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For the past few weeks I’ve been quite pre-occupied with preparing to set up the exhibition at Artsdepot, but now that it’s up and the private view has happened I’m slowly getting my life in order again and starting to process all of the other stuff that’s been happening and is happening soon. The opening turned out to be a lot of fun, and despite not knowing that many people in London it was really great to have the support of a few good friends.
Exhibtion at Artsdepot: Images © Sharon Whyte 2010
I was fortunate enough to be in London at the same time as the Roundhouse CircusFest was on, so I was able to make it along to a couple of the events that were being presented by Professor Vanessa Toulmin of the National Fairground Archive at the University of Sheffield. One was a talk on ‘peculiar entertainments’ featuring many of my favourite types of acts from the history of performance (plus some very rare film footage) and the other event I was able to attend was a symposium on the tradition of the ‘showwoman’ which Professor Toulmin had organised along with Marisa Carnesky (currently Performing Arts Fellow at the NFA). The day featured presentations on the personal experiences of showwomen including Sandra Wright, Anna Carter, Carol Gandey, Rose English, Petra Massey, Lucifire and Miss Behave, as well as a performance by Empress Stah which I sadly had to miss so I could go to my own private view. It was a really valuable and rewarding event and provided some interesting insights for my research.
The rest of my time down there, when I wasn’t with friends, was spent wandering around the V&A – amazingly I had never before managed to get as far as the Theatre & Performance section so spent a good portion of my visit there.
Images from the Theatre & Performance section of the Victoria & Albert Museum
So now I’m back home and back at work on the new screenprints. I’ve been making a piece featuring the great Adelaide Herrmann using one of the images that I’ve kindly been given access to by The Magic Circle in order to produce this series on female magicians. It’s one of the most complicated prints I’ve done to date, as it consists of ten layers (I usually only work with between 4 and 6) which are quite intricately intertwined, meaning that technically it’s more of a challenge than previous pieces. I’m loving it so far, and will complete the final layer this week. I’ll also begin work on the third piece in the series this week too – so time to start thinking about getting those proposals in for exhibiting next year.
Some bits of news to finish with…
My current exhibition at Artsdepot finishes on May 30th, after which I’ll be exhibiting A Sage of the Stage for (I think) the final time at Edinburgh Printmakers from July 1st – 20th. I’ll also be showing four pieces in the upcoming Out of the Blue Studio Artists exhibition at the Drill Hall from May 28th – June 10th.
I’ve also started an Edinburgh non-fiction writers group with my friend Gillian of Harlots, Harpies and Harridans which will have its inaugural meeting on May 19th at The Meadow Bar – you can find out all about it at Stranger than Fiction.
No, not a reference to songs by Lionel Ritchie or Ella Fitzgerald but rather the name of my latest print, which includes elements pertaining to an unusual type of performance from the 19th century – ceiling walking. This is the first of a new mini-series that I’m doing on an ongoing basis that will be smaller both in the scale of the series and in the size of the actual prints, making them more suited to selling through outlets such as the arts markets and in shops. This one will also be part of this year’s Edinburgh Printmakers Winter Exhibition which opens on 14th November and they will be for sale through the gallery there and also at the Christmas Arts Market at Out of the Blue on the 5th, 12th and 13th of December. Oh and on my website and etsy shop too (incidently I’ve set all shipping costs on my website to zero hence the higher price). I will be trying to produce as many new ones before the market as possible, as well as a new Christmas card design for this year and a re-print of last year’s design too. I’ll also be putting up simple instructions here soon on how to float mount these small prints, which is the best way to display them.
‘Dancing on the Ceiling‘ Screenprint, © Sharon Whyte 2009
All of this does not mean that work on the major new series has ceased, however. It is still in the development stage, and no actual printing will take place until early 2010 (other than the odd test print). Producing these smaller prints keeps me in the workshop though which is good, and with screenprinting I find that I learn something new with every print I produce – therefore it’s all preparation for ensuring that I keep producing better and better work. Indeed I am feeling extremely enthused about the new project and the book, especially since my recent visit to the home of magic historian Eddie Dawes and his wife Amy, who herself has done a lot of research and writing on the subject of female magicians. They have an incredible collection and their generosity in sharing it and in sharing their knowledge is truly inspiring and I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to spend that time with them.
My recent series of prints on the subject of learned animal performers are still touring the Highlands as part of the magic themed exhibition Now You See It, with the show in Inverness opening on the 14th of November at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. I’ll be going to the private view on the 13th armed with my camera to record this, the first showing of a full series of my work in a public art gallery, which I’m a little bit excited about! I’ll also be represented at the Edinburgh Art Fair this year for the first time by the Mansfield Park Gallery who will be at stand 16.
I’m very happy to report that two of the learned animal prints are now in the collection of Paintings in Hospitals for London and the Southern Regions. The Java Sparrows and Munito at Work were chosen by the curator and could now end up on display at any hospital in the region that they cover (there are different collections for each region). I do really think that having art in hospitals is of benefit to people, so I was really happy to donate to the collection.
That balanced out the rather negative experience of being involved in the fiasco that was the closing of the Artworks Galleries in Newcastle. I won’t go into too much detail because I’m trying to just forget about it all now, but basically I had work there when the bailiffs were sent in to seize everything due to the owner Matt Forster not paying his rent and sub-letting part of the property but keeping the money himself (he’s also angered a lot of artists by allegedly not giving them the money owed to them from work that he has sold of theirs – and he’s supposed to be an artist himself!) and it was a real pain trying to get my work back. I’m pleased to say that myself and two other artists I know who had work there Chantal Powell and Annabel De Vetten did all get our stuff back, but when I visited the auction house there was so much artwork there and I very much doubt that all of it made its way safely back to the artists who made it as we were not told about any of this happening and only discovered it by chance.
