Out There: A long and rambling final rationale.

When I chose to be in the marketing aspect of this exhibition I had no idea about the extent to the hard work that would be involved. We started off well with lots of good ideas but were left waiting to get the ball rolling for quite sometime until the name had been decided, the theme was chosen and the overall look had been designed which were all jobs done by different teams.

Once we got going we were lucky that Beth managed to blag us some free posters, which when they finally arrived looked amazing and we had been given A3 posters instead of the A4 that they offered which was even better. We struggled with getting any free drinks, so that was a job that had to be left to fundraising to try and gain some cash to pay for it. The posters have been put in various places from student areas, general public places and some even in the art gallery to encourage people from the art world to attend which should hopefully make for a full and fun opening night.

It was decided to have luggage tags as something to hand out as a marketing device, effectively as a flyer. It was my job to source all the luggage tags and I found a really useful website which delivered them quickly and efficiently which was great. I ordered 250 to be used as flyers and a further 1000 which will be used as a window display at the exhibition.

Screen printing the flyers was quite difficult. A group of us helped out creating almost a production line so that we could get all 250 printed quickly. I think that the red ink on the brown luggage tags work really well. The main issue was getting the consistency of the ink right so that you could read the information properly. These flyers are unique and can be tied to trees and left in places which makes them really useful. We cannot just hand the flyers out because I looked into getting a flyer licence and it was going to cost £75 for one person to have a pass!

My job was also to contact the main players of the art world and try to get them to the exhibition. I spent a lot of time on the internet searching for contact details of artists, tutors, curators, arts groups, gallery people and many more and then sending them the details and an invite to our show.

It was useful that we were able to have a website to direct people to and on that website you can view everyone’s work. Ruth did a really good job with that and Emily’s piece of writing on there is great too.

Now the exhibition is on the horizon and its all now up to logistics to get everything to the site safely and curators to get it all looking fantastic. All that’s left for marketing is to push our online presence on facebook and get the invite sent out on LVAF again the day before the exhibition. Booze has been purchased and bubble wrap is on hand, so fingers crossed it’ll all go well.

In conclusion, putting on this exhibition has not been without its problems. Our main issue has been communication, making sure everyone is on the same page. The most annoying thing has been when people have not attended a meeting and then have a lot of things to moan about afterwards when things have already been decided. Actually getting people to help has been another main concern, the same few people have actually had an input in this show and that’s not because they wanted to but due to necessity because a lot of people had no interest or care in the whole thing. It makes me feel angry that they are actually allowed to exhibit anything in this show when they contributed literally nothing to the making of it (the actual hard work). We have learnt a lot from this exhibition which will help us next year when it comes to putting on our end of year show. We know who will and won’t help and we know when things need to be done for so that we aren’t left waiting to get other parts started. So because of these lessons that have been learnt… the whole Lost Property exhibition has been useful overall.

As for blogging, it has been quite a good experience because I tend to go to these exhibitions without paying too much attention but I have learnt how to look properly now and think about how the whole thing has been put on. By writing about what I’ve seen it gives me somewhere to collect my thoughts and images for future reference so I might consider blogging again.

I have created a gallery blog for my work which is here: http://lauracarterart.blogspot.com/

Logistical issues!

The logistics of getting our sculptures to our exhibition space has not been an easy task. We have found that just in transporting our sculptures to and from the lighting studio they have started to die a little, especially the two cats. This is because we did not build a wooden support structure internally with them as they were the first sculptures we built. We have had to have a last minute re-build of the cats backs.

Luckily we have been using our girlie charm with the blokes in woodwork and have got them to build us some stretchers for transporting the sculptures, one for each. They have hand holes and holes for a rope to thread through holding the pieces in place. Each sculpture will be bubble wrapped and wrapped with cardboard too. Hopefully this should get each piece to the shop unit in a good state.



This is our spot at the exhibition site. we have a plug and we have a dark room with no working lights which is perfect for what we need. I quite hoped that the floor would be a darker colour but I still think our white sculptures will look good in there. We want to light our sculptures partially so that they look as if they're emerging out of the dark subconcious into reality.



We are going to use these spot lights (£1.99 in home bargains) which have a nice soft white light and just have it sat on the floor, wires exposed but taped down so that they are safe.

Marketing Updates

Well things are coming together now. The posters have arrived so we're gonna get them out and about. Luckily Beth has managed to get them in the art gallery which is great and we'll get them up in various shops etc. The posters look great, its really nice to see them around college and stuff, it finally feels a bit like it will actually happen!



