MA Week 70 - Professional Development, Printing and Conference paper

Reflection on the past week, 30th May 2017

I broke up from work for about 10 days on Wednesday 24^th May – this was partly to do with my working days, with bank holidays, plus a couple of days off for the “Troubling Time” conference. My intention was to focus as much as I could on my practice in all its different aspects. I started even before I broke up – on Tuesday I sketched one of the photos from the mini-derive, which was made all the easier by my sketching the subject directly the previous day (see this week 69 blogpost) and etched it into a plate prepared with hard ground. I didn’t put too much detail into it as I didn’t want to waste time if it didn’t work – I was still wondering about my technique after the soft ground issues of the last couple of weeks. I zipped into the print room to etch it on Wednesday dinnertime and it seemed to etch OK, which was a relief.

Professional Development

I was straight back into college after work on Wednesday for an event about “Exhibiting your work”, led by Bryony Bond, the Creative Director of The Tetley in Leeds. Bryony gave a 10-point plan to holding a good exhibition. It was good to have the information presented in this way, and pleasing to realise that I probably would have thought of most of it anyway eventually, after years of working in business and organising events. As always, though, there were a few really good points to think about. One was Bryony’s assertion that you shouldn’t be afraid to invite big names from the local art scene (or indeed, the art scene further afield). Curators always want to see new, interesting art. Another was to go to every opening you can, get yourself known, and make as many connections as possible. Also – put on shows yourself and make them events, with artists’ talks and the like.

Another professional development event followed on Thursday morning, “The Art of Communicating”, an event by the Cultural Institute at the University of Leeds. This was led by Kerry Harker, the founder of the Tetley, now a freelance curator. I found Kerry’s style both engaging and accessible. As with the previous evening, I’d already discovered quite a lot of what Kerry talked about in dribs and drabs, but it was good to hear it presented consistently and with a strong message. And again, as with the previous evening, there were a few really important points. A particularly good one was to own, drive and manage your own practice and not compare it to the practice of others. As Kerry pointed out, you might wish you had another’s practice, but you don’t. So take your own practice seriously and move it forward.

There were also two other speakers who had graduated fairly recently and who talked about setting up collectives and starting to make art happen in the city. They gave some tips for getting funding and an insight into difficulties they’d faced. I’d already heard of some of the work of both of them and it was interesting to hear their side of things and also that they spoke honestly.

As always, I have quite detailed handwritten notes from both these events, and blogging about them makes me realise I should go back and undertake some of the actions that I promised myself I’d do immediately.

Printing

The thankless task of stopping out

After the morning’s event, I was straight over into the Print Room to start working into my latest etching. After taking a few prints, Mike helped me to spray a mixture on it that would allow it to aquatint, and I set to work with the endless task of stopping it out and biting it, which is still in progress.

I also had another go with the soft ground conundrum. I stripped back one of the plates that hadn’t worked last week and applied another soft ground, then drew onto it through greaseproof paper. I etched it for much less time than previously and I actually got something out of it – by no means perfect, but enough to give me more to go on.

Small steps forward, or going round in circles?

The plate hadn’t bitten deeply enough to give a proper print, but it did yield a couple of clues. There was a lot of foul bite on the surface, which I took to be where I had rested the circle stencil and my ruler onto the paper on top of the plate. The ground was also starting to come off in one corner of the plate, akin to what had happened the last couple of weeks. When I looked more closely, I realised this was where I’d handled it (even though I’d been really careful). So I concluded that the ground is much more fragile than I’d realised. Again, more experimentation needed, but a step forward.

Today, along with the endless stopping out, I’ve been pulling prints of the gentrified office building to put in the “Art Market” at the end of year show towards the end of next week. The idea is to do a variable edition of 10 and put 5 into the market.

Troubling Time Paper

The other main activity has been firming up the paper for the “Troubling Time” conference in Manchester, which is slowly taking shape. I was really struggling with getting it together earlier today and I knew that I needed to go for a walk, so I took half an hour and walked mindfully. This helped free up my thoughts considerably. I’ve always found a half-hour walk from work at lunchtime really beneficial for, quite literally, clearing my thoughts. I’d never realised it was so integral to my wellbeing, despite a lot of my art practice being walking-based.

Bank holiday weekend work!

Also for the conference, I have used some of my old monoprints to make postcard-sized business cards to hand out to other participants, particularly those who will (hopefully) create the visual work with me in my session. The cards look quite good cut up and in a pile on the table!