Wonderfully unexpected things

The wacky world of community art!

Once again the time has flown by since I last updated the blog. I begin to see why some bloggers make it a full time job! However, I have been putting my time to good use, so as always there's so much to talk about!

Well, firstly I should mention the Community Art projects I have been meaning to write about for a while now, as that has become a big part of my "job" in recent months.  

I say "job" like that as it still feels weird to call myself an artist as my job title. It just sounds so self important when I said it to people, so I always say it with a hint of irony in my voice, and then go on the add qualifiers like "which is probably a stupid thing to try and do, but..." I am getting a bit better though! And it's stuff like this community work that make my goal of being an artist for a living seems more feasible.

So, way back before Christmas I mentioned that I went to a meeting of the "Salford Arts Development Network". From this I met the local arts officer, a lovely lady called Andrea. Well, through Facebook I then saw that she had posted an opportunity for local artists to get involved in developing workshops for the community. So, I applied for that and was successful, so after a few days of induction I teamed up with two other artists with similar interests. Our brief was to develop a six week programme of events for a community group that we had identified as not currently being served by art activities available in the area. So, long story short, our group decided to do junk modelling and related things for parents and toddlers. There were two other groups formed from the same workshops, and they did a course of art classes for adult beginners and an up cycling class for adults. So, now we are in the middle of delivering these classes. It's not been easy attracting people so far, as the participants have to pay for the classes which is hard when money is tight, but we are actually changing the venue for the second part of the schedule, to hopefully make it more appealing. Here's some details on the Salford Council website (although it mentions to old venue not the new one)

Here's an example of what we made in the first week; junk model structures and vehicles - the weirder the better!

 It's been a really invaluable experience for me, giving me the confidence to think that there is a future as a freelance artist who delivers classes to community groups, and perhaps schools, as I have a lot of prior experience working with young people from my "old" career in education. So, in my mind a hazy plan is forming of being a freelance artist who offers tailor made one off workshops or ongoing art club style classes to schools, or the local council or community venues. It's still early days, but I have high hopes that this could be one of the ways I can make this "being an artist" thing into a realistic career. 

Through this I've also got involved in another big project in Salford, all to do with Geocaching. However, let's talk about that another day, as there is much more directly art related stuff to tell you about as well!

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I have been absolutely LOVING having some studio space. It's really given me a whole new lease of creativity, which so far has mainly taken the form of painting! I always had a slightly tortured relationship with painting; I loved the idea of it but was often slightly disappointed with the work I managed to produce - it never quite lived up to the ideas I had in my head. Well, I've kind of had a breakthrough on that front. My solution seems to be; don't go in with any fixed ideas of what you're going to create, and it's just freed me up so much. 

Here's a good case in point. I prepped a canvas with a clear idea in my head of what I wanted to do. Paint a dark base colour, then layer on some newspaper, then paint over the top, then tear away some of the paper, in an attempt to replicate the kind of images I capture all the time with my camera, and specifically something like this:

However, when I got to the painting over the newspaper bit, I somehow got the idea to pick out some of the nice patterned elements of the pictures on the paper, and then embellish them a little with some different coloured paint, then to use my newly acquired chalk pens a little, and then, why not?, a little pencil..... a few hours passed by in a blur. I was "in the zone", and as a result created something I didn't expect at all, and which was unlike anything I had ever painted before;

I was really excited by this! I realised that if I just relax my expectation of where things will go, interesting things start to happen. This kind of ties in with what my interests are artistically as well - I like very much how unconscious and unintentional things play out in art works - that's why I particularly like my photos that have the scribble of a workman in them or something - an element that was never intended to have an aesthetic aspect, merely a functional one. Anyway, I digress. This new style of painting really energised me, and made me desperate to do more as soon as possible, so the next free day I had I returned to the studio and made another. I'm not sure I was in the zone so much this time - I wanted to keep it light and free, but of course it would never be like the first time, as I now knew roughly what I was trying to achieve. Anyway, here's the result of my second attempt in this style;