I e-mailed a big list of important folk yesterday with an invite to the show. I researched for hours for e-mail addresses. People on the list include: lots of art related staff from leeds met and leeds uni, PSL people, ESA, the arts council people, artists I've met at a few exhibitions, the people from the art walk, some of the art magazine people and even Steve Manthorpe who taught us for that other module and many more.


Yesterday we had a meeting with Yvonne at the space. It was quite embarrasing at how little people turned up and Yvonne wanted to know what was going where but we couldn't really tell her beacause we actually didn't know since we haven't seen some people since christmas.

She asked us for names of people who she can give to the security guards for keys. The names we gave her are me, Michael and Emily, so if anyone collects the key on a day that one of us are not there, then they need to say it is on our behalf as a security reference.

We asked Yvonne about putting the tags that I sourced in the windows as a display. She told us that we cannot stick anything on the inside of the window because of the sprinklers for health and safety reasons. We can stick them on the outside or hang them slightly back from the windows. We can decide where abouts they go once we get there. We have over 1000 tags to use so there should be pleanty.


Finally the tags and flyers are screen printed. It was very difficult to get the consistancy right but they say what they need to say and have been given out to people who we hope will help us with distribution. We can't just hand the flyers out because I looked into a flyer liscence and that was £75 for one person! so we'll do it a legal and cunning way instead. So now the job for us marketing people really is to just keep pushing the LVAF thing, the fliers and getting the posters everywhere we can.

Sending an invite to YOUR contacts

Anyone wanting to send an invite to one of your contacts, here is how to get the code.

Follow this link --> http://s12.photobucket.com/albums/a208/Koolkitten2/?action=view&current=Lostproperty.jpg

Copy the HTML code that is to the left of the image. Paste that HTML code into your e-mail.

Thankies.

Tramway

This piece at the Tramway by Christoph Buchel was something that left me feeling horrified and amazed and still thinking about it for days afterwards. I don't really think I've ever been particually moved by a piece of art before, not like that anyway. Its hard to describe this piece except that you find yourself going from a pub...to a prison and then to a plane crash that is being pieced back together but you are totally unsure why.

A review by the skinny said: "Exploring Büchel’s work is a strange and affecting experience, provoking many contradictory reactions from moment to moment, excitement-dread-pleasure oddly coexisting and leaving us confused, drained yet oddly fulfilled when we are eventually spat out back at the entrance. Go."

In this review by the guardian it says "Büchel makes other installation artists look like wimps"

Turn It On Again - Glasgow Visit

We were introduced to Connor Kelly by Niall Macdonald and shown around his studio, it was in a arch under a railway bridge which had be converted into a studio space that he shared with 3 other people. I saw this piece while I was there and was pretty amazed at how they had got the plaster to hold its shape, no doubt it must be fairly fragile.

We then went to visit an exhibiton containing Connor Kelly and Niall Macdonald's work called Turn it on again. The work by Niall was something that interested me, I thought he'd been using plaster, but he told be that it is jesmonite which is a much tougher material than plaster and is easier to dye with pigments.

This piece was also in this exhibition. The ball shapes are austrich eggs with text on them, it looked like a poem. The one on the floor was not intended to be smashed, although it looks like it was intentional. I do hope our sculptures don't smash during the exhibition.

Vestiges Park - Glasgow Visit

One of my favourite things from the trip to Glasgow was the visit to this temporary park, Vestiges Park. A group of artists took over a piece of wasteland next to the sculpture studios for the time of the glasgow international art fair and turned it into a sculpture park.

We were introduced to Kirsty Shindler from Low Salt and some of her collegues who help to look after and build the park.

One of the freakiest things in the park was this shed, it was filled with hands. The hand on the door was disgusting, so realistic and squashy, bleugh!

One cool interactive part of the park was making plastercine models and postioning them in this rockery. I made a whalephone. There were some really intersting little models in there.


I loved how these artists had turned what was a dump into something with beauty and mystery. As you walked through this park you wondered what was coming next and the witty nature of the art works here was intreguing.

Glasgow Sculpture Studios

We were shown around the sculpture studios by Naill Mcdonald. We saw the exhibition of Jimmy Durham who had been doing a residency there. He had focussed on scottish history and created witty work on that theme with golf references reaccuring in most pieces. Duram regually collects things on the streers and likes to use things that are rugged and cheap in his work, which gives the objetcs more interest.

We were also shown around the actual studios and all the facilities there. Naill showed us his studio, it was a fair size but the whole building was really cold, I don't think I could have worked there all that happily. We really do take our college facilities for granted.

