Will Alsop's Box of Delights 3D Painting and the Healing Power of The Rag Market

Great to see these lit up mini 'street creatures' around The Public, the wondrous Will Alsop designed building in West Bromwich. 

A few weeks ago I had the brilliant experience of being part of the team which created Will Alsop’s Box Of Delights 3D painting at The Public in West Bromwich.

I was already very familiar with The Public as I exhibited some of my Frillip Moolog beings in the gallery there last year. I have spent hours in this exciting, bewildering, enchanting and also at times overwhelming building. 

A winter afternoon is so much more fun with some cerise lighting around the windows!

It is a place that you have to go to, to spend time in to absorb, and just to experience. It does defy description. 

The technicians hanging some of the huge Will Alsop paintings within the building.

Last year Exhibitions Manager Graham Peet first told me that Will Alsop has used the expression, 'A Box of Delights' to describe the building itself.

So it was no surprise to discover that the 3D painting that we were creating was also to be called a Box of Delights.

Creating the piece was a bit of a voyage of discovery; was I part of a team creating to Will’s direction, or was I one of several participants making a piece of community art? It was definitely a case of, “all will become clear in due course”. 

People came and went during the period of making. My son Dominic and I were two of the few who were there for all four days. On day one George Wade a senior architect working with Will Alsop at ALL Design led us, then on day two we had a smaller team and we mostly painted the large sheets of heavy weight watercolor paper. Will was there in person on days three and four and it was fantastic to see how he worked with what we had made and directed the creation of this piece of 3D art. 

It was a hive of activity in the gallery space.

Despite seeming very laid back we very definitely making a Will Alsop creation. “More chaos” was something that he kept asking for. More black fragments on the walls, and more large black sold shapes to intersperse throughout the other more colourful hanging elements. He wanted more of everything! 

Here Will explains it all to a visiting journalist. 

He was fun to be with, extremely relaxing but at the same time chivvying us on in a determined and masterful way. I must admit I did find it odd that he only added. He would ask for more but didn’t seem to say, "get rid of that". George had explained at the beginning that it was unlikely that Will would remove any of the elements but was much more likely to ask us to add more.

The projection of images and patterns from Will's sketchbook onto the 'Box of Delights' painting really added a lot of drama. 

George had explained at the beginning of the project that Will is interested in ‘pollution’ that we encounter in our visual lives and what we were making was a 3D painting which represented this ‘pollution’.

To add even more chaos and a disorienting feel to the experience there is an accompanying audio soundtrack which was created by Joss Widdowson

On the final day as we chatted I told George that I thought that Will would love the markets in Birmingham, (The Bull Ring Outdoor market, Indoor market and also the Rag Market).

I started to try to explain how this wonderful sensory overload of the markets is also incredibly calming to me. It is a place that I visit when I feel that I need to be grounded, get back to what is important and matters. It does all this and more...it nourishes my soul. 

I source lots for my own Frillip Moolog beings from this haberdashery stall. 

The vegetable stalls are just as exciting at the close of day as when they are thronging with customers.

Get your bras here. Every size and colour!

Fancy Tights is just across the way from one of my favourite hardware stalls. I love the juxtaposition, the organised chaos!

Bernie serves chips tea and lots of entertaining chat.

So for me the Birmingham markets make the most amazing 3D 'painting' and also give me the most wonderful creative 'nourishment'. I love the; people, personalities, colour (lots of colour Will!) and textures and that is why the Birmingham Markets are my box of delights. 

Maybe I have completely missed Will’s idea of pollution?

With Will Alsop; here I am sporting my vintage Red Nose Day t-shirt with plenty of paint spatters!

The Art Of Architecture series of exhibitions at The Public continues until 20th May 2012. Details here 

Inspired by Yayoi Kusama to explore infinite possibilties

Making sense of the world ... this is something that occupies my thoughts much of the time.

We take in our surroundings: the space; the walls; the scale of things; the emptiness; or even the overwhelming busyness, and if you allow yourself the chance to absorb these feelings you can think... think about possibilities and about about potential narratives.

I always carry my camera with me wherever I am and take a lot of photographs. These photos are not attempting to be art in themselves but they are such a powerful tool for me as an artist. They are an aide memoir and a reminder of those moments and surroundings that have touched me on a sensory level and which have sparked off a chain of thoughts.

When reviewing photos taken this last year I selected these few. The common thread through these images appears to be possibilities ie. the potential for something to happen, to occur and for a story to take place. 

I am interested that these images are often very empty. We humans only need the bare essentials, pared down to an essence distilled to a concentrate, to evoke a very particular feeling.

