baking bread film

wallpapering roses the movie

Nearly there Then.

So the shop commissions are finished I liked the fact we had to spend the day in Roses and chat and just be friends really I think this was an interesting thing to take forward but for this project the work came first. I suppose you could do a day in residence in a shop and see what you came up with a bit like our Cafe residencies. I agree with Kate in that the wall paper feels like the piece which sums up the project best - the idea to decorate came from Cath in the shop and the idea for the paper came from us and we had it printed and made locally. It also looked nice in the show at Yorkshire Arts Space as it's function was really clear - a bit "The medium is the message." people say this a lot and I read the article by Marshall Mcluhan the other day but I didn't really understand it - the titles the best thing about it.

It was good to have a nice day in Parson Cross hanging the paper it made things seem simpler again. The show at YAS was good in it's own way but it stirred me up a bit. It made me wonder if it was the right thing to do. I was pretty sure it was until we did it and I feel it brought things full circle and asked a question about context but I wonder if in-fact we already new the answer. In the context of cultural provision and what we had been asked to explore for Yorkshire artspace it was important but the question it raised about context and meaning doesn't carry back into Parson Cross and if it does I'm not sure it's relevant.

Anyway it was great to see the shop commissions finished and strangely for me doing the last two my brain switched so when stuff was in the show I could only see it in the shops but because we did the last two the other way around I could see the work in the show which might just be me but again it could be the start of some new ideas for developing work in future projects.

Eric at the butchers has moved the window around and used some of the stickers as part of his Christmas display which I really like as it's not just up it's become functional a bit like Pauls Stallions sign its been adopted and become useful. I thought it might be interesting to do something about which things look most like art in the different places a bit like our "Aura Scorer" building on Walter Benjamin. We could do a table with each object and each context and then have a column for "Art" and a column for "Function" score each object in the different context and then do a colour coded graph.

Kaths Wallpaper Day

ROSES HARDWARE - 43 Margetson Crescent, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. S5 9ND

At the above address on Wednesday last week, Steve and I hung the Rose Wallpaper for Kath at Roses Hardware! Cheap gag maybe, but you know what- Kath was happy, most of the customers were happy and Steve and I felt really happy and you know what we hung it ourselves! As an artwork its great, viewed by innumerable people, liked by its owner, truly collaborative, site responsive, purposeful and aesthetically pleasing - what more could you want?????? [Im hoping steves going to add some photos]
We spent from about 11 there, eating lunch from Erics, staying until about 4.30. We were, well i was a bit grumpy, Steve said he had post Venice malaize. Never the less we got started and within minutes i felt better. It was a really enjoyable day, we met really nice friendly people and their dogs, had a laugh, talked of gossip and enjoyed Kath's company and cups of tea. We took some film of the day and in the spirit of - "we dont know what to do with it but if we dont shoot it we wont have it". Lets hope it looks ok!. We managed to cover 3 large section of walls above the shelves. It looked particulary good against the balls of wool Kath sells. I hope the air bubbles have gone by now.

Its been interesting talking about this project to those who don't know what we've been doing. Exploring the question of purposeful art, notions of generosity/value and the role of practice. I suppose i thought about it the other day and wondered whats the difference between this and philanthropy. When i write it, it makes me sound a bit to do gooding, but its a serious question. If as steve and I have done, is give away large proportions of our fee to other artists, have work made at local businesses and provide community members with useful 'artworks' then the work as a whole is of course made greater by the sum of its parts. i feel like we've tried to ask whats possible through a practice within a social setting and along the way offered others opportunities to be nourished by the arts.

Im going to go away and think about the talk we re doing for the symposium day on the 13th dec at Knutton road - see link


http://artspace.org.uk/blog/permalink/2011-11/symposium-event-art-practice-in-a-social-context