Time travel

What a trip since I last wrote this...

Having prepared the OIA conference, commissions and lecture so carefully, Claude Butler and I parted company rather unexpectedly on a steep and slippery slope, bruising brain, hips and pride and ruining my helmet.  What should have been my moment in the spotlight on a podium was spent having a torch shone into my eyes and ears by a very brisk nurse in the Bath hospital casualty ward.

Greatly restored by the calming and encouraging atmosphere of Perfect View by Monday I was on my way to Bristol ready to exchange contracts on St Andrew's Road and hoover the stairs for the last time.  But the buyer reduced his offer by £4,000 that day, effectively pulling out. It seems that he had been negotiating on two properties at once.  I will never know why but decided to go ahead with the move anyway. A pair of gentle giants steadily stacked their Luton so full that the mud flaps trailed along the ground as we wound across the Mendips.  All this piled into the cottage still rather full of Roy and his team fixing loft and replacing rotten windows

 

High Street...

Gathering another slew of boxes from Farnham was a chance to catch up with my sister Nikki and to make letters out of toast for my nieces' breakfasts before heading back to unpack. Frome at last has a cosy bedroom a working kitchen and rather draughty bathroom and most of the post seems to show up there finally.

But the rest is still in utter chaos as I wanted to get back to college, the important deadlines and exciting atmosphere - workshops with Bonnie Kemske on tactile sculptures, Peter Aldridge on Corning and the studio glass movement in America, Glenn Adamson on contemporary craft, Brigit Connolly on alternative approaches to writing.  

commission detail

Plus a commission for a gallery to be delivered this week, contributing to a new course at Bristol University introducing medical students to creative practice and setting up a new group to debate research culture in arts institutions across the UK and beyond. 

 

work in progress show

I have had another offer on the Bristol house, but it's clear that the Christmas break will delay everything by a couple of  months.  And then there will be an election with all the uncertainty that will bring. So I have been pursuing options of short term rentals for the house and garages - and a fire sale of the brick garage to tide me over.

desk in early morning sunshine

At least it's never dull! To bed...

Rolling stones...

How the time sails by, full of new places, people and ideas - but perhaps not quite enough sleep at present ... roll on Christmas!

A fellow student, Carmen, trying out a disabled buggy in Hyde Park

Last week, the Methods Lab hosted by the Helen Hamlyn Centre was a brilliant chance to work with other students and a 'creative partner' - a young man with MS - on an exercise to consider how to integrate the needs of different people in sustainable design. Not rocket science, but realised how much I miss working in a team.  Would like to find ways to do more of that soon. 

Degeneration 2, photographed by Dominic Tschudin

I also spent many hot hours trying to master the lampworking torch without anything to show for it at all, had an explosive but equally unproductive session in the hot shop with James (the one piece that made it into the Lear was cracked when it came out), a day with the RCA photographer Dominic Tschudin to get some better shots of my work, was filmed for the Work in Progress show and had a first stab at printing with finely-ground glass with the help of Steve Brown, who devised the process. 

 

printing with ground glass

I also organised a series of very constructive meetings as Student Rep trying to avert a minor revolution - it seems to have worked, for now at least.  We were even served coffee in the very plush Senior Common Room this afternoon!

students in the SCR

There were also trips to the Post Office with paperwork for the final stages of the house sale in Bristol, which seems to be going through...

And I was lucky enough to spend a memorable, windy 24 hours at the Herring Festival in Clovelly in Devon.  We camped in Avel Dro tucked deep into the harbour, sitting on the quayside drinking tea in our waterproofs for a couple of hours at dead of night wondering if the crashing waves of the rising tide would drag her across the stony beach.  The seas subsided so we put the tent back up and went back to sleep!

Avel Dro in Clovelly harbour

Two tutorials in the morning, then off to Bristol to begin to pack up the house and prepare the lecture for the Ophthalmic Imaging Association on Saturday. 

 Two men and a van will show up next Wednesday to take me, the washing machine and rather too many boxes of books, sketchbooks and tools (as well as the lavendar bushes and fig tree, gifts from Mum and Mim) over to Frome, where my new address will be 11 High Street. Frome BA11 1ER.

Will collect the last things from Farnham on Friday and be, at last, all together in one place in one piece again- well, sort of!

Sparklers

Degeneration 2, cast glass and copper, 

photo by Dominic Tschudin 2009

The main drive last week was preparation for a shoot with Dominic Tschudin, the RCA photographer.  The aim was to get fresh material for my website and RCA 'profile' page - and to prepare for an upcoming lecture at the Ophthalmic Imaging Association conference in Bristol. 

En face, cast glass and ceramic transfer print, 

photo by Dominic Tschudin 2009

I broke and scratched a number of pieces in the process (one made quite a spectacular bang!), relieved my knuckles of several layers of skin and did not get all the sleep a girl would like, but have learnt a lot and have a clearer idea of where I'd like to go with it all, especially thanks to another enlightening conversation with Steve.

I did find time to spend a day in the Drawing Lab looking at skeletons, to replace the gear lever cover on the bike and to start to organise the house move - somewhat daunted by a barrage of supplementary questions about drains and beams and the flimsiness of the Frome loft...

 

Gyrus

Hot glass and ceramic transfer print, 

blown by Sonja Klingler, photo by Dominic Tschudin 2009

One month on...

Musing on the first month here - it has passed so fast, but feels like a very long time since I waited in line to collect my badge.

My desk is looking truly 'lived in', I have made the acquaintance of all the late-night security guards and Edge Street is proving a wonderful refuge: I spent most of this weekend under the duvet doing battle with some sort of infection - I seem to have won.

