http://www.slaughterandmay.com/
It is a charity event, with commission from sales going to Motor Neurone disease.
It's a great chance for me to get it together and sell some work - it is so long since I made sellable work or did anything about this, other than pondering. I've been to see the venue - a really impressive building near the Barbican. It's on a high floor in a large room with glass walls and an amazing view of buildings. It's not the most sympathetic place to show art, as we are given boards set up at the windows, and there is no particular lighting there. But there are six of us, spread out, and we each have about 4m of space for hanging.
It's a quick catch up for me and a micro practice in selling - a complete project or ecology.
I've decided to make new work and a coherent exhibition, rather than putting together various things I might have. I am picking up on an idea of printed artefacts. I like the duality of prints and objects, and always feel somehow conflicted about just producing prints - I am looking for the element of transformation.
So, pulling various strands of art concerns together, I am making batches of printed objects to frame- in this case, images such as trees upon skeleton leaves. I have been vaguely working on some rusted, weathered stones, as a method of slow release printing, but doubt I could get these done in time for this one. Oh, there is so much more - I guess I have just been waiting for this deadline and outlet. It's also a space issue - it's hard to keep up with boxes of items ready to go when they are going nowhere.
Materials, frames, framing bits, mount board, fittings, titles, labels, pricing, transport, packaging, orders, invoices, techniques, printing, fixing, framing, hanging, about the artist book, further editions book, cards, price list, image and writing for catalogue, delivery, mailing list, documentation, and so on. That's it, the organisation of stuff.
20th May 2013
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I have had to do some things different ways round for the Art Fair - sending a summary about the works and myself, but also a price list, all before I have completely decided on all the making. We showing at the fair, of course, are laughing about our difficulties in pricing, laughing at ourselves, but showing some sort of united professional front and guessing at prices. It's especially difficult knowing people will actually be buying at the fair, there's only a few of us showing, and that there will actually be some buyers there with considerable buying and commissioning power.
For me it's a little fake it until you make it, pretending that I know what I'm doing. I actually do seem to know what I am doing, and feel that once I have started this, I will be making series and multiples of works for sale, no matter whether I have space to store, outlets, or not. This is a toothpaste which will not go back in the tube.
Making the imagery and the work has gone well and actually been joyful. It is employing some of my loves in work, so that is a good hallmark of art for me. I am stretching my resources way beyond their current capacity. Framing, mounting - I already have exhausted my previous amounts, and anyway want to have a coherent theme for the framing.
Previously I tend to frame in similar but different frames - perhaps several reconditioned vintage frames in their different sizes and types, but all painted with the same black paint. That is my default preferred framing, like preferring similar dinner plates rather than all one set. Quite simply I have to come up with another idea for framing as I can't afford to have what I imagine, and I am loath to compromise with an Ikea aesthetic.
I have a framing idea which just might be a great solution to this - it is certainly right for some project, and I have to think it through to be sure it is right for this. It add another layer of meaning into my layered printed skeleton leaves - since I last wrote the printing has evolved, and I am merging disparate images onto the skeleton leaves - a separate blog page.
http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/myriad-paradoxical-objects.html
It is one of those situations when I have to make a decision and commit to it, and, once having decided, not alter it. It's not exactly my normal way of processing or letting ideas evolve, but sometimes art just has to fit inside practical considerations.
Whether to use books as frames - to cut out windows, inset the skeleton leaf print and then glass, all glued up. It could work, it could look beautiful and just right. It adds a layer of meaning and context but still allows the image to be centre stage. In my work I see that, paradoxically, I always want to strip away extraneous things, edit and pare away all images until they are only what I see, and then I want to build them all up in layers so that they are both simple and complex at the same time.
29th May 2013
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Prototypes and potential imagery:
Myriad prototype 1
Myriad prototype 2
Myriad 1
Myriad 2
Myriad 3
Myriad 4
Myriad 5
30th May 2013
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The frames I bought had been remodelled, and the new version had slightly rounded corners, and so I had to file them all to shape, and then fill in with an extra layer of paint.
The glazier cut all my pieces of glass a little over sized! He blamed the variation in ruler measurements, but recut them - at least I have all the extra larger ones, but that also took extra time.
Basically, resolving the work oscillated between thinking about how much I love being an artist and getting to solve my own problems, coming up with ideas that I get to see realised, and that other extreme of intense frustration with things not working out, cheques taking so long to clear, drill bits breaking, and circumstances basically not cooperating with me. However, I maintained my focus and got everything finished.
