I’m always a bit nervous when I start a project for an artist residency. I have a project title, a subject and a theme, but I often doubt whether I will make enough resolved work in a short time, to satisfy me and the residency requirements.
This was the story which unfolded as I began my working days at the Island Darkroom residency. I started with photographs of the Callanish Stones and then began to make prints about the landscapes and abandoned buildings that had caught my eye as I travelled through the Outer Hebrides.
I had one signature print (see last week’s blogpost Stones of Destiny) which I started using. I printed it numerous times on landscape format watercolour paper with patterns of stones and gravel on the reverse side. My hands itched to accordion fold the prints, but I remembered a three fold structure I had made many years ago that resembled tents or makeshift shelters. Perfect for what I wanted. When making an artist book, the structure itself also carries a meaning.
I folded these little houses in three and stood them up - I loved them. I wanted more, but I needed more images. I remembered that I had taken a photograph of two standing ‘chimney walls’ on the island of Vatersay, near Barra when I first arrived in the Outer Hebrides. This picture was printed onto an acetate transparency, exposed in the sun and a new argyrotype image was formed.
The chimneys were such a strong motif I wanted to try printing them using a simple cut-out cardboard stencil and my portable ‘gelli plate‘, a gelatine plate which allows you to print onto a pliable surface. Suddenly the work led me into the work. The two chimney print became the new folded books, the print was a strong stencil and I had enough resolved work to leave for an exhibition at the Island Darkroom later this year.
Trusting the process of making art is a lesson in surrender. Every time I get nervous or feel under pressure to perform, I remember to let the work develop itself, to find its own story that needs to be told. The common theme of my work has become dispossession, as I reflect on the Scottish land clearances, I also reflect on being dispossessed of shelter through war, floods or socio/political upheavals.
My project Stone Stories has brought up our greatest fear, of being dispossessed of everything we hold dear, our identity, our home and hearth, our land and language. I feel honoured to make work that has called me to it.
This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.