This stairwell (see image above) - what is it saying to me?

Timeless, mysterious, almost mirrored sculptural forms. Am I ascending or descending the steps? Am I even in this place? I can’t actually imagine a human body in this space, the composition is completely perfect as it I feel it could actually be 2D rather than 3D. Weird.

A curving corridor with atmospheric lighting. I still dream of a corridor very similar to this. It was a corridor that I first experienced as a child in Scotland. As a little girl my grandmother took me to visit her friends who owned a big (and mysterious) house near Stirling. I was so absolutely fascinated that there could be a curved corridor. The sensory memory of trailing my hand along the cold painted wall is still very very strong.

I suppose one aspect of these first two photographs is that we cannot see what is ahead. If there is light at the end of the tunnel/corridor it will be reflected off a wall before it hits my eyes. 

I imagine how things might change; take a twist. There are almost limitless possibilities...

Here we have a straight-ahead view photographed in the labyrinth that is the Barbican in London. Even though one should be able to see any approaching danger I still find this photograph unsettling; it feels that danger could pounce at any time. 

I feel vulnerable and exposed but maybe in this empty photograph there is potential rather than desertion?

I can’t help myself from completely needing humour in my life. I do wonder what the town planners and architects were thinking when they designed this entrance to a social housing complex which I photographed on my last visit to Edinburgh.  I am Scottish so am happy to laugh at my own nation’s emphasised patriotism manifested here in this this castleated wall. A wheely bin is the ‘perfect’ unexpected addition to this entranceway! 

I do seem to have a collection of photographs of car parks and this is one of my favourites.

 Can you believe the ‘excitement’ of driving round and round in this exposed spiral. I instantly felt as if I was inside the classic Fisher Price toy garage! 

Even when your view is saturated or overloaded this can also strangely give you ‘space’ to imagine and meditate on possibilities. 

I think when I first encountered Yayoi Kusama’s mirrored piece, The Passing Winter, exhibited in Tate Liverpool, I was mostly occupied with taking this photo capturing both mine and my son’s faces. But if I am able to spend time with this piece of art again I will use it to ‘travel’ to a far off place in my mind. The possibilities are infinite here and it is infact one of the works in Kusama’s infinity mirror series.

Just this week I read in the newspaper that many notable writers and thinkers throughout the ages have sworn by the power of walking for its ability to relax us and allow us to enter into a meditative and creative mindset. 

I walk through this meadow 3 or 4 times a week and this photo is one snapshot of my walk that I often return to in my dream time. (My half awake and half asleep state where I like to ponder and explore possibilities.) 

During the summer of 2011 I had a growing feeling that I had to somehow get my largest and latest-to-be-completed Frillip Moolog being (sculpture), Mi Wawa, into this same meadow. 

I felt that this was a place that Mi Wawa herself had to visit. 

I wanted to place her in this ancient location (it hasn’t been ploughed for over 100 years); I wanted the spires of Lichfield Cathedral to be in the background (is Mi Wawa religious?) and lastly, I wanted her to have some of the cows that were grazing there to keep her company.

I saw the potential of the meadow with the cathedral backdrop, I had a strong feeling about this space and wanted to use Mi Wawa  to complete my experience of it. 

People have asked me why I made this image and this post is my first attempt at explaining why I often feel the need to give my beings the opportunity to inhabit certain spaces.

Are these photos part of my practice? I suppose that they are; they evidence how I manifest just a fraction of the possibilities that I see around me.  

Mi Wawa will soon be spending time 'inhabiting' another English cathedral as I am one of the 55 artists selected to exhibit in The Open West.

The Open West, 2nd March- 31st March 2012

Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester UK  

Usherette on Duty

When a vintage motorbike with sidecar pulls up outside the venue calling itself Kirkland’s New Empire Bioscope you know it will be no ordinary trip to the cinema.

The Bioscope is an ongoing cinematic project between artists Elena Cassidy-Smith, Ruth Swallow and cinema buff John Bates. I was visiting on the last night of this four week project as my own film Trolley Happenings was being shown on their silver screen.

We climbed the stairs into the atmospheric cinema interior. With plenty of red, luxurious velvet and gold painted detailing there was immediately an air of theatricality and excitement.

I love all this kind of thing and so was especially delighted to be one of the artists whose film had been selected to shown on the screen in the Bioscope.

From left to right: Elena Cassidy-Smith, Kirsty E Smith and Ruth Swallow.

And not just any screen but one with a unique handmade proscenium.

