Something Underfoot.
Thu 6th Nov 2014
After being away from the Leicester Print Workshop for most of the summer September was an intense period of work. I was in the workshop on all three of the open access days, planning, cutting and printing. This was the culmination of a project that had started very sedately in January.
I was finally making my pieces for the Leicester print Workshop bi-annual members show, Passion2Print. This year’s P2P show is themed around ideas of collaboration. Initially all those interested attended monthly meetings, starting in January, to discuss preliminary idea and peer mentor each other.
P2P 2014 is being shown across three venues in Leicester’s cultural quarter; The Curve Theatre, The Phoenix cinema and digital centre and the LCB Depot, the home of and support centre for creative businesses in Leicester.
In February we viewed all the venues and exhibition spaces. In each of the venues I found myself drawn to the little, out of the ways areas, to the hidden corners and to the floor. I thought of the venues as whole entities, staff and buildings combined. They are visited by an audience for a specific event and experience; theatre, dance, musical, cinema, meetings, cafes and exhibitions.
Contemplating these thoughts, and also inspired by the group’s discussions about scale and taking print beyond the framed 2d image, I allowed my mind to slide.
I had always looked at carpet samples books as tantalizing objects that had possibilities beyond their fleeting original use. They seemed a perfect matrix for this project. The footsteps of people visiting the venues pass over carpets, and a book is the natural place to record stories.
So my collaboration would be with the staff of each venue. I would gather sketches, notes and doodles from members of the staff that reflected how these places function and breathe. I liked the idea of telling a story though images generated by the people who work in the buildings. I would then reconfigure, amalgamate and interpret their responses onto lino plates and print these directly onto the carpet pieces before reconstructing them back into sample books to create three books, each specific to the respective venue.
I talked the idea through with the staff of each venue and gave them photocopied briefs and a wad of paper. And then I waited. This was a nerve racking time. I had no idea how many members of staff would respond or what they would respond with. I worried that I might be unable to create anything worthy of their efforts. Would I be able to pull all the disparate style of imagery together into something readable and coherent, or would it just be a mess?
Initially I gave myself six weeks to print all three books, but time slipped and in the end I had only four weeks to complete them. Drying, book re-construction, photography, statement writing, hand-in and placing the books in the venues all happened in a rush in week five. The pieces were barely dry.
These are all difficult venues in which to show work, and the nature of these pieces meant that there were issues of display and interpretation. Initially in discussion and proposal I was adamant that I wanted the books to be displayed on the floor in hidden corners. However the opening brought these decisions into question.
It is always hard to view work at an opening event and mine was at a great disadvantage under these conditions. In retrospect they should have been placed on a high lectern, similar to those found in carpet shops for flipping though the sample books. Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
P2P is on show until Friday 12th December 2014.
