Exeter

As I suspected, the planned surprise weekend away was to Dartmoor; what I hadn't expected was to spend Friday afternoon in Exeter! I did what I like doing in Exeter: bought clothes and watched the world go by over a cup of coffee overlooking the cathedral - well what else is Exeter for? Actually we also went to Phoenix to see a photography exhibition, which was nothing to get too excited about! Lots of b&w pinhole images of laboratories that reminded me of the school chemistry lab - ugh! Who wants to be reminded of being threatened with the Bunsen burners and having stools pulled out from under you - and a strange, very boring man in a white coat? Not me that's for sure, and these photos still didn't make lab life look any more interesting than it was way back when. And I didn't get to go to Spacex this time either - it was closed for rehanging! So, after a day lolling about it was off to the moors.

I poked myself in the eye with a broom handle before we left.

Earlier that day I'd smashed my toe. Don't ask...

Not content with the already self-inflicted injuries,
Kim tries to pull me over for some more.

aaah, Kim gives good hugs!

'Poems' for you

A friend (yes, I've got a few!) emailed me the other day and asked to see some more pictures of what I made in Scotland. Well, I haven't got any more pictures, or things that I made. What you saw below (Narrative Self: End of the day) is more or less it, bar some drawings in a sketchbook - which are going to stay there (I have a bad relationship with my drawings at the moment: they are bad and I'm failing to change their attitude...).

But I did write some 'poems'. I use the term very loosely since I know nothing about writing poetry and just make it up as I go along (ha, ha!). I have a dim recollection of what an iambic pentameter is and could probably recognise a sonnet, but that's about it. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, but I've never shown anyone (for fear of ridicule obviously!), but today I'm going to be brave and will show you something I wrote up north. If you have an aversion to crude language move to another post now, because that's mostly what it consists of - I think I may have been unduly influenced by the vernacular in the Lumsden bar...

Close My Eyes

She had a good time fucking around and playing the field
Hanging out in clubs with her knickers down
I was the 'clever' one stuck at home
Waiting on promises of things to come
Waiting on passion that never begun
Closing my eyes and wishing for the day
When someone would hold me and put it away
Closing my eyes and dreaming of the day
When I would take it and put it away
Close my eyes and dream of the day
When I will fuck it and have it away

Time gentlemen please

I feel like I got back from Scotland yesterday, but it's almost a week already... I don't know where the time has gone, or what on earth I've been doing since then. I certainly haven't been down to my studio - although I have finally bought some metal modelling tools, which are a bit more appropriate than the red plastic ones I borrowed from Kim's Fimo modelling kit!

I seem to be all over the place and just can't settle into a routine. Having my work days changed about, first due to Scotland and now half term, doesn't help, but I think it's more than that. Of course I've been reflecting on my time at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, but I've also been reading a book How to be Free by Tom Hodgkinson (see The Idler), which I think is making me question everything. I realised in Scotland that I just don't make enough work, and if I want to change that, which I have to, then I have to carve out more time from somewhere. Two five-hour days a week for art, that are often compromised, are just not enough if I want to get anywhere. And by that I mean make work that I regularly exhibit. What my experience really taught me was that I just don't make time to play and experiment, not just with materials, but with ideas as well.

Reading How to Be Free is making me see that work rules my life, even though I only work part-time, that and school hours; it's a pain in the backside having to conform to someone else's idea of when I should work or when Kim should learn. I never had more difficulty than when Kim started school and I had to fit in with hours imposed on my life by authority. In Scotland I found that my natural rythm was to begin work around 9.30, then to take a longish lunch break of an hour and a half to two hours and then continue working to 9 or 10pm. Not having a tv helped. I'd sit in my room and draw, which was much more fun, more creative and will of course eventually be more fruitful. I hate television; it has a way of sucking you in to being lazy. I actually found myself regretting that I'd missed the BBC's last two episodes of Jane Eyre whilst I was in Scotland. It was the only thing I did miss. But why? I had to remind myself that I have the book on the shelf and if I wanted to read it again, I could do it anytime in my own time, not on someone else's schedule. The trouble with tv at home is that the rest of the family gravitate to it in the evenings and I have a natural urge to gravitate towards them for a bit of company. Persuading them to give it up will be worse than pulling teeth; I know because I've tried. I can stop Kim watching it without trouble, but trying to impose my rules on other adults is pointless, of course.

