That's tool for now!

This will be my last post in residence on this blog in which I want to take a moment to conclude and reflect on the residency as a whole. Thanks to everyone who came to the Private View on Friday, very, very appreciated! Secondly, thanks to Emily Bull who has run the residency and supported us throughout the project especially when it came to hanging the exhibition. Cheers, Brian and Paul and Somerset College too!

I have really loved having the studio space on this residency and have made some really good progress in my work and enjoyed it at the same time. There has been a lot I want to draw from this experience too and I have a clearer idea of my strengths and weaknesses as an artist (in my work and in a professional sense) and hope to expand on this when I progress onto my Masters in September this year. What was particularly exciting for me was that I have been given several tools from different people as a result of the project and I can now explore what I originally intended in looking at tools that other professions use. I have exhausted the same old saws, hammers that I have used for previous projects and am grateful for the offers of more unusual tools to use from other people! I've got Somerset Art Weeks to prepare for now too so watch this space!

I've learnt a lot about putting up exhibitions recently...

I have learnt a lot more about hanging work in these last few weeks. Things like, what looks good/bad next to each other, how to hang things straight and with the right distancing etc. As well as the more obscure things like, how to move thirty-six bags of floor tiles (see above photo) out of a gallery space in thirty minutes and how to move things again and again until your happy with how it looks even though you're exhausted (probably as a result of moving all those bags earlier!). All of these things have really frustrated and helped me reaffirm what is important about these kind of shows and that it is always worth fighting for the cause and not settling for anything less than what is the best that you can do. A little corny perhaps, but from a art management point of view I think its an interesting process and sometimes, battle that art has to go through in order to grace the walls of even small galleries like this one at Somerset College.

As a result of the residency I feel I have not only learnt about my own practice but have learnt about professionalism and organising of shows a little bit more. I can hopefully take this with me on future shows. There are many stories to tell and it has been a great process and one that I thought I'd briefly share with you.

Show time!

After four wonderful, crazy and intense weeks at Somerset College, Brian, Paul, Emily and myself can finally bring you: The Context Residency Exhibition!

Come and check it out! Its on and up now in the White Space at Somerset College everyday 9.00-4.30 until September..........

The best Friday 13th your'e likely to have....ever!

Roll up, roll up! Friday 13th 1.30-3.30pm Somerset College, White space gallery!

See, hear and feel new work created in residence here in our very own town, Taunton, by the new and emerging artists in residence: Brian Gibson, Paul Hurley and Natalie Parsley.

Don't miss it!

WEEK 2: Monday 19th - Friday 23rd

Ha ha! Back again, so we are now up-to-date with current events on this residency in which I am exploring the tools once more, this time being heavily influenced by my grandfather's workshop of which you saw some images from on my first post here. I am aiming to make prints from the images taken and tools on that farm hoping to capture something of the place, my feelings, a connection to those objects that I couldn't necessarily achieve from photography or presenting the actual objects alone. I suppose that is an interesting debate and would require more space and discussion than I have consideration for on a Sunday, but I do wonder if it is possible to find something more, a greater 'truth' through representation of these objects than it is through just looking at them. Can you find a truth through a lie? I think this is something I have always, struggled with, I naturally love to paint, to draw, to make which sometimes I think might not be the best ways of communicating what I want to say, but none-the-less I can't get past wanting
to just make work (and it doesn't have to be 'good' work but more of an expression of oneself).

Currently, therefore, I am indulging by creating by making more over sized prints of tools and working into the previous one to add to the mark making already there. Increasingly, mark making is becoming a prevalent factor in this body of work and I tend to adopt an intense crosshatching/scratching form of mark making which probably says a lot more about my own psychology than it does about tools. This is fine, but if I'm honest isn't what I intended when originally I intended to represent the history and marks on the tools themselves. Hmmmm....I seem reluctant to accept that my work is and has always been more about me than I explain it being all about the tools. I don't know why, but can only speculate that maybe its because I am a more private person than I appear to be.

And could you blame me! I have been scared pretty much to death on this residency!!! You see it is so quiet in the studios and I mean quiet, you can go the whole day without hearing or seeing anyone in there at the moment. So when someone, anyone does decide to pop their head round the corner into my space it scares me half to death! Other than that its fine and I'm usually glad to see most people but that doesn't do my heart any good and might be why I am more reclusive than I first thought.

Where do I see my work progressing next you ask? There are plenty of ideas of which you're just going to have to wait and see...

These are a few of my favourite things...

Aloha! I'm Natalie Parsley, the illusive artist who was so much in residence as of yet hasn't had a presence on the blog. However! Today is a Sunday and the college is closed, they've kicked me out and so here I am to do my best to fill you in on the last two weeks since the residency kicked off.

What better way to start things off than with a 'few of my favourite things', the source of my inspiration and what some might say, the obsession in my art career so far....