Still not stowed away

We have set ourselves a challenging task for Stowage: making small-scale work that's bold enough to hold its own in a retail environment while still retaining depth and meaning.

My idea about cramming unlikely objects into the jar is proving hard to resolve. The only thing that fits it neatly is a hand!

Forthcoming shows

Stowage, West Quarter, Exeter 17th April - 14th May 2010. Group show in city shop windows with 22 other invited artists. http://www.foundspace.co.uk/

Gabrielle Hoad: Flown, National Trust Greenway near Brixham, Devon 2nd June - 27th June 2010. Solo show featuring drawings and paintings evocative of absence, escape and moments lost in time.

New studio

Here's my dirty new studio, about to be cleaned and painted so I can make it dirty again. On loan for six months, maybe longer.

The power of art

My review of Control Point: A Temporary Facility at Plymouth Arts Centre has just been published in a-n magazine.

Skywriting

Making more bird flight tracings – this time for a bird-themed show in June. This isn’t the best time of year for observing interesting flight patterns, but these are possibly my last few days with such a clear view of the sky from my studio.

Talking to myself?

Though hardly an expert on the subject, I’m helping to prepare a seminar on Samuel Beckett. The original speaker has had to drop out at short notice so we’re making plans to discuss the Channel 4 film of Play and the borrowed idea of soliloquy in relation to art practice. Is making and reflecting on art a way of talking to oneself or could it be construed as a dialogue with something you have made? How might ideas of soliloquy or dialogue that we hold in relation to our work affect the way we make our work and the way we present it to an audience?

More cramming

Thoughts on Stowage. http://foundspaceuk.blogspot.com
Can I cram a bicycle in a sweet jar? Or possibly a typewriter? It has to be something big and fascinatingly mechanical. If not, Plan B - detritus from my life, layered up like rock strata.