So, the only solution, as I see it, is to remove myself from the situation, to find another room in the house where I can leave my 'play equipment' (art stuff) and go and have a bit of fun of my own, however antisocial. Going down to my studio in the evenings is a non-statrter with a young child; he needs feeding, washing and putting to bed for one thing. And he doesn't go to bed until 9pm. So from 3 - 9pm each day I'm more or less actively parenting. Being an only child he demands more adult time than children with siblings seem to do. For three days a week I work at the dreaded social services from when I drop him off at school to when I pick him up. Then of course there are the weekends... To be able to sit and think, which is what this is, I've had to get up at 6 this morning (unnatural!) to guarantee myself an hour and a half of peace and quiet. Well, I hear you cry why don't you go and do some art instead? Because although an hour and a half is ample for me for writing or reading, running, practicing guitar or whatever, it just doesn't seem to be enough for making work; it's barely enough time to clear my head before I can pick up a pencil...

So, that's it. My trouble, my dilemma: how do I make more time? If you have any ideas or practical advice I'd really like to know. In the mean time, I can hear the radio alarm clock coming somewhere from upstairs, which means my hour and a half is up and I have to go and get myself showered and breakfast on the go...

London

On Monday I took buses to Aberdeen in glorious sunny weather. The hills looked inviting and I was sad to be leaving them, and new friends, so soon. I felt like I'd just got settled in and was finding my way when I had to upsticks and return home. Still, a good few hours of gallery going in London beckoned before I finally made it back to Cornwall. I bought a Time Out at the airport and used the flight back to plan the next day.

I met my brother Dan in Camden, then we visited the Turner Prize Exhibition (utter crap) and the Holbein (gob-smacking!) at Tate Britain. Then it was on to Timothy Taylor near Oxford Street to see Kiki Smith (whimsical). On the way to our next gallery, Tate Modern, we took a detour to Hamleys for you know who! I insisted on taking this cheesy photo for Kim; Dan was impressed that 'pirate ted's' coat matched his jumper!!

When we finally got to Tate I realised that I had less than an hour there if I was going to make it back across London to get the flight down to Newquay. We decided that a journey down the biggest slide would be the icing on the cake at the end of a great day. Major disappointment. The slides were fully booked... It was now decision time: art, bookshop or coffee and cakes. We were starving, so the cakes won and we had a 'Cornish' cream tea!!!

I'm still in shock that I didn't make it down the slides or more importantly into the bookshop - I feel withdrawal sypmtoms coming on and must find one soon. Dan was disappointed that he didn't get a go down the slides and is planning to go back with his son nearer Christmas. I think he's just using his son as an excuse not to look like a big kid, and should just go over in his lunchbreak!! I know I would...



I got to Newquay at five past nine, spot on time, and then had a 45 minute wait for Paul and Kim to arrive - I knew I was home!

Final post from Scotland

Well, this is it. I'm all packed and ready to go, but have a few hours to kill before I catch the buses to Aberdeen. I'm staying overnight in London and will have the day there before I travel back to Cornwall tomorrow night. I've been trying to decide what to see while I'm there, there's so much I don't know where to start...

As good a place as any seems like the Turner prize exhibition, which is just down the road from where my brother works so the plan is to meet up there for lunch. Then I think I might take him along the river to Tate Modern for a ride down those wonderful looking slides (where we can bring it all up again!!!). Bugger that, you know why I'm really going ...THE BOOKSHOP!!!!

Byeeee!

End of the day

Well, sadly I've been clearing my stuff out of the studio space and as a final post from Lumsden (probably!), I thought I'd show you some of the stuff I've been messing about with over the last couple of weeks. Not very impressive in terms of output or quality, but it was the experience that counts!!!




These pictures (above and left) show a bird that I made from a simple plaster mould. Above you can see the original bird (a thrush) as well as the wax one just after it came out of the mould. The picture on the left shows what it looks like after I've carved it and phaffed around with it a bit...

The picture below shows a small (legless) chaffinch that I made from wax - no mould making involved whatsoever, and therefore probably the most succesful thing I did here... It's a bit larger than life size, and it's those colours because they happened to be the colours of the wax that I was playing around with at the time! It's not a perfect representation (I know its beak's too pointy!) - and it wasn't meant to be! (Honest.) I just wanted to see what I could do, and think it'll be a good way make a mould without destroying the original. It's something I'm going to try out when I get back to my own studio anyway...


Finally, here are some of the very first casts that I poured - I give you my blobby green robins... (By the way, the skull in the middle is the real thing - and yes the mould worked fine!)

SSW website

Hilary very kindly agreed to put some info about my work and residency on the SSW website; you'll have seen and heard it all before (about me), but the site is great and you should go and find out a bit more about Ola's (Aleksandra Winnicka) work!! Go on then!

