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I have decided to include the background images from this website in the exhibition as I feel they are part of the project. It will also give people a feel for my more usual work. They are going to be shown mounted and framed and I dropped the prints off at a framer in Largs today. The end is now in sight and I hope all the works will be ready for hanging soon.
I attended another “Artist Supper” at the Gamble Halls in Gourock this evening. This was not just a social evening for artists as this time we had a presentation from Garry Williamson from Riverside Inverclyde. Riverside Inverclyde is a public/private sector initiative that is regenerating over four and a half miles of scenic waterfront from Port Glasgow to Greenock. Part of this project is the development of a new Business Centre which is to be housed in the building that was formerly Pottery Street School in Greenock and it was this proposal that was under discussion at the meeting.
The former school building, with its quirky layout and turetts, has been beautifully restored and Alec Galloway has been commissioned to create two of his wonderful stained glass windows which will make the whole building quite spectacular. For those unfamiliar with the building - broadly speaking it has a Charles Rennie Mackintosh feel to it, similar to Scotland Street School in Glasgow which he designed.
It is anticipated that the Ladyburn Business Centre, as it is to be called, will ultimately be home to social enterprise and not-for-profit businesses. There are thirty classroom areas within the building and six of them will be Artist Studio spaces. This prompted much discussion by the artists present and not a little controversy!
Yesterday and today I have been in the Museum having photographs taken to accompany the Greenock Telegraph feature about the Timewinds exhibition. I think there should now be enough photos for a whole colour supplement! I feel most strange when I am on the other side of the lens and find it hard not to put my tuppence worth in about how the shots should be taken!
I got lots of positive comments from the journalist and photographer about the works which was very encouraging. I hope the visitors to the exhibition are as pleased with my efforts.
I dashed along to Wemyss Bay this afternoon to get a copy of the Greenock Telegraph - and yes the double page feature was included. Everything printed well and I hope Claire's accompanying text will encourage people to visit the exhibition to find out more.
My friend Catriona Henderson, who is the Arts Development Officer for Inverclyde, has sent out e-invitations to the exhibition to a long list of people including all members of the TAIT (The Arts for Inverclyde Team). I hope many of them will manage to come along. I can't thank Catriona enough for all the help and encouragement she has given me with my work over the years and sending out these invitations is just one example of many!
Catriona is one of the people whose comments on the works I am looking forward to hearing as she is a talented and knowledgeable artist in her own right. Over the years she has expressed a wish to my work printed at a bigger size so I hope she likes what she sees!
The invitations are now back from the printers and have all been posted so that is another box ticked! They look very professional and I hope they will make a good impression. I am pleased with the image I chose to be included on the invitations as it has quite a mysterious feel which I hope will capture people's imagination.
It is all beginning to loom large now and I suspect my nerves will start to show over the next few days.
Friday the 13th – two months in a row. I tend to be a bit superstitious and two of these unlucky dates in the final run up to the exhibition is almost too much.
However I am pleased to say everything went smoothly today. First, I had a meeting with Alec Galloway about his part in opening the exhibition. He has put an enormous amount of work into preparing his speech. His enthusiasm for my past work, and for this residency project in particular, is very encouraging and means a lot to me and I cannot thank him enough. However he is keeping the content of his speech under wraps as he wants it to be a surprise on the day!!
In the afternoon I thought I deserved a bit of a relax and I visited my friend and "partner in crime" the artist Agnieszka Mizia.
Over the past two days the works have been hung at the Museum and everything is now in place. There is one wall for the African works and on the opposite wall are the Ancient Egyptian pieces. All are large stretched canvas prints.
The third wall has the works from the pages of this website and the heritage pieces which are all mounted and framed prints. There is a small separate section on this wall where the Rabbie Burns work hangs on its own and it looks good in the space.
The Mclean has an excellent lighting system but it requires scaffolding to be set up to make the lighting adjustments after the pieces are hung in their final positions. This has now all been completed and I think it makes the works look even more striking. I hope all the visitors to the exhibition share my view!!
The fine tuning to the audio–visual has now been done and I have had a trial run on the “big screen”. It looks just as I hoped it would. At such a size it is spooky and full of mystery and the music certainly adds to that atmosphere. I have particularly enjoyed this part of the work for the residency and I am definitely going to create more of this type of AV in the future as I feel they are so different.
Well, that is the big day over and happily all went well - the works were well received and I can relax now. There was an excellent turn out of guests – old friends and new, from all parts of my life, and I really appreciate the support they gave me. It is very interesting that my non-art friends also seemed to really enjoy the event - a different kind of "day-out" for them!
Alec Galloway's speech to open the exhibition was amazing and very flattering – I could hardly believe it was my work he was talking about! He certainly has a way with words and I am grateful for all the time and effort he put into writing it.
I have an old video camera which I decided to put on a tripod and left it to run unattended. This turned out to be a great idea as it went largely unnoticed by most of those in shot. It means I am able to see more of what was happening on the day!
The Museum staff did well with the catering and the spread looked magnificent. One comment from a guest was that it looked like a work of art itself so I can't thank them enough for all they did to make the day a success.
So all that remains now is to wait and see what the visitors to the exhibition have to say about the work!!
I have had a bit of a relax today. My friend and I visited the site of a proposed regeneration project to create a fusion of art lifestyle and wellbeing at a rural location between Loans and Dundonald in South Ayrshire. The project is the brainchild of Robert Singer who is an artist and yoga teacher to name but two of his many talents.
I enjoyed listening to what he proposes to do and found it very interesting. It will be an enormous undertaking which will take a lot of time to progress but hopefully it can begin with the more readily achievable and the rest can grow from there. Robert has a lot of enthusiasm and drive and if anyone can make it happen, I am sure he will.