I love the fact that the pelmet fringing above the screen was made from hair bobbles!

This really appeals to my interest in the provenance of materials used by artists. I am fascinated by the creative use of everyday items.

Not surprisingly during the evening I found my eyes wandering to the fringing on more than one occasion. I felt that it was even better than the lovely rich red fringing that I had used to trim my film booth when I presented Trolley Happenings as part of my show in the 2010 Liverpool Biennial.

Elena and I also have some common passions; tea trolleys being one of them.

Elena serves refreshments from her trolley during the interval on the final evening of Kirkland's New Empire Bioscope.

At one point in the evening I found myself launching into a description of one of my favourite Magic Roundabout episodes; the one where Ermintrude fancies her chances as a TV presenter. She swishes her tail and rolls a daisy in her mouth as she reaches her head through the cut-out screen of cardboard television and says, “Drink more milk darlings”.

It is at this point that I can get strange looks. I will have made one of my frequent tangental links in my head but instead of keeping it there I have spoken it out loud. The result is that people wonder why I seem to have changed the subject completely.

The explanation in simple!

The drama within this lovely little cinema was gentle and fun and not at all po-faced. It was playful while at the same time being respectful of a bygone era.

So back to Ermintrude... I love the original Magic Roundabout (with Eric Thompson doing the voiceover). It was fun and magical too; the link in my mind was that same happy feeling and a sense of childlike adventure.

Elena had made a beautiful mini-cinema (modeled on The Scala cinema, one of Wolverhampton’s old cinemas- built 1913, demolished 2006). She made this model especially to present her exceedingly old copy of a home made Alice in Wonderland film.

The story that she told me about this film made it even more intriguing. The filmmaker used his wife and children as the actors (his wife as the March Hare) and much of it was filmed in a public garden.

Her piece made me think of both dolls’ houses and imaginary miniature worlds.

In my short film Trolley Happenings, almost all of the action takes place within a hostess trolley. And most of the performers/characters that feature are little things that usually live on my mantle piece. Before dashing off to the Forkbeard Fantasy Summer School (where the film was made) the last things that I threw into the car happened to be these few vital mantel piece 'friends'.

To summarise some of the most interesting connections:

• Hostess trolleys - Elena’s refreshments trolley and the one I used as a setting in Trolley Happenings

• Evocative red velvet curtains - that one is obvious

• Vintage projectors - I have used one as the central object within my film, and John asked me straight away about it, most people don’t realise that this machine with interesting knobs is in fact a vintage film projector.

So as I happily watched Trolley Happenings in the theatrical setting of this unique recreation of a 1930's cinema, I smiled to myself when my little one eyed waxed sponge monster did what I have always called his ‘Dougal Move’. The stop-motion animation process resulted in it appearing to swizzle about just like Dougal (coincidentally another character from The Magic Roundabout)!

But how do you explain a chain of all those thoughts in a clear and concise manner?

In conversation this is extremely difficult and we all know it's hard not to sound like someone who is jumping around subjects!

It’s interesting how one person’s ‘normal’ can be another person’s ‘a bit too weird’. When it comes to surreal I love it but to others it can be disturbing and strange, sometimes even in an uncomfortable way.

I wonder, if surreal is served up with a dash of humour does that make it easier to cope with?

I am asking this because descriptions of Trolley Happenings range from strange and weird to surreal and Jan Svankmajer-esque. So a bit too bizarre for some and quite understandable for others. However no matter which end of the spectrum viewers are on they all laugh at the very same comedy moment, so at least there is no doubt about that element of the film!

A still showing the comedy moment.

In another Magic Roundabout episode, called 'Watch the Birdie', Dougal uses an old fashioned camera with a dark cloth to cover his head and keep out the light.

As soon as I spotted this camera (see above) in The Museum of the History of Science in Oxford earlier this year I immediately thought not only of Dougal and that Magic Roundabout episode but also of this....

A prop from a Forkbeard Fantasy production which I saw behind the scenes on the film making course - another reminder of my very visual memory and the connections I often make.

So everything makes complete sense... at least to me!

I have been an avid follower of Forkbeard Fantasy for 13 years now. They intersperse live action on stage with film and projection. They have a completely off-the-wall sense of humour (quite normal in my eyes) and their productions are exceedingly surreal. To make a final cinematic link I must mention one of their shows 'The Fall of the House of Usherettes' (first staged in 1995 and set in an old cinema). To find out more about Forkbeard Fantasy don’t miss their residency at The Southbank Centre, London. 2nd Dec 2011- 8th Jan 2012.