David Noonan Speil - Glasgow Visit

We were introduced to Kendall Koppe from the Washington Garcia gallery by Naill MacDonald whilst at the Mitchell Library. There was an exhibition by David Noonan Speil there and we were given a talk by Kendall. David Noonan Speil collects imagery from mysterious sources, often with quite a sinister dialogue. He likes ambiguity and is influenced by stage props and theatre. The pieces in this exhibition are silk screens on fabrics.

GLASGOW!!!!!!!

I went on the trip to Glasgow with college recently. It was really useful and I learnt quite a bit about the types of studio artists outside of college use and the kinds of materials they use.


This plaster piece with lights in was quite interesting because it reminded me of mine and Ruth's sculputres.

Recent Exhibition in College Cafe.

I recently took a look at the exhibition that was taking place in the mosaic cafe in college. There was a group show on of artists who had been working around the college for several months and we had gotten to know a couple of them through working in the plaster workshop on a daily basis.

I was intregued by the way that this piece had been displayed, just simply by balancing them on a metal rod just crudely screwed to the wall. Somehow it seemed to suit this way of being displayed however odd it appeared. I was trying to think of how else these pieces could have been displayed and thought about perhaphs stacking them like a brick wall.


The spaceship piece had clearly had a lot of time and effort put into building and painting the spaceship and the level of detail on the spaceman inside was quite impessive. The projection piece inside was very difficlut to make out though, I couldn't decide whether this was because of the shape of the screen or because the room behind wasn't dark enough. Perhaphs the artist intended the video to be hard to see.

I had seen this piece in its upright form, as a teepee not too long before the exhibition. However the whole thing seemed to have died a little. I wasn't sure if this was intentional or not, but from the drawings along side the piece it showed it in an upright form so I guessed it hadn't meant to be this way. There was something strangely intreguing about the thing as it was though, I wanted to peer to see if anyone was trapped underneath. I hope me and Ruth are not faced with this kind of situation at our exhibition, packing will be essential.

The fish tank was my favourite piece at this exhibition. I was viewing this piece on a really sunny day and this helped to enhance the light and dark of the gravel giving off an amazing pink glow. Larna had chosen the perfect spot for this type of piece, it really was site specific due to the whole glass box thing like that of the fish tank.

Not Quite

During our sessions in the lighting workshop we have tried lots of different layouts for displaying our sculptures. Ruth and I have decided to ignore the beatle sculpture because he is too delicate and heavy to move to the exhibition site, but keep the 4 other sculptures.

The best layout that we have found is to have all 4 sculptures in a circle facing each other, leaving the viewer feeling as if they are left out as they appear to be plotting against us. This sinister feel fits nicely into the overall theme of the piece. We want the whole thing to be ambiguous as to whether they lay in the realms of reality or still in a dream-like state.

We have decided that to have the wires and bulbs showing seems to add something to the piece, it adds to the rawness and ambiguous nature of the piece. Now our issue is to find out once we get to the site whether we need just one central bulb, or to have 4 bulbs for each sculpture, we will asses this when we see how the lighting is in the space.

The title has been something that we have been thinking about for some time, but everytime we try to tell anybody about our piece we always say the phrase "Not Quite", for example: "well they're not quite smooth because we want them to seem raw and like they're not quite real" so we have pretty much come to the decision that "Not Quite" is the title.

Currently we are building wooden stretchers for transporting each creature to and from the exhibition space and working on how to wrap them in the most secure way.

Parcel Tags

It has been decided that for our exhibition we are going to create fliers from already exsisting fliers, painting them white and then screen printing ontop with our details. Recycling, cheap but probably slightly illegal, but we can probably get past that.

We also want to hand out parcel tags with details of our show being screen printed onto them. These tags can be left is strategic places and adds to the theme of lost property.

It has been my mission to buy the tags, 250 for handing out for marketing purposes but also another 1000 tags to use as a window display. By hanging the tags in the windows at the space it will mean that people are not only drawn to them (kind of as an art piece) but also means they can't see inside the shop very well, which will hopefully drag them inside.

I eventually settled on the site http://www.theessentialscompany.co.uk/ to buy the tags from. They are cheap and have a huge range of different sizes and colours, not to mention lots of other useful things from string to different papers. The parcel arrived within about 2 days of ordering them which I thought was good.

The only other main issue we currently have for getting these fliers and tags out there is getting enough support to get them printed. WE NEED YOUR HELP! Some of the marketing people have contributed literally nothing so I hope they at least show their faces this week.