In search of Pictish stones

As I mentioned in the last post, I gave the studio a miss yesterday afternoon and went in search of carved symbol stones in the next village, about 5 miles away. Ola had the idea that we should go by bike, borrowing a couple of the rusting old heaps they have lying about the workshop... Most of them had tyres flatter than my sister's chest (I can say that - she doesn't read this!! And anyway, I can't talk - growing up we were fried eggs and pancake!!!!) and no brakes, but we managed to find two boneshakers that would just about do. (Above: Stephie in the village of Rynnie)

View on the road to Rynnie

The winding road was beautiful, but the ride would have been even more enjoyable if the highly advanced 3-speed Sturmy Archer gears would actually go into any gear but third! Downhill was a dream, but uphill was the predictable nightmare; I had to struggle to keep up with the young and fit Pole on a marginally better, but overly large bike ahead! Today though, I feel fine - even on good form! (How long has it been since I could say that?!!)

We found our first Pictish stones in Rynnie cemetry. There was a whole load of them leaning against a stone wall, they were covered in what looked like skull and crossbones and I like to think that pirates were buried there, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case at all!


After examining these, we clambered over the cemetry wall and up a hill to a standing stone at the top. It was just the sort we'd been hoping to find; to my delight it was carved with a creature with a bird-like head, and a fish above! It's in the most amazing countryside, with wonderful views towards the hill of Tap O' Noth, and the yellow lichen on the stone added a vibrancy to the rich autumn colours hereabouts.

Symbol stone near Rynnie with the Tap O'Noth hill in the background

left:symbol stone with fish above and creature below; middle: Ola says "it's mine, all mine!";
right:Ola being heroic on the way to the top of the hill to find the stone!


After this we went to find a the remains of a stone circle nearby which were in beech spinney at the top of small hill (left). We were helped to find this by a very friendly local farmer, who directed us across his field of cows to the top. He told us that when he was very young you could see the circle in its entirety, but that the farmer that owned the land that it was on used it as a place to dump his rubbish, and over the years it's got covered up. He told us that there are now plans to excavate it. I think this would be brilliant. The stones are in a wonderful spot, and if the trees weren't there you'd have 360 degree views of the countyside around. Beside the only large stone that we could find Ola posed as a heroic Pict (note the staff!), just before the camera battery ran out...


Next we decided to ride another three and a half miles to a village called Clatt to see some more symbol stones that were marked on the map. After the hard journey (for me!) we were disappointed not to be able to find them. Still, there was one in the kirkyard - another one with skull and crossbones, but we'd wanted to find more with mythical creatures. By now we noticed that the sun was going down and remembered that we had no lights and that we'd also been invited out to dinner at 7pm... If we could have got our skates on I certainly would have, I think it would probably have been quicker than the bike!!

We got back to Lumsden at 7 on the dot, got quickly changed and back on the bikes to Hazel's house. Hazel runs her own businss in arts and health and had invited us to dinner to meet two other artists she has staying with her at the moment. Jelka (I hope that's right) is on a residency in the nearby town of Huntly and hails from Berlin, and Kath (who's stuff you can see on the SSW site) hails from the Yorkshire coast (and has a grand accent!). It was a great end to the evening, with lots of chat, laughter, baked fresh-from-the-ground beetroot and plenty of red wine. (It was a bit of a red evening - my face was still very pink from all the exhertion when we arrived!) It was also a wonderful ending to the closing hours of my residency here...

Bicycle ride

Ola's just come in and suggested a ride to the next village to look at some Pictish stones, and maybe a slog up the 'Tap o' Noth'. Sounds good, so I'll go to the studio later!!!! Well, how many more opportunities will I get to cycle with Ola and hunt for carved stones?

Lament

My last few days in bonnie Scotland. I'm very sad about this; it's been such a privelege to be here working with so many other artists from far and wide. I've met Ola from Poland, Alex, originally from Iceland, Illona, originally from Denmark, people from all corners of Scotland and one very surreal head technician from Geordiland, Jolly by name and mad by nature! It's been a real insight seeing how others work and what they're up to, and everyone has been extraordinarily generous with help and advice, whether they're artists using the facilities or part of the team that works here. I can't praise them or thank them enough. But I do still have a couple of days left in the studio, so shouldn't be saying my fairwells quite just yet...

