Summer holidays are always a weird time; the everyday routines go out of the window and suddenly there are two children hanging about seeking amusement. It's never a productive time for me, but sometimes a break can provide a little perspective.
I did manage one amazing week of creativity at West Dean on a summer school with the marvellous Caroline Wendling. The course was all about place, place experience and exploring the wider West Dean estate. She could have written it just for me!
During my MA I imposed 'place restrictions upon myslef; I decided to only make work about the Swunley Forest. With the course complete and restrictions lifted I could have felt a little overwhelmed but a week at West Dean, a place I already feel connected to through repeat visits, with access to the ranger, archives, archivists and 11 other enthusiastic artists seemed a great way to branch out and explore a new place artistically. I threw myself into it wholeheartedly and was thrilled with the results.
We based ourselves at a shooting lodge in the north of the estate and from there explored the Devil's Jumps (burial mounds dating from the bronze age), the oldest tree on the estate (which was truly magnificent), the site of an meieval village and an area of woodland. I could have done with another week just to complete all the ideas I had at the time!
I made myself a 'workbook' where I stuck lots of the prints and sketches I made so I had a record of the week which I can revisit since there are so many ideas in here that need further work and development.
My aim was to spend a week immersing myself in a different place but staying true to my practice and way of working which tends to be methodical when presented and yet quite free and exploratory as I'm making it (I'm a virgo, I like a bit of order, but a sprinkling of chaos along the way makes things more fun!). The thing that West Dean give me whch I don't yet have usually is wall space to spread out and see what I have produced so far - the opportunity to look at the prints and sketches and other research all together. This is the main thing I am excited about for 2025 - I'll have a studio in our new house and I will be able to spread out and most importantly leave things out overnight so I can return with fresh eyes to a collection made the day before.
Dale Devereaux-Barker taught me the importance of taking a few minutes each morning to consider yesterdays work when I did his summer school and it's amazing what ten minutes musing with a cup of coffee can do to aid productivity! I remembered this lesson and took the time each morning to consider yesterday's work and mentally note what I wanted to explore that day.
I knew that we were going to have the opportunity for monoprinting during the course but I also took my little Open Press Project press along with me and for the last couple of days I took it out on our trips to the sites we were visiting as I knew we would have slightly more time by then and I felt brave enough to try using it for some monoprinting. Having tested it in Norfolk while my husband happily fished for a few hours a couple of weeks earlier I had a vague idea how to set mysef up for speed and efficiency. I pre-soaked my paper and made a damp pack so that I didn't need to worry about carrying/finding water and soaking the paper. I had blotting paper so I could simply take out a piece as I needed it, blot it and print straight away. I also made a new discovery in the West Dean shop - enviromount, and used that as my plate. It's designed for drypoint as an alternative to plastic (I believe you can also use it for collagraphs) I tried it for inaglio as well as monoprints and found it worked really well. I imagine it won't be as long lasting as plastic if you wanted a large edition. I used one side for intaglio and then the other for monoprints. I was warned not to used my expensive intaglio roulette tools with it as it would clog them but aside from that downside I found it worked really well.
I spent the last morning making a 'final piece' as I felt I wanted something to finalise the week that could be a prompt for further work so I made four monoprints which together form a larger piece. I mounted them on A1 paper having crumpled them to form a 3D piece. The circles of the Devils Jumps echo across the piece with the idea that the land is ever changing both in itself physically and within the human experince and idea of it. Layer upon layer of physical debris, myth and memory builds up and changes the physical landscape, the human experiences of it and within it and so it becomes something different for each of us over the centuries.
There are some big ideas here and I plan to continue work on this in 2025 once I have my studio set up. Exciting times lay ahead!
Comments