Competition Time!

Ah man, usual problem. Weeks fly by, and no new blog posts from me. I just seem to be busy a lot. What am I doing? Sometimes I don't know - the time just seems to speed past me whilst I stand still. But hey, actually, now I come to think of it, I did do a few things these past few weeks, so let me tell you about them.
The first thing I did was a week's worth of workshops at Salford Museum and Art Gallery. This was an opportunity I had applied for a few months ago. It was an open tender for artists to apply for to get the work, and I was really pleased to hear I was selected over quite a few other applicants to deliver the workshops, which I also had to plan. The exhibition was about the history of a local blind charity, so my idea was to make "tactile art", pieces that have touch, sound and even smell as integral elements. Here are some pictures of my initial versions, that I made in the planning stage.

Sensory picture of Thomas Henshaw, founder of Henshaw's
Society for the Blind

Sensory rainmaker

The idea behind these pieces was to introduce as many senses apart from sight, as possible. So the picture of the charity's founder is made up of many different textured surfaces. The rainmaker, which produces a sound, is also covered in differently textured objects, and a bit of pot pourri can be put inside with the lentils that make the noise to introduce a third sense, that of smell. So, this is what I made with the children that came to see the exhibition over half term. Generally, everything went really well; the kids were all great and very creative and engaged with the idea, and the activity made people more curious about the exhibition and its themes, so I'm pretty sure that means it was a success! The only problem I had, to be thought about for next time I do an activity like this, is that I misjudged which activity of the two would be the most popular. Oh course, I now know, if you have a choice between an object that makes noise and one that doesn't, 9 kids out of 10 will choose the noisy one! Obvious when you think about it!

Here is some of the work that the participants made:

 

 

 

 

Overall it was a really great experience, and if I can only get a bit more work like this, I'll be all set for my career as a community artist/artist! Hopefully this will prove to be a good calling card when I try and get other commissions like this.

In other news... back on the other side of my "job", I may have mentioned before that I made the decision to stop doing markets for a while. I just wasn't making any money doing them, in fact, sometimes I was actually losing quite a lot of money. The annoying thing is, I kept having this nagging feeling that if I just got my product selection/pricing/marketing/you-name-it right, then the big bucks would come rolling in. So I may return to doing markets one day, when I have that all figured out.
In the meantime, I met this guy called Simon at many of the markets I went to, where he was selling loads of great quality fine art prints under the name of Wraptious. Now, he has a really good business model that works well at markets, as he works with lots of different artists that all produce work for him to sell as various things - prints, cards, mugs etc. So instead of just having one style of work on his stall, he has about 20. This is clearly a very good idea.
He is currently running a competition for someone to be the next artist that he works with, and I want to be it!! I had to submit 3 images of my work, and it had to be work that isn't currently for sale anywhere else, so that discounted a lot of my best shots. I have some new work based on pictures I have taken in Manchester, but I wasn't sure they were of the right type to have mass market appeal. I have a new photo series that I'm working on, but it's not quite ready to unveil (more on that in another post, I think). So that left me with some of my recent painting work that I have been doing in my studio, which has been going GREAT!! Again, this is a topic I might return to, as there's lots of images to share. So,  I took some close up shots of some of my recently completed painting work, played about on the computer a bit, and submitted it! I was really happy with all 3 of the finished pieces - now I just have to hope the general public likes them.
Now, dear blog reader, this is where you come in! The way I become the next Wraptious artists is if I generate lots of "Likes" of Facebook for my work, or if I sell any prints through the Wraptious website. So, what I'm going to to do post pictures of the three works I entered, with the link to where you can "like" it underneath, so if you do like it (let's be honest here!) and you feel like helping me out (pretty, pretty please?!) you can click on the link and it's a very simple job to then "like" it. We gotta deal??

"Diana's Dream" Click to like

"Minerva's Dream" Click to like

"Neptune's Dream" Click to like

So, there they are. If you liked any of those thanks very much. Please reward yourself with a cookie or some other delightful treat. If you REALLY like them, you can also buy them from Wraptious as high quality prints for the length of time the competition is on (until November 25th). Just go to the competition website page, HERE.

Ok, that's all from me for now, I'll be back with more, hopefully soon!

What are the chances?

Right! Time to roll up the sleeves this Autumn and blog! I've been really neglecting it lately, partly from busyness, then from being on holiday, and then simply from a bit of blogging inertia, but that's all going to change! Oh yes! Really!

Ok, so what have I been up to? Well, loads of stuff. The Geocaching project I mentioned in the last post has finished now, and I think it was pretty successful. As a side shoot from that I have got quite into going Geocaching as a hobby, so maybe more about that another time. As I mentioned, we set up a Geocache to go on the global network as part of the project, but having submitted it I haven't been given the OK by the official Geocaching organisation, so it's not live yet. Chasing that up is one of the things on my "to do" list, so I'll let you know if it does make it. Having found a few official Geocaches myself now, I have a feeling they may ask us to move it, as it's currently pretty easy to find.