I brought three birds to Lumsden with me and having destroyed two of them making moulds (or trying to!) I feel anxious about destroying the third. It's a little fledgling chaffinch that I held in my hands before it died; I think it must have fallen from its nest and one of the cats brought it in. We kept it warm for a few hours, gave it water and later put it in the rampant honeysuckle climbing the walls of the house, where we left it hidden. We went for a walk and a couple of hours after we came back Daisy brought the poor thing into the kitchen in her mouth again. This time it was dead, although unmarked. I put it in a box to keep the flies off and have kept it ever since.

So, not feeling like I want to destroy it completely I decided to make a wax model of it and take a plaster cast from that instead. I'm very pleased with the results so far, for once, and have made a better model than I thought I could. I'll take a photo of it later to show you. I found the process completely absorbing, and like drawing in three dimensions; maybe this is where my sculptural skills will lie? (If I have any!)

Looking around at what others have produced here I feel such an amateur at times; I hate the feeling! The technicians are working on a piece called Armour Boys for Laura Ford - she had work in the Venice Bienale recently, but if you type her name in Google you get loads of stuff come up. (There's a picture of Armour boys on line that I found for you too.) I want to make bigger stuff like this, and maybe that's what I'll do when I get back to my studio. But first I have a studio here to get back to! I'll sign in again later with the picture...

Scotch Mist

I left the house this morning in what I think of as more typical Scottish weather; those beautiful hills across from the workshop look like this today:

Now you see them, now you don't!

Why aren't you in the studio doing some work at this time of day, I hear you ask...I'm just waiting for some wax to melt so will be off soon, but I thought I'd have enough time to drop you a line first.

Ola persuaded me to go back into the lions den last night and we went back to the local again for a glass of cider. Not being a darts night it was much safer, and a lot quieter. Well, what I mean is there were considerably fewer people, it was still noisy. Mostly thanks to an elderly local character named Dave, who was as lascivious as he was drunk! Ola thinks the Scots (in the bar) are highly amusing, "they speaking English?" she asks with a big grin on her face. She can't understand a word they say (even those that weren't drunk), so I had to translate for her even the most colourful language, which was probably most of what they had to say! Dave tried to persuade us to walk him home, but someone reminded him he has a wife, who he then told to "mind your own f***ing business you f***ing b***ard". His optimism was as amusing as his language!!!

Well the wax is probably melted by now, so I'll see you later!

Forgot to mention...

I found out that the day I leave is the day Nick Evans arrives - he of the Tate residency this summer. He's coming to SSW for a six week residency...some people have all the luck eh?! Actually I'm wondering if the same people have all the luck?

Another beautiful day

I can't believe the weather here - it's been really sunny again today. And warm enough for some of the locals to be out and about in t-shirts; not me though, it's not that warm. I need tropical temperatures before I'm tempted to get my arms out!

I don't know whether the sun's had anything to do with it, or whether it was the extra hour and a half I allowed myself in bed this morning, but I feel a lot more positive about my mould making today. I think it's probably got more to do with a pep talk I had from Enge (soft 'g'), another artist-technician here (and Ginny's other half), when I got in this morning. He assures me that even he, who has worked in a foundry and has been making 'proper' sculpture for yonks, has to make many trial wax pours before he gets it right. In fact, he told me that a small geometrical piece he's working on took sixteen attempts to come up trumps and he was wondering why he was bothering and wouldn't it be quicker just to make them by hand - only in rather more colourful language that I understand only too well - before he had the Eureka! moment.

I have seen his casts and they look immaculate. Maybe perseverance is a word I should adopt a little more often... I'm also beginning to realise that moulding and casting is an art and not the science that I thought it was. I just assumed that there was a prescribed technique that you followed and once you'd mastered the skill you'd be on your way. But the truth is that there are so many variables that each mould you make will be different from the last, even though its purpose is to be able to make hundreds of the same thing, which is a nice irony really.

Enge has given me several other pouring techniques to try out before I declare my first ever mould a complete disaster, and that's what I plan to do tomorrow. Today I began a third mould; it's nothing special, just a bird skull that I found on my walk to Kildrummy on Saturday. I think it probably belonged to a crow, judging by the size of it. Who knows, maybe it'll give me some new ideas, I feel like I could do with some...(even just one!)

Supermarket dash

Today Ola and I were driven to the nearby town of Alford (you don't pronounce the 'l') for a lunchtime Co-op shop. I felt like the Spanish must have when they arrived in Cuzco! There were so many gleaming fresh fruit and veg, which was like gold to the eyes after days of wrinkled mushrooms and black bananas from the Lumsden Spa shop. I went mad picking up peppers, grapes, kiwi fruits, aubergine (but no horrid root veg obviously!) - so many wonderful colours to tempt the deprived village dweller. And now I'm £20 the poorer - can I really eat all this lot in the week I have left? Hmmm, I'll give it a go...