I'm not sure if it's quite finished yet, but I'm pretty pleased with it. Again, it didn't turn out as I expected, which I am now taking to be the sign of a successful piece of work! Here's a detail to show you how I blended the newspaper beneath and the painting above;

I think I ended up using the pictorial elements of the newspaper less in the first picture, which maybe made it more successful overall, but I think that was also because this second piece is on a much bigger canvas, so there simply needs to be more stuff to fill the picture. Also, you can see clearly here how rumpled the surface is. I experimented with a new type of glue, and I'm kind of 50/50 whether I like it or not. As a general rule I like adding a bit of texture, but on the other hand it actually makes the images harder to see in places.  Hmm, lots to think about before attempting my next piece... I can't wait!

Ok, so I guess that's enough for now. As always, so much more I could mention. May looks like the busiest month yet since I've moved to Manchester, so I apologise in advance if it's another few weeks before I get back here. I'll try not to leave it too long, but there really is SO much going on! I'll leave a few things here as teasers for you/reminders for me: The Geocaching project, the lovely folks at Islington Mill, my first time at the wonderful Levenshulme market and other people's photos albums! And remember, if you want a bit more regular updating of what I've been up to, check out my twitter feed @HannahGerg

Painting and patience...

Argh! It's taken ages again! And I DO like blogging, it's just it feels like a guilty pleasure when there's so much WORK to be done! Ok, so as usual, loads to report. Lets see if I can get through a reasonable amount of it this time!

So, first up, I mentioned in my last post that I have some studio space now. Well, this has been really great for me, and has lead to a real burgeoning of ideas and creative work, even though I've only managed to get there for a few days. (That also feels like too much fun to be proper work!). Anyway, after not having done a painting in ages, I'm suddenly being very productive on that front. I also had a go at doing a collage partly using some images of my photos, and partly using some awesome paper I have been saving for just this occasion, which I bought at a sale from the irresistible paper selection at Paperchase (one of my favourite places to get art supplies, when I can afford to get the good stuff! The Manchester branch is just a few minutes walk from my front door, and has a whole floor dedicated to fine art supplies). Ok, so here's some pictures.

My collage piece

A painted study of different textures

A set of four (unfinished) smaller pieces

As you can see, these pictures are much more abstract than my previous painting, and therefore much more like my photographic work. They are all really more like preliminary sketches rather than finished pieces, but hopefully with these I am laying the foundations for some really strong painted work in the future. And that makes me really excited!

In other news: I sold a piece on my Artfinder page! If you sign up to Artfinder, you get a daily email with a piece of work and a paragraph of description from the artists. So, I applied about a month ago tot get my work featured, and then about a week ago it was, resulting in a bunch of new followers and this sale! The picture I sold was this one, already established as a firm favourite of many:

"Red Archipelago"

So, this just goes to prove, if I can get some exposure for my work, I can get some sales from it! This is really encouraging! I just have to figure out how best to do that now....

Also as a result of this sale, I had to actually take steps to find myself a good fine art printer in Manchester. I was really happy with the printer I used to work with down in Devon (the lovely Mike at Formatrix), and I was apprehensive about trying to find someone as good again, but DK at Sketch 360 was so patient with me as I procrastinated about how best to set out the print, and the finished product was every bit as good as my previous print, so I was really happy with the final result. So now I know which printer I'll be working with in Manchester, if and when I sell more prints, and that's a really good thing!

Ok, as usual, so much more to say than I have time to write. Just a few quick things then:

Last week and at the beginning of this week I volunteered at the Future Everything festival, which is a kind of a big deal around these parts, especially for people interested in where the future is headed in terms of technology/science/art/media/society, so every year they have a festival of music and art, plus a conference to debate these things. I was involved in the art part and the conference. Both were really interesting and useful but it would take all day to explain why - maybe I'll mention more next time. For now, here's a good summary of the arty stuff that went on: Future Everything: City Fictions 

review

Also, I will be at Paddiham market tomorrow from 10am. Longtime readers of the blog will remember that it was the very first art and craft market I went to, back in November of last year. I had good sales and response that day, so fingers crossed for the same again. As mentioned previously, I'm going armed with a new secret weapon: Stickers! Check them out:

Right, I'm just going to put down in writing now, so that I'll have to talk about it next time, something I keep meaning to tackle - which is my increasingly exciting and lucrative work as a community artist. This is something I've just kind of stumbled into, but it might be the best long term prospect of making this artistic career move pay off, so I MUST go into it in more detail. So, now I've mentioned it, I will have to NEXT TIME!! 