Making Myriad
Thinking through what works in a multi layered piece. The aim of printing upon skeleton leaves, of having two merged images each, and each layer of that being visible itself. When one layer works, another is imbalanced, and so on, and so, not wanting to balance everything through trial and error, I had to imagine and anticipate results, and record variations.
The third layer was a new level of complication for me, and making each distinctly clear was an enjoyably frustrating challenge. I decided upon using eyes as the shared image, as the ones I had used were working well - they had the element of immediate recognition I was seeking, and also gave the jewel-like colour I was imagining. I thought of images I could use, and trawled my image archive for others with suitable qualities of contrast. I deliberately allowed a variety of images - some merge, some are background, some blend, and some juxtapose. I could have chosen all stones, bricks streets, etc, or all trees, etc, but felt as a collection the variety worked better - therefore they have similarities and differences conceptually.
One of the main problems for me to resolve was to make the images strong enough to be made out a a distance - at all. Initially the eye is made out, and then the leaf become apparent. The other image usually emerges at nearer inspection - one of two are a bit abstracted - most are what I might call factual images.
After a couple of trials, I used my favourite blackboard paint for the frames, and also for the ground of the prints. It is gloopy enough to hold the leaves in place, yet strangely does not run or move, so I can paint the fine details round the edges of the leaf print where needed, and also it leaves the texture reminiscent of a normal printing process - rather inky.
Perhaps I will take images of some trials and upload........
The art fair
I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall upon arriving. The organiser, Alan, told me for a greeting that he was really stressed and about who was not going to come, probably including the art buyer for the firm, whom we had been told all along was coming armed with cheque book. The partners weren't coming, but he still expected a fair turnout of buyers.
I've never before put up work with such help - actual staff. The venue is the partners' dining room, and temporary boards were put in place over the windows for the evening only. Once the guys had put them in place, they were really helpful in drilling holes for work, lining it all up properly, and even placing in my hanging screws. Actually, the highlight of my evening turned out to be these guys. Once I started hanging my pieces, they all looked at them, thought they were great, and even took pictures on their mobiles. Brilliant.
There were five other artists. It turns out my works were at the lower range of the price scale - after much wringing of hands and thing through I have put each framed Myriad piece at £250 - bargain. the evening was also an end event for their year supporting a Motor Neurone charity, presenting a giant cheque to a lady with the disease who talked well and movingly. It turns out the art was a true afterthought, and a background display.
At most there were 40 people who attended, and although I had a few interesting talks with some, who found what I had made quite fascinating, they were clearly not there to buy art, but were finishing up their working day with a free glass of wine. The firm has incredible resources. This charity event is organised by staff, who simply can have at will a team of workers to make it happen. Waiters, caterers, wine, canapes, all laid on. There must have been 25 of these support staff available, so almost one waiter per person.
There were two sales. One was made by someone an artist had invited herself, and so basically the art fair itself generated one sale. Of course, sales can never be guaranteed, but the rest of us were quite frankly gutted. We had all invested our time and money in what turned out to be not an art fair.
A couple of days after, I am left very torn. Of course, I am actually delighted with the work, and that I got it all together on a shoestring to make something beautiful, meaningful, sellable, and I have it all here, boxed and ready. In fact, it is a significant threshold in my art career to have made and thought through editions, and I will in due course make more series of Myriad works. I feel I have set it up in principle and more.
I wrote an email to the organiser, which of course I did not send, but did at least send another short email asking if my work could still be seen by the buyer, to which the short reply was no. Perhaps there may be a sale of two trickle through from this in time, and usually for me it is not about sales, but this time it is. I took seriously the opportunity to put work before serious buyers, but we artists ended up subsidising the event. All the workers got paid, and the waiters, and so on, but we were not given a fee or even something towards our expenses.
Investing in an art fair is not simply a case of gathering together a few things lying around and spending an evening supporting a charity - initially we felt lucky that we weren't paying a fee to show work there, but we all spent money framing, printing, packaging, travelling, and so on, and in my case producing an entirely new body of work. I don't resent investing in my own work and practice, but once again as artists we all carried the expense individually. Most of us, as myself, are involved in various low paid and unpaid occupations, which we all hope to add up to something in the end. It makes sense to maximise an opportunity like this, or as this opportunity seemed to be.
As always, I'll make the best of it. I have gained a body of work and what I consider to be an exhibition on my CV. I got excellent feedback from several viewers and other artists about my work, and yet again I proved to myself that I can get it all together with very little. I'm really happy with the Myriad works. I had also a lot going on in my family life during this, but I made very few errors in the making and thing through what was complex and intricate work, and I'm ready to sell art.
13th June 2013
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