On the journey we took the opportunity to quiz Ginny (who drove us) about the locality: why are there so many derelict houses? Is it expensive to live here? What's it like in the winter? What's employment like? She probably thought she was on Mastermind! Her answer to the first question was interesting and left me feeling sad for local people. She says that there are so many derelict estate houses because when they go to new owners they kick out the tennants and just leave them to decay (the houses I mean!). She says the owners are often wealthy people in the south east or South Africa (!), or conglomerates, and they would rather have the buildings empty and falling apart than have others on their land. I asked if local people get angry about this and Ginny said that around here "no, no-one seems to care at all". Though she says that in other areas locals are trying to buy back the land. I may be naiive, but I don't understand the point in having an estate that is falling apart with no-one on it to look after it - doesn't the value just decrease? Many of them still have working farms, but the farmhouses are empty so where are people living? It seems to make no sense, unless I'm missing something...which is more than likely. What do these owners want with the land if they aren't living there and they have no tenants? Maybe they plan to turn Scotland into one big golf course - I don't know! But it doesn't look like I'll be moving into a turreted derelict any time soon!!

Another day another dead bird

I've been trying to make more casts from my first mould today and have decided that it's pretty futile! I think the basic problem is that parts of it are too thin and when I try and take the wax bird out of the mould it just breaks. Probably better to cut my losses and move on... Still, I used it to try out some different coloured waxes, which was fun.

My second mould is still work in progress, but progress has been slow today. I'm already worrying that it won't work! I decided to lay the bird differently in the plasticine to try and get a better 'pour area' for the beak, but the way I've done it means that it will have a seam right down the middle of its front and back... Maybe I'll be able to disguise it by melting the wax a bit. I hope to have the second half of it made tomorrow, so will be able to let you know soon. I'm not counting my chickens though. (Now, how would explain that phrase to Ola!)

My second mould in progress; you can probably make out the swallow's wing, but not much else!

Identity crisis?

On my walk to Kildrummy on Saturday I saw this scene and took the picture for Kim - spot the odd one out! (You'll probably need a microscope though...)

Sunday - a proper hill walk

Today was a complete day off and I went for stomp in the hills with Ola (I've spelt her name wrong in previous posts, sorry...). We walked about 10 miles in fine weather - though it was (of course) very blustery on the top of the hills. Here are some more pictures to make you jealous!

Stephie and Ola on a long track up Cova Hill

A deserted farmhouse - you can see
why I want to live in all the ones I see!!

We found a bothy on Cova Hill -
the perfect place for lunch.

Eating yesterday's pizza,
which was surprisingly tasty!

Great view of them thar hills...

Exploring a derelect croft.

Ola's waiting for the internet, so more tomorrow. I'm off to soak the aching limbs in a hot bath!

A walk to Kildrummy Castle

I got fed up yesterday (Saturday) with my efforts in the studio in the morning - I'd tried to make a start on my second mould and realised that I'd forgotten to put the release agent on before I added the rubber... This means it probably won't work, but I'll try and soak it off if all else fails. Anyway, I decided a breath of fresh air was in order and decided to walk 8 miles or so, there and back, to Kildrummy Castle, a medieval ruin that Robert the Bruce's brother is supposed to have held.

I decided to take an easy route and follow some country roads; the hedgerows were beautiful, full of rosehips fit to burst and rowan trees dripping with scarlet berries. The verges were full of an amazing variety of mushrooms in all shapes and sizes. I wish I knew more about them and could take some home for tea, but having been warned all too often of the dreadful effects if you pick the wrong ones I decided to get mine from the Spa instead! The houses hereabouts are mainly low, with the second story built into the eaves, and are built from a lovely, warm reddy-grey sandstone. I wanted to live in almost every farmhouse I saw!

The castle was in a beautiful spot - here are some pictures for you...

Today's efforts

Not too happy with today's efforts. Have lots of green lumpy things instead of birds; bits missing all over the place. I'm going to start another mould this evening, but first an omelette methinks.

Some pictures of Lumsden and the SSW

Lumsden's Main St; the workshop is on the right.

The hills o' Lumsden - a fine view.

This was the beautiful vista opposite the workshop today - good eh?!


My room...


My studio space. (It has a few more things on the wall now.)


And finally, one for Kim...

Spot the baby!