What do artists do all day?
Cormorants. Shrimp. Obsessions.
Things change fast at this time of year. If you take your eye off the ball you’ve missed all the bright crisp days of autumn and come firmly mired in what I think is politely called mellow autumn. Mellow in this instance means you cannot remember when you last saw the sun. The day has got a little lighter through the mists, yes, but you have not taken a direct hit from a sunbeam in quite a while. I like it; the days become vague, the time uncertain; it could be early, it could be late, it all looks the same, until 4pm, when it becomes dark. I stand by the lake with my camera. The cormorant is in his dead tree. Always that one same dead tree. Yesterday, he was swimming; his body, designed for diving, so deep in the water only the eelish slithering of his neck was visible. A Loch Ness cormorant. I stood and watched as he dipped down, vanished, and reappeared somewhere else. I had hoped he would be diving today, but I have my binoculars and my camera so he’s just high up in his tree. I nurture my obsessions. Always the lake provides; bats all summer, cormorants all winter.
One day the obsession will ripen, and I will draw him.
Shrimp Tank, baby.
I bought a heater for my aquarium thinking the snail was cold because it stopped coming out. This annoyed my husband because heaters cost £19.99 and snails cost £3. He was absolutely right! To get good usage from my heater, I bought a fancy new snail online. Snails are livestock, so the shipping was quite high, and the site was selling cheap low grade (ie, not very red) cherry shrimp, so I decided- to make it worthwhile- I’d buy three shrimp as travel companions for my snail. They can test the waters, and if it’s ok I can get some fancy super red shrimp from the fish shop in a couple of weeks. From this we can surmise
Don’t complain about the price of my heater because that will cost you as buy yet more things to justify it, my logic is perfect don’t question it again
I am an idiot because the whole scheme assumes I will care less about cheap shrimp than expensive ones which is obviously wrong, I bought a heater because my bog standard snail was cold. The smallest shrimp is so rubbish shes almost seethrough so she’s my favourite and her name is THE GHOST. The others are called big red and lil red, and I love them all as much as the best shrimp ever bred.
The tank is so heavily planted that three shrimp could probably live their entire lives without being seen, ever. Also, they all look kinda the same, so to be sure they are all alive I have to see all three at the same time which seems improbable. What was I thinking? The shrimp would assemble for roll call?
Nevertheless, tonight the shrimp assembled for roll call. They have all survived over 24 hours in the tank and seem happy. I am very excited at the prospect of MORE SHRIMP in the forthcoming weeks.
I assumed my new snail would be the same size as snurli snurlison. I was wrong. He is MASSIVE.
Workings
I’ve discovered someone has uploaded a lot of the series ‘What do Artists do all Day’ onto YouTube, which is a BBC series that ran in 2013 and covers a diverse range of artists. I am currently working my way through them, which has had the terrible consequence that I am currently tormented by an invisible imaginary television camera. Deborah has spent the morning avoiding writing an invoice, even though writing the invoice will result in her being paid says the imaginary narrator. It is horrifying because some days, I just don’t have that much time to actually make art. Such it has been this week. This week simply vanished under the sofa. I cannot account for vast swathes of time, which I think possibly, given current events, is not a bad thing.
I do have a picture up in this lovely gallery so if you’re around that area, it’s a nice place to visit, very picturesque with lovely walks near the Thames
One of the reasons I feel like I have been working hard but have nothing to show for it is because I have been doing experiments with collograph. My experiments are mostly not things I want to show people, but I think I got it to a place that I’m happy with. Expect things soon.
Findings
As I said, what I’ve mainly been doing is watching ‘What do Artists do All Day?’ On YouTube. I don’t mind if I like the artists work or not, I am in love with artists, with the artistic process. Something about the way artists think, an obsessed weirdness that runs consistent even though the art, and approaches to it, are vastly different.
Sometimes people think that an artist is only doing what they do for shock value, to con galleries and collectors into spending vast amounts of money for crap. I know plenty of people that think contemporary art is crap, but when I watch artists talk about what they do, I get the overwhelming feeling that they are so obsessed that they have no choice. There are easier ways to make money. Tom Wood the photographer teaching photography so he had enough money to process the reels and reels of film he took, endless hours on the streets getting to know the people taking shot after shot to find the right one. He did that for years. If he hadn’t got famous, he’d probably still be doing it anyway. Edmund De Waal endlessly making pots, considering the perfect arrangement of the endless pots for hours before exhibition. He could just dump them on a shelf, but he really cares. Shani Rhys Jones wiping a painting, sighing and then turning the studio lights out. It’s actually an absurd way to make money; difficult, expensive, unreliable.
Sometimes I get the art, sometimes I come to understand it, sometimes I flat out don’t like it but I’m still glad that it gets to exist, that there are people making it, making me think. I love the process of it. So I’ve been watching those obsessively, because obviously I’m given to obsession too.
Yes. The process of Art, with a capital A.
Thanks for the info on the videos -- I might have to do that one. Love hearing about the shrimp -- and logic!