The first stages of the project are becoming clear and I'm excited. We are planning a series of three month experiments to see how printed images on and within the glass shows the changes that take place during the making process (fading and moving with heat for example). I'm also hoping to bring in lenses, water and lighting to play with the way the images change depending on the viewer's perspective. All this linked to eye stuff as usual...

Another busy week ahead: as well as formalising the project with my mentor Steve Brown, I have a chance to spend a day drawing with a celebrated anatomical model maker, to work with the college photographer, to practice the techinques learnt in the lampworking class last Thursday. And to blow more glass...


first attempts at lampworking...

La vie est belle

original?

Another full week in the Smoke...

I had my first chance to work in the hot shop with the new technician, James. Brilliant. And, it seems, I can just keep signing up for as many sessions as I need. Amazing!

On my bike to a 'Q-Art' seminar on 'the Value of Art'. Despite a distinguished-sounding panel of speakers and a waiting list to attend, the event swiftly descended into a slanging match between a broad-beamed lady academic from Stoke Newington and an angry young(ish) man from Whitechapel.

Tuesday's excursion to the Museum of Anthropology and Archeology in Cambridge to see an exhibition called Assembling Bodies was rather more rewarding.

An eclectic collection of anatomy-related exhibitions from all over the world had been thoughtfully hung together by a clearly passionate young team. The evening lecture by Philip Ball, Chair of the Medical Artists Association on the history of medical illustration was fascinating and inspiring. This is a detail of a papier mache model by the celebrated anatomical model maker Louis Auzou, in 1848.

Wednesday was something of a brain-drain preparing for the tutorial on Thursday, but I did manage to fire up the final set of tests in the kiln: finding out how transfer prints made using different mesh sizes look at different temperatures.

Tutorial with Martin on Thursday. To my great relief, I seem to have managed to come up with something that might be 'original' enough - for now at least!

Friday was spent making sense of the week, writing it up and planning for the next one...

And now to study the finer points of Somerset Cider!

studies in motion

Finally sitting with a glass of wine in Francesca's cosy flat in Notting Hill Gate after a busy and extremely urban week: complete culture shock after the open skies and clean air of the broads. 

Spent much of the week buried in books, going to the Wellcome and Science  museums and formatting a literature review for my first 'proper'  tutorial on Thursday.  It was inspiring but extremely daunting to realise how many academics and makers are working on the knotty and, I fear, rather old-fashioned 'science v art' question.  There is certainly a lot to learn. 

 

My tutor Martin Jones weighed in with the dreaded but inevitable question: 'so what exactly is the "original contribution" you are hoping to make...?'

Having readily admitted that I have absolutely  no idea, I agreed to have a stab at drafting what an 'original contribution' might look like for my next tutorial on Thursday. Hmmmm. Alongside the brain gym, this week brought a chance to learn how to use the lampworking torch, a tutorial on the ins and outs of the 'folio' self-promotion system (watch this space...), to flash up my first print tests, to prepare a lost wax mold, to get pleasantly tipsy at my first C&G bash and swoop through London's rush hour traffic in glorious sunshine. 

I also moved out of my room in Farnham yesterday, with special thanks to Sue Shaw for her kindness and patience (I will never know if we should have taken the A305 or the A309), to Francesca for giving me the keys to this haven*. 

And to Richard and Jo for taking care of the numerous boxes full of glass for a month for me. I will miss that extraordinary place.  And Pepe, who will probably by the time I return. 

Another full week ahead: tomorrow, there will be polishing and casting followed by a glass blowing session in the hot shop and a panel debate on the 'value of art' with drinks (;-)) Photography on Tuesday followed by a conference on the history of medical illustration in Cambridge; research workshops on Wednesday followed, lampworking, then a tutorial on Thursday and perhaps a film....

Magic ;-)

* I will be moving into the house in Frome at the end of November (11 High Street, Frome BA1 5HF). The best postal address in London is Francesca's house:  14 Edge Street, London W8 7PN

A following wind...

preparing to shoot a bridge

Back on dry land after a wonderful week on a traditional wooden yacht in Norfolk: hard physical work but completely relaxing. By the time we sailed smartly into Hunters Yard in Ludham, I knew my peak halyard from my topping lift - we even shot Acle Bridge! *


evening light on the Broads

Ready to get back to work: first tutorial on Thursday...

*the traditional but rather risky way of getting through low bridges in which all the sails and the mast are lowered at speed while the boat is still moving through the water...

New girl...

The view from here...

Sitting alone in the computer room of the glass department at the RCA looking out over the turning leaves of Hyde Park, the Royal Albert Hall just metres away glowing orange and gold in the evening sun.

Despite the comfort of Francesca's beautiful flat just across the park and pep talks from men in trendy suits about how we are the creme de la creme in the creme de la creme of art schools in the whole universe and should have total confidence in ourselves for ever and ever, until this morning, I had been rather wondering what I am doing here.


my new desk...

London, so fine in this autumn sunshine is as brutal and demanding as ever. Grit and tarmac everywhere, pressing, pushy people, constant tremor of tubes and traffic and expensive everything. The first year students mostly half my age seemed keen to smoke in the sunshine, while research students were mostly worrying about the extra years it was taking to write up their projects and what to do next...


High Street Kensington

But I have been shown around the incredible glass, ceramics and print studios by bright, professional and friendly people, and found the drawing studio - a wide sunlit space on the top floor with an apparently unlimited supply of big sheets of paper and charcoal to play with. I also had the first tutorial with my supervisor Martin Smith this morning. Excellent.

I think it's all going to be just fine.


Claude Butler and new friends

I'm off now to the Freud Museum to see some work by 2nd year glass and ceramics students, then back to Farnham for a last day of cleaning.

Then a week of sailing in Norfolk before starting here in earnest.

I will email a link to the next installment but do let me know if you'd rather not be on the list?