The fact that things like this can happen so easily makes it very hard to want to do the things that you have to do as an artist in order to have your work seen – ie: just hand over your work to people – especially since the insurance that’s available to artists is either prohibitively expensive or just not that good (often it doesn’t cover the full cost of the work, or it’s only for one off exhibitions, not usually for long term loan on a sale or return basis) but then again the vast majority of galleries are not in the business of ripping people off and provide a good service to the artists they represent. I just wish there was some way of knowing beforehand if the person you are dealing with has a bad reputation or not.
Anyway, on a more positive note to end with, please do come along to the Arts Market and the exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers if you live in Edinburgh and support local artists and crafts people by buying original Christmas presents – much better than 3 for 2 at a certain high street retailer! And if you come to my stall and tell me about 3 non-bog-standard presents that you’ll be giving people this year then I’ll give you a discount. For years I’ve been considering giving up on Christmas altogether – what with my being completely non-religious just for starters, but also because I can’t stand the ritual exchange of either absurdly expensive or absurdly crap commercial presents (especially since I can’t afford the absurdly expensive ones!) – but I’ve now decided that instead of giving up on it altogether, since there are aspects of it that I really like, that I’m going to produce a special print edition every year that will be exclusively for friends and family and won’t be sold anywhere and give those as gifts instead. If you were hoping for an unnervingly pink bubble bath gift set with matching eye mask you’re out of luck I’m afraid.
Autumn already, and for me the start of a new project. I always love starting new things in the Autumn – I’m still tuned into the old school year I suppose, so it seems like the right time to be starting something.
Getting this project off the ground should be easy – I’ve been working with the theme (female magicians) for over a year now, doing research for the book I’m writing – but I have to admit it’s off to kind of a slow start. So far I’ve done one test print just to get some ideas going but there’s a enormous amount of preparatory work to be done before I can really make headway. I’m also using this time to re-examine the way I work, as I’m worried I’ve become too set in my ways and that the end result will suffer and not be as good as it could be. One downside of having become so focused over the past couple of years is that I realise I may not be giving myself any room to explore and experiment. I need to address this before much progress can be made.
I’ve been very lucky this year to have made the acquaintance of some great artists and to have been able to spend a bit of time with them just chatting about work and stuff. It makes a huge difference to my outlook be able to do this. Art is so much about communicating but it’s amazing how little of that actually happens in the day to day life of an artist (at least the ones I know!), especially with other artists. I think this is part of the reason why I love printmaking so much – because of the workshop and being around other people making work and getting to see what they’re doing. I love it.
Recently I got to meet up with Roxana Halls again and to see her amazing studio in London. It’s in the disused bar of an old theatre that has been a bingo hall for many years. The room is enormous – it makes my studio look like a store cupboard – and still has the actual wooden bar stretching along one side of it. It’s full of books and all the materials that she works with and lots of wonderful weird things (I got to see some the sets that she built for her series of paintings Tingle Tangle which are basically works of art in their own right). Seeing other people’s studios is such a rare treat, and this one is really quite special. As if that wasn’t enough, another treat that day was to meet Roxana’s friend, the extremely talented Frances Borden. As luck would have it she had some of her work there with her and I had a chance to have a look (I had already seen photos of her work but not first hand) and I thought it was beautiful and genuine; she has such a wonderfully intimate style.
Talking of talented friends, today is a momentous day as the lovely Nova Ren Suma’s book Dani Noir officially comes out in America (available on Amazon and in book shops) and I’m so proud of her as this is her first published novel – although she has ghost written loads of them. I’ve known her for many years and I’m just extremely excited for her, as well as being excited to read it myself when it comes out here.
Cover from Dani Noir by Nova Ren Suma, published by Aladdin / Simon & Schuster
My own work has been released into the wild recently as all fifteen prints from my series A Sage of the Stage, not a Beast in a Cage are currently very far from home, up in Thurso on the northern tip of mainland Scotland as part of a magic themed touring exhibition organised by Highland Council. I wish I could go up there and see the exhibition as I’d love to visit that part of the country but unfortunately I can’t. I will however, go and see it when it makes its way to Inverness in November where the show will be at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery.
As a result of my solo exhibition in Glasgow over the summer, I’m happy to say I now have gallery representation in that lovely city at the Mansfield Park Gallery. It’s a great little gallery representing some excellent artists so I’m very pleased.
Bored Ludic has been posting a lot about music hall acts and ventriloquists recently since our trip to Blackpool Magic Convention where we went to an excellent talk about the history of music hall. Prompted by this I decided to see if there were many female ventriloquism acts from that era and that led me to Terri Rogers, who, it turns out – conveniently for me – was also a magician and magical inventor, helping people like Paul Daniels and David Copperfield develop stage illusions. If you can manage to overlook the inherent creepiness of ventriloquist dummies then check out the clip, which I think is interesting from the point of view of female ventriloquist doing male dummy voice (Terri did in fact start life as Ivan Southgate, which I think makes it all the more interesting). I’m really looking forward to finding out more about her magic now.
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