Oh, and finally, after some thought, I have gone ahead and done what I have been resisting for a while, and joined another social media platform: Twitter. If you have already succumbed then come and keep me company @HannahGerg. I might try and use that to post more small but regular news about what I'm up to, so if this blog moves a little slow for your liking, that might be the place to go.... if not, my patient friends, then next time... 

All kinds of awesome

Hi! Wow, I didn't realise until I looked at the date of my last post just how long it's been since I wrote something here. Also, that last post was really whiny wasn't it? Ok, so if neither of those things has put you off and you're still reading this, let's have a nice fun, moan free blog post! I promise to only talk about cool and awesome things in this post, and post lots of nice pictures too!

So, as promised in my last post, here is the painted version of the "Future Mars" image I also did a version of on Photoshop. As you can see, it's a mixed media collage style piece, which I quite like the effect of, but I might also try a purely painted version as well. As I said before, I haven't done any painting in a really long time, so I was pretty pleased with the results of this, although I consider it more of a "sketch" than a finished piece. The sort of texture in the sky was created because there's actually a layer of newspaper under the paint, which gave a really nice effect I think - I think the depth it sort of builds into the image without adding loads of layers of paint.

Ok, now onto awesome thing number one - I now have some studio space! For the very reasonable price of £25 a month (most studio space is normally about x5 that!) I have some room in a flat above a hire plant shop. The flat is pretty run down, but there's running water, a pretty good amount of room, plus other artists to hang out with, some of the time, and some of the time you have the place to yourself! Pretty much perfect! I have been kind of inspired to do more painting after this effort, which is the main thing I've been doing there since I got it. I've also been inspired to do more painting because I keep discovering awesome abstract painters on Saatchi Art who make me think "that's so like my work, only painted not photography!! I could totally do that too!" Here's a couple of my favourite recent examples:

WHITE by Ana Devora

I like the absolute minimalism of this one, with just the faintest hints of newspaper print underneath. It made me realise that sometimes less is more with abstract art - I might try some really pared down, single colour images a bit like this.

Maritime blue by Christian Hetzel

This one could really be one of my photos of the side of a boat. I'm going to enjoy trying the figure out how to replicate those scratches and worn areas in a painted surface!  So, watch this space for some results of this sudden burst of painterly inspiration soon!

Awesome thing; the third. I recently put in an application for a residency at a local art centre. I haven't heard back yet whether I've got it (and probably won't, as they seem to want slightly more established artists), but in making the application I had a bit of a breakthrough about how to take my work forward. I really want to have a go at making some of the themes of my work really explicit, and perhaps try to bring them to life in a gallery setting - so maybe investigate the unconscious creation of the marks in my pictures, and the idea of "unseen/ unknowing collaborators" (phrases I've been using about my work a lot recently in applications, and an idea that really intrigues me, I now realise). I'm not sure how exactly I would do it, but it would definitely mean moving away from traditional media and maybe moving more towards installation and even performance art. Basically I want to somehow involve members of the public in the creation of my works (like they do out on the streets with my photos, y'see?), but I also somehow want to figure out how to make it a random or unconscious contribution, so the idea needs a bit of work. However, I think it could be a really exciting new direction for me, and I also think it might be the kind of thing that a contemporary gallery would really go for as an interesting exhibition, so even if I don't get this residency, I'm going to keep working on this idea and will submit it to any other opportunities for which I think it fits.