The Hilarious Creation of the Wooden Armature.

Me and Ruth have been having a few logistical issues recently, we didn't really foreplan about how we're gonna get our pieces to the site. At first when we made the two cats they kept caving in because we hadn't made any support structure for underneath and so we used a LOT of plaster which made it heavy. We are lucky that plaster gets a lot lighter once it is totally dry, so much so that two people can lift it quite easily.


For the other pieces we made sure to build wooden armatures to go underneath the chickenwire and modroc. As much as we're both shockingly bad at DIY (infact we should have sent a film of it off to you've been framed) we managed to make them sturdy which meant we used a lot less modroc, making it lighter and cheaper.


We have also been considering how these pieces are going to be displayed at the exhibition. We know that they do not need a plinth. By sitting something on a plinth you situate it in reality for all to see, but that isn't the point of these pieces. They are items from a dream which are partially still in a dream like form and partially trying to reach reality. We want to work on lighting them from underneath and making them look as if they're creeping out of the darkness into reality, probably sat on the floor, therefore a plinth is completely unneccesary.

Interim Exhibition

I recently visited the exhibition called "Interim" at Vernon Street. We had been given the brochure for the event beforehand and it was very professional. I think that it could be expensive to print that many professional brochures for our event which is why I think it is a cheaper and more efficient to have a website which links to our own pages.

Unfortunatly I didn't particually enjoy the Interim exhibition. I did like a video which was showing in the lecture theatre of a guy painting the lecture theatre black and then white again, it was pretty mind numbing but kept you hooked. The invoice for the work he had done which he had sent to the college was displayed also. I actually took down the artist's e-mail address off the invoice and thought I could add him to the list of people to send the invite to. The more the merrier afterall.

The large amount of steps and echoey rooms seemed to ruin the exhibiton a little bit. I don't think it is a great space for sound pieces because there are too many distractions from it in a nosy, echoey stairway. It is a good spot for 2D pieces and the space is set up to accomodate for that kind of thing.

I saw a performance piece of two twins attached to a rope and when one pulls...the other gets pushed backwards and they were trying to paint a piece of paper different colours. It was rather odd, but then, I never do understand these performance things. I was trying to decide if the actual performance or the piece of painted paper was the actual final piece. The space wasn't very good for a performance, it was so crowded not that many people could fit in that tiny spot, so I guess the painted piece of paper is all that most people would get to see of the whole thing, but does that make it the final piece?

SliceLand

I recently visited another of the "art in unusual spaces" exhibitons in Leeds Shopping Plaza called Sliceland which was organised by students from LCAD, Met and the Uni.

I really enjoyed this exhibition and it made me wish that Stephen had chosen this huge shop as our exhibition venue, especially considering the large work that people are proposing to do.

They had really just worked with the space that was already there, not changing it or freshening it up, just decorating it with cardboard signs and newspaper decorations accross the room. They really had stook to a very low budget but it worked somehow.


They had bands playing, which was something that got me wondering about whether we should have music or some kind of entertainment happening at our private view.

They were very much trying to encourage students from each different art insitute in Leeds to mingle and share contacts etc. They had various comments books, lists for contact details and even badges.

























They even had robots! Ones which you can get inside and move about! I liked.

Playground and On Your Wall

Been meaning to post this for a while, but I visited the exhibitions that were on recently in the Leeds Shopping Plaza where we will be exhibiting. There were two different shows within the 4 shops that we will be using so it was a good opportunity to have a nosy and see how they've done it.

One of the shows was called "Playground". The title was vague enough to link each piece of work in together nicely without being too descriptive of the type of work. I liked the way they had kept with the fun theme for the window display which said the show's name, we need to make sure our window displays are inkeeping with our show name. I thought that it was interesting to have artists working throughout the private view. One man was drawing Xs accross a whole room, another was building a sand sculpture out of a tonne of sand and another artist was drawing from a photograph onto the window.














I found the general atmosphere a bit flat despite the whole "playground" name which suggests a little more excitement, however they had done well to use what was available to them and the use of clip on lights seemed to work well.








The other exhibition was "On Your Wall" which was aimed at people buying the works on display. They did very well to make the place look professional considering how it isn;t designed for this type of occasion. Even their posters and fliers were very professional and carefully considered. The atmosphere was good and there were plenty of drinks flowing.



The use of boards on a stand seemed to work well because it didn't block light and they would be easy to remove after the show, perhaphs this is something we could think about for our exhibition.