Friday 14th June: Yesterday a lovely sneak preview of ‘Bridge The Gap’ (a great name for our final show). I went in to college for assistance with the selection of Shinrin photos to enter into The Westmorland Landscape Competition.
https://landscape.artopps.co.uk/ PT’s second pair of eyes, proving very helpful. I have battled on , today, with presenting the entry portfolio with everything at the correct resolution/file size for the entry upload portal. Also, having to confront the ugly question of how to price/value your work – “gosh!”…. one thinks….. is it for sale? … and having to work out ‘special installation requirements’ – all quite a steep learning curve, but I’m feeling quite accomplished now and have an entry acknowledgement email – SO IT’S OFFICIAL – ‘Shinrin’s IN’
Tuesday 18th June: Reflecting again. Talking about change…. that’s where I was before the Lindisfarne chronicles and Shinrin’s IN….. Some things haven’t changed throughout Foundation – there appear to have been some common themes. Not just starting with a box and finishing with my crate-making activities but in terms of concepts and subject matter. Trees. Trees. Trees. There are so many associations. My exploratory phase project was about trees…
I found myself beginning Foundation by looking forwards … to an end. This was making an art book about the end of life, about departing from loved ones and expressing what I wish to be done with my mortal remains….. more than that …. something spiritual …. and that bit had a special tree at its core. At the time, I didn’t feel comfortable sharing that project with other people, I certainly didn’t want to talk about it among strangers in group crits. I think, across the year, I’ve become more confident about those sort of disclosing experiences. It was a deeply personal piece of message making for my closest people living and passed. I reflect now, again, about my feelings about the nature of our family relations that I addressed in the book and wonder whether I would say anything differently now. Have I anything to say to different people who were not included then?
A fitting metaphor for the end of the course. As I began with the Elder tree and darkness surrounding us at the completion of Exploratory phase I end it with mid-summer upon us, and light, and here the Elder is flowering………