Other than that, I've been away in Hungary for three weeks. Hungary is kind of my second home, as it's where my husband's from, and I lived there with him for five years in 2000-2005, and we still go back regularly to see family and friends. 

We were based in Budapest which was a great place to live, and was/is full of young creative people making waves at ground level, not least my friend Peti, aka Petyka, who's a super talented street artist. Check out his website for lots of examples of his work, but here's one of my favourites, featuring lots of Budapest's architectural landmarks both famous and everyday, mixed up and given a cool urban twist. We own this as a large print and it always reminds me of Budapest whenever I glance at it.

Anyway, what I was trying to say was, although there's a good creative energy in the place, one thing it was lacking was a really good art gallery that put on internationally important shows. I've seen lots of interesting smaller exhibitions in various places over the years, but the national collections don't have a lot of great art in them, and the bigger shows have also been a bit lacking in star quality. However, I've been to a couple of art shows in the Hungarian National Gallery in the last year or so that make me think they are really trying to up their game. The first was a show about Post-Impressionism that I saw back in October that was excellent, and on this trip I saw a show about Dada and Surrealism that was awesome. Read more about it at the museum's webpage. It was full of really great work by the big names of the movement(s), and it was particularly resonant for me as I have been reading a book lately about chance in art that talked about a lot of the artwork here, including Marcel's Duchamp's 3 Standard Stoppages

In this work, Duchamp took metre long lengths of thread, and let them fall onto a canvas covered in glue. He then made these wooden measuring tools based on these new "standard" shapes that he had randomly created. This really chimed with a lot of things I have been thinking about in my art lately, where I want to try and actively re-create the chance marks you can see in my photographs. But how to make "random" marks? This is the question I've been trying to solve. I'm not sure I've come up with the answer yet, but here was my first attempt...

Yeah, so it's a random video of me hitting tennis balls covered in paint against some old wallpaper. Pretty surrealist, huh? I actually did this a few months ago. I had the idea and just went for it. This again shows the benefit of having a studio, you can try these crazy things and not worry that you're going to get paint everywhere. I want to try again in a bigger space, and maybe with more people involved instead of just me. But in the meantime, I think it did produce some pretty interesting images. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but they're interesting.

Ok, as usual, more to tell you about, but let's do it later, OK?

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... 

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!   

Inspirations and Experimentations Part 2

So, where were we? Oh yeah, things that inspire me.
Last time I was talking about how Rothko was one of my most important inspirations. I guess that's what gives my photos such a painterly quality; I trained as a painter (I also studied Fine Art at uni) and in some ways I still think like one, and take a lot of my inspiration from painters. A couple more abstract painters I think I am influenced by, would be, Patrik Heron:

and Howard Hodgkin:

So I guess those are the big famous guys that I look up to; the ones I own books about, have been to exhibitions of, had prints up on my wall and so on. But there are a few more obscure artists as well. Plus, the more I get into this project, the more I am getting interested in my photographic medium, and I am trying to think more about how I can actually shape my images using its unique attributes, and so I find I am getting inspired by some photographers as well.

OK, so an obscure artist first. Very obscure. He's called Balint Szombathy, and I discovered a book about him by chance in a bookshop in Budapest when I was there last year. The book is called "Signs of the City 1971-2012" and it features many photos like mine. I was really excited when I discovered it, to think that here was someone thinking very much along the same lines as me, but I was far enough along with my own work that I could feel like I hadn't been too influenced by him, I couldn't be accused of "stealing" his ideas, as I guess intellectual property has to be jealously guarded. Or maybe not. I read a quote recently which went something like this "Don't worry about developing your own style, as it will emerge naturally in everything you do". So I guess as long as the person being influenced isn't interested in nicking the idea wholesale, everyone can come out a winner.

Anyway, I had the thrill of discovering a kindred spirit when I picked up this book, that's how it felt to me. Like me, Szombathy had wandered around cities and kept his eye on the inconsequential details that others overlook, and had created quite abstract images from them. For the main, they are a lot less colourful and artistically composed than mine; which isn't to say worse, just more interested in documentary realism perhaps.

Here is an example, from my copy of his book, hence the weird curved pages:

Actually, the act of taking this photo made me look at the pictures afresh, as individually perhaps the composition isn't interesting, but taken as a foursome there is something really compelling about these images. Maybe the colours are reminding me a lot of Rothko again, I do seem to keep coming back to him, but it also made me think that a possible future direction for me would be to simplify my individual photos, but them mount them in a set with other pictures. That's the great thing about visual arts, if you keep your eyes and mind open, the sources of inspiration are endless!

Ok, that's all for today, but there's a lot more left for another day!