Autumn and talented friends

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.

Exhausted

I’m feeling completely worn out this week. Last weekend was the first public outing for the new series of screenprints at The Magic Circle as part of the Collectors’ Day event – which was brilliant but also very tiring in terms of the amount of effort required to transport everything to London, set it all up and then get it all back to Edinburgh. It was great to be there though and to get some very very positive feedback on the project and meet lots of interesting people, as well as get to listen to some great talks on magic history.

Munito, Life and Talents; screenprint, image © Sharon Whyte 2009

Since I’ve been back I’ve been struggling to do anything useful at all. The sun is out and I hate being stuck indoors doing the kinds of things I really need to be doing such as continuing to look for venues to exhibit in, putting together a catalogue for the show in August, sending out more funding applications etc etc. I’m also desperate to get back into the print workshop and do some actual proper work for a change – this year has been far too much about the administrative side of being an artist for my liking so far and I can’t wait to get stuck into the next project.

Some more good news has been forthcoming recently, however, firstly that I’ve been chosen to take part in the Cut-Click exhibition at the Abbey Walk Gallery…

And that on the horizon there is the possibility of a touring exhibition of the Highlands – more news on that as I get it. It sounds very exciting though and would mean that the series would be permanently on show from August this year until February 2010 as it would follow on almost immediately from the show at the Tron Theatre.  There is also another little piece of exciting news for something happening August but again I don’t know if I’m officially allowed to talk about it yet – so much secrecy!

I think one of my main aims for the next week is to make it down to the Ingleby Gallery to see the Francesca Woodman exhibition before I miss it completely. Woodman is absolutely without a doubt one of my all time favourite photographers, her work was introduced to me by my lovely friend and talented author Nova Ren Suma, and I’ve been trying to get to this exhibition since it arrived in Edinburgh in April. I stupidly missed the talk at the Gallery of Modern Art about her work in May (part of the Artist’s Rooms series) so I absolutely cannot let anything get in the way again.