Ok, well there's many more awesome things to discuss, and I REALLY will try and get back sooner with them, but for now I'll leave you with one final awesome thing; a new product I'm working on for my upcoming return to the art fair scene; stickers! Here's a few of the little details of my images that I am planning to get printed out to sell with sticky backs. 

  
 

Am I tempting you?

The Chosen Few Pt 1

Hello again!
Well, it's been another busy week or so since my last post, and I'm going to endeavour to get up to date on all the stuff I haven't mentioned that I've been doing up till now, so this might be a long one.

Ok, so first a few updates. I didn't get through to the next round of the Saatchi Art competition! I was disappointed, but not too surprised. I had a look at the 300 which did make it through to the next round, and I have no complaints really. There's some fantastic artworks there. Check it out for yourself if you are interested; here. Actually, I do kind of have a complaint. Hardly any photographic works! Which is obviously the reason mine didn't get chosen ; )
There were lots of abstract paintings, which I think my entry would have looked really good next to; that's one bit of comfort I take from not getting further, that I really do think my work was just as strong, and I like to think I'm honest with myself in these instances. If anything, I'm often pretty harsh on myself, so I think my judgement is sound. So, why didn't my picture go through? I dunno, could be lots of reasons; not being in that "inner circle" of artists whose name is already known, or not being established enough on Saatchi Art. (more on being one of the "chosen few" of the art world, later on). Also, I hope this isn't true, but maybe I'm picking up from the few photographic works in the final, that there is still a feeling in the art world that a photo can't be "Art" in the same way that a painting can. Saatchi Art prides itself on featuring a very modern kind of art, so that seems surprising. However, it does make me more than ever want to have a go at painting some of these images that I've been photographing, as I've recently discovered on Saatchi Art a couple of painters whose works that looks so much like mine, but in painted form rather than photographic;

"Day and Age" by David Frederik Mousallem

"Landmark" by Tracey Sweeney

You see, for me, my work is on a par with theirs, and actually has an extra layer of interest, because my images are of REAL things that I found, rather than things I created in my studio. But I guess, for some people, it's that act of creation that is the important bit. My work is partly about finding beauty in the world around us, so the photographic element is important, but I do feel like I maybe need to add some painted elements to put my stamp on what I'm doing. Maybe a collage mix of photographic and painted elements is the way forward... watch this space.

"Calligraffiti III" by Galen Cheney

Ok, because this will be a long post, let's break it up with some more lovely images. Here's a few of my favourite pictures that made it through to the next round of the "Showdown" competition:

"When I Close My Eyes" by Pien Van Der Beek

"High high" by Sunyoung Hwang

"MOD659" by Andrea De Ranieri

And just to prove I don't only like abstracts (although you begin to see what I mean about strong personal preferences in the last post!)...

"Jardin Du Luxembourg September, France" by Susanna Bark

Wow, some great work, and I could have picked another dozen I really liked. And, actually going back to see the things I voted for I see there was lots of other really great work that didn't make it into the top 300. So I'm not gutted at all. No. Not me. That's coming through really clearly, right?

So, to prove that I'm bouncing back from this rejection, I've entered some work for a big contemporary art show called the Open West. Of course, being me, I got my entry in at the last minute, but fingers crossed it should be before the deadline. Looking at work that has been selected in previous years, I (once again) think I have a pretty good chance. I paid a little bit more for entry so that I could put in 4 pictures instead of just two, as I think the more of my work you see the more it makes sense. So, here are the four pictures I entered, some more from the batch I recently processed from Budapest;

With the second here in particular you can see how the work I enter to show at art shows is a bit different from that which I print to sell commercially. I guess it's less about looking aesthetically pleasing and more about showing clearly what I'm about - the marks made by unseen hands, the layers and textures, perhaps the mash-up of text and graffiti that can be seen on your average urban wall, but is here given a bit of a twist. Anyway, I should know about whether I'm one of the lucky forty selected for the show by the 19th, so fingers once again crossed. Ok, as usual, it's time for me to go, and I STILL haven't got round to sharing all my news. So, for next time: more about "the chosen few" in the form of a workshop I attended at the weekend by a top London curator, plus a recent trip to a great art gallery I stumbled across by chance, plus my recent metamorphosis into a community artist! I'll try and get round to that tomorrow..or soon!   

