ron mueck

I was recently reading about Ron Mueck’s Mother and Child, one of his smaller, approx half life size sculptures, of a mother startled by the presence of her new born baby resting slimy on her stomach. Apparently the curator Colin Wiggins took his own mother to the exhibition and she stood in front of the sculpture speechless for a long time. Finally she said ‘Yes, that’s what it is like’. I would love the audience to react that way to my work. It is somewhat surprising that this work is by a male artist, but it seems certain that his mother-in-law, Paula Rego, has had an influence on his work. I am more interested in how motherhood could enhance the direction of women artists work. I am particularly excited when my audience recognise something in my work that is relevant to their experience of motherhood or childhood memory.

living room

This three screen high definition video artwork is a family portrait of types. It is a rather claustrophobic and chaotic piece that pretty accurately reflects the dominance that the children have in our shared space over the holiday period. This is a stage in a much larger body of work that I have been developing around images of childhood that, I hope, show something other than ‘innocence’. Since the late 90s I have been interested in my son’s games, words, songs and drawings and have made other work around these themes. Recently my daughter is also becoming part of this work.

Good job my kids like performing. They have both seen the piece and given it the thumbs up. That’s great because I think the dialogue I have with my kids about the work I make is really important. I continue to ponder the implications of featuring my children in artwork that I might exhibit publicly and want to include them as part of a playful process in it’s development. I hope they regard the resulting images as representing celebration, desire, passionate attachment as well as difficulty, trouble and tension. Already I am aware that Sam’s view of what I make changes rapidly with the passage of time and this is something that I hope to look at in future work.

living room

This is an experiment in posting an image - a still from the 3 screen HD video work made for the National Review of live art. I hope to try to post some video in the near future.

playground facilities for 10+ kids

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/mar/30/children.health
Having read the link above, I wonder if Waverley could provide more facilities for the 10+ age group in Rowledge/Boundstone area. A baskball hoop on the rec or Burnt Hill Road field (with one swing only!!). In the recent refurbishment of playground equipment there was nothing for this age group. My 10 year old is not interested in slides!! We need somewhere safe and fun for our kids in double figure to meet up. As a lecturer Digital Screen Arts I am well aware of the results of Tanya Byron's enquiry into kids' online lives but they need to balance indoors activity with outdoor activity and, for this age group, this means independent play and social activity as well as organised activities.
Rosie Gunn
Senior Lecturer - Digital Screen Arts
University College for the Creative Arts

Dear Rosie,

Thank you for your email. I will endeavour to answer your questions and I will also forward your email to our Parks Department who are responsible for fixed play equipment in the borough which includes development and refurbishment. My role as the Communtiy Development Officer for Youth is to work with local partners both voluntary and statutory for young people aged 13 to 19 years and 25 if they have a special need, however I am fully aware that there is a gap in provision for 9 and upwards in the way of fixed play equipment. The borough has recently been awarded a Big Lottery Children's Play Grant to develop play provision in the borough and in order to obtain the grant we had to develop a play strategy (please find attached) which highlighted the need to create areas for the older age group. When applying for the funding we had to identify the projects we would like to develop in partnership with the local community. The Big Lottery Fund will be used to create an over 9's playground in Cranleigh, a multi use games area at Holloway Hill in Godalming and to fund a 3 year play project coordinator who's role will be to develop play activities in the rural areas of the borough and help deliver the action plan in conjunction with other departments and local communities in the borough. The plan is that this officer will be able to work with local communities to help source funding and develop further activities. The officer should be in post by the end of May. Over the past few years the council has installed a range of fixed activities for the older age group which include 4 skate parks, 4 multi use games area across the borough and has worked in partnership with various agencies to provide youth shelters and further games areas and older children play areas. The council is continuing to develop this work to other areas of the borough. If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me or contact Ann James from the parks department on 01483 523447 or at ann.james@waverley.gov.uk kind regards katie Katie WebbCommunity Development Officer (Youth)Waverley Borough CouncilEnvironment and LeisureThe BurysGodalmingSurreyGU7 1HRTel No: 01483 523340 or 0784 161 8630For further information on young people in Waverley visit http://www.waverley.gov.uk/youngpeople/

research and working from home

Despite two 10 year olds 'wrestling' on the Wii behind me I have managed to complete student feedback on the recent digital imaging project so I will hopefully be ahead of myself at the end of the semester. This is around the time my 'official' research time will start, so it's important to try to clear the decks if I am actually to achieve anything in 10 days.

Last year I spent most of my off campus research time in June and July looking for sheltered accommodation for my mother and father who subsequently moved into the area in November. My mother has been ill in hospital almost ever since and is due to be discharged next week. Balancing work and research with family and home has been quite a major challenge since about this time last year. I haven't managed to make a research presentation at UCCA, but figure that is probably OK since I made two presentations the previous year. I also achieved an 'output' ahead of taking my research leave. I made a three screen high definition video work 'living room' that was shown at the National Review of Live Art, Tramway, Glasgow and subsequently travelled to Thessalonika for the Strange Screen Festival.

Anyway - the pressure is on to achieve another output soon. I have thought about going back to an archive of old work created pre-family to publish a book or create a website, but I am not sure my heart is in this project. I want to move on and devote precious time to projects that are more relevant to my life as it is now.

Communications? O2, DHL and South West Trains

This is a rant. I spent all day Friday waiting for my new mobile phone to be delivered by DHL. It didn't arrive. A day of the children's holiday wasted! DHL's website tracking system is down all weekend, 02 customer services are sympathetic, but offer no effective help. I have no idea where it is or when it will arrive apart from the fact that I have clearly stated I will be at work Monday and Tuesday. I arrive at work today (Monday) and O2 have sent me an email saying it will be delivered to my home address today. So much for the new age of communication!! However I will receive a £10 credit - whoopee...

All this is somewhat ironic after my attempts last weekend to get to the Filmobile conference were scuppered by South West Trains. I spent all Saturday morning travelling between Farnham-Woking-Farnham and not reaching London due to engineering works and eventual signal failure too. Needless to say I still don't have a refund for my ticket.

What should I blog about?

Over the last few days I have been trying to think how I should use this blog. Will it just be for research purposes, or should it also examine more personal concerns. Like many other women artists, I find it so difficult to seperate out all the layers of my life (particularly when the children are on Easter break!!). In fact much of my research and visual work is about family life, so it seems quite important to take a holistic approach to writing this if it is to serve any useful purpose in moving on my ideas and saying something relevant to any possible interested audience somewhere down the line.

My 4 year old daughter joins my 10 year old son at school September so I am beginning to think about what to do with a bit more time on my hands. I went to a SEEDA funded conference about women setting up their own businesses which was quite inspiring. I have a few ideas that I may try to develop - perhaps as a 'social enterprise' - but my thoughts are still taking shape. I want to draw some connections between my teaching at the University College for Creative Arts, my own photo/video practice, the students and their work. Perhaps some sales opportunities - artmarket for all concerned together with workshop/networking opportunities - but not sure what format will pull all those strands together. I belong to the 'Home Interaction Research Cluster' (they haven't included my name on web page yet!) at UCCA and 'The Home' - as a 'container' for the family and (in contradication!) as a working base - will be a significant feature in developing my ideas. http://www.ucreative.ac.uk/index.cfm?articleid=17006

Testing Testing 123

I have been thinking about creating a much-needed web presence for a while now. Daunted by the task of creating a 'proper' web site, here I am with a first attempt at blogging. Hopefully this will be a place for me to collect my thoughts about past, present and future projects. Let's see how it goes...