rachel advise?! I've tried inviting myself again too but the hotmail link I get sent just takes me back to the blog and I'm still not registered as a member! Help!

Hope everyone is well, I met up with Katherine yesterday for coffee and we were having a daydream about booking ourselves another Wysing style week somewhere isolated next year, any interest?!

Madx

Scorpion Power!!

Happy birthday to all the scorpions out there! I hope the boat party was rocking. I am year older but none the wiser. I am working hard on the 'Outsider' show I am curating down here for the middle of Nov (www.outsidervideo.com). Artists, kids and dogs, who would work with them (excusing Beuy of course)?

Franko I will see you before Dec, I can't fix a definite date until I book a train, I can't do that until I have some money. Sorry.

(art)work wise it is all going well. All the stuff I started in Wysing is still energising my work. I have move into some nice ideas, and am now trying to make the space and time to develop them.

I liked the discussion that almost picked up speed in an earlier topic about how we approach our work. The idea of habit is attractive to me as a starting point. I want a habit that finds me with my nose in a book or standing in my studio to work. I don't think habit has much to do with creating work, but it might be a place work starts from. At Wysing, we got up early, cooked porridge then all trundled off. To me that was habit. What we did after that was where it might starts from, a creative process. I don't have a pattern that lets me work on my practice, what ever that is, it gets slipped in here and there. I don't think that is productive enough. Franko pointed out how much I could produce when given the space, routine/habit and time. That is what I am looking for. A habit might be a way to get into that 'zone'.

NINA AND STEVEN WHEN IS YOUR 121 WITH ME ?

MIRANDA OUR 121 IS ON NEXT MONDAY THE 6 NOVEMBER AT MY FLAT AT 1O AM , just confirming it. x x

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RACHEL

Hey Rachel

happy birthday!! I hope you've had a good day and your little birthday gathering at your house is in full swing. Sorry i couldn't make it, it would have been nice to be there. I send my love on your birthday- have a drink for me!!

take care, Katherine

Where is everyone...and meeting on Saturday...

Hey where is everyone?

I was hoping people might have been on the blog...but maybe everyone has been too busy out trick or treating, Anyway, it looks like the only way to get in touch with people is to tex, so will text everyone about meeting on Saturday....Franko, I'll phone once I have got a least a few responses....

I hope everyone is well.

I think I am getting a cold- the second one in about a month!!!

With love, Katherine