New Year, New Adventures!

Hello everyone, and welcome to Photo Abstracts in 2014! The start of a whole new year! I have lots of plans for the coming 12 months, although still no over-arching "master plan". I guess it's early days yet, still. But for now, I have lots of ideas and projects to keep me busy! And so far, 2014 is looking promising!

Well, I think I can safely tell you now about one of the exciting things I was hinting at before the new year. I am going to be one of the exhibiting artists at Eccles Community Art Gallery from January 18th until February 8th! As I mentioned several posts ago, the lovely Karen, who is one of the ladies who runs the gallery, and I kept in touch after meeting at the Salford Arts Development evening, and she has booked me in as one of the artists for their first show of 2014! Yay!

 The gallery is a not-for-profit run place, whose chief aim is to bring art to the local community and to give local artists a platform to exhibit their work. As such, I'm not predicting huge volumes of sales from this event (which is probably the way to approach any exhibition anyway, in my experience so far), but I do think it should be an excellent way for me to build a local audience for my work, so it's really exciting for me!
The gallery is open 10-4pm on Saturdays, and 10-3pm on Tuesdays, and I am planning to be there all day on the opening day, Saturday the 18th of January, and for at least a part of each of the other days that the gallery will be open whilst my work is exhibited there. (That's Jan 21st,25th,28th and Feb.1st, 4th and 8th). So, of course, if you are anywhere near Eccles on any of those dates, you MUST pop in and say hello!.

Other exciting things that may come from this; I popped into the gallery yesterday to talk to Karen and meet Elaine, the other lady who runs the gallery, and they were telling me that they have good links with the local online news outlet,Salford online, so it might be possible to get a profile, and maybe even an interview up on their web page to coincide with the exhibition! Exciting opportunities indeed! Of course, if and when these things appear I shall post links to them here, but for now, here is the gallery's webpage and Facebook page.

In other news…. another little job I had on my "to do" list for the start of the year, was enter a Postcard for the International Postcard Show 2014, which is an annual exhibition run by the Surface Gallery in Nottingham, which sounds really interesting. I was going to explain how it works, but then realised they had already done it far better than I could hope to on their website, so I shall simply quote them;

"Surface Gallery is delighted to present our first exhibition of 2014, the International Postcard Show. This exciting exhibition is a highly popular event at Surface Gallery, with all entries accepted and included in the show. It will feature hundreds of original creations in an array of different media by established artists, students and newcomers from all over the world. Hundreds of postcard-sized artworks will be on sale during the exhibition at £15 each, so this is a fantastic chance for budding art collectors to snap up an original work of art at an affordable price.
Once again all participating artists will have the opportunity to exchange their postcard with another artist selected at random at the end of the exhibition. The aim of this remote exchange is to foster new connections and encourage ongoing communication amongst artists from diverse backgrounds and different parts of the world."

So, even if my postcard doesn't sell, I'll get an artwork back from another artist - I suspect that this is what will actually happen anyway, and I'm fine with that, as it sounds pretty exciting!

Anyway, I have mentioned before how I always leave things to the last minute, and this was no exception. The deadline is this Friday, and of course entries have to be mailed, so I rushed to get my entry completed yesterday morning before dashing to the post office in the pouring rain to get it sent. I only started it yesterday as well, so it was done in a bit of a hurry, but I am quite pleased with the result nonetheless. This is something I've been sort of experimenting with for a while, and want to do more of; using my photos to create collages. Ok, so enough yapping, here's my finished postcard:

The show runs from January 15th to February 8th - pretty much exactly the same as my exhibition in Eccles. But, if I can find the time, I'd quite like to go and have a look at it, as it seems like a really fun idea, and I'm curious to see what the other artists managed to squeeze onto their relatively small canvas!