Taking time to Develop new work.

Some exciting new work has started developing this month from a combination of 3 discussions I have had.

I was talking to Warwick Freeman about the proposal I am working out for Object Space. He edits my ideas fast, and I enjoy the aesthetic and direction he sends me on to make my artistic plinths and installations and the idea that I could stop there. Do they even need jewellery on them, Warwick asks? He sends me some references, and I start exploring this. It feels like it could be simple or bold and that it is my call how I approach it.

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Last minute I was included in the David Clarke workshop in Dunedin art school, I jump in the car and head on down the south island to join in. The workshop is getting us to think in a different way, to consider things from a new angle and develop ideas. It teaches us our own weaknesses and i learn how to pointedly ask for directed feed back so it is not open to a long winded dialogue. It makes me produce work fast and solve works for a porpoise. Do you hear what your making has to say, really listen to it? David asks. I am left with this lingering in my mind.

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We have just been nutting out the exhibition ideas Peter has for the show in Germany, and the restraint has packed up around us. When we pull ourselves away from our discussion and walk outside it is very late, cold and dark but we steal just a wee bit more time from the night. I am standing under a street lamp with Peter Deckers in Dunedin looking at my experimental jewellery out of the boot of my car. He is giving me a debrief just like he did when I was a student; it was so good to have the familiar language of an old friend's guidance. It is so nice when there is no beating around the bush. ( or should all feedback sessions be done in the cold?) His advice... Your a post-modernist so don't get caught up in minimalist ideas he tells me. Colour is your strength. 

I take these three conversations with me and let them hover in the ceiling of my studio as I approach another week of making.