Interaction.

I was reclining on my chaise longue, sipping hand-squeezed kumquat juice and screaming at attendants for scrubbing the floor with their own clothes, and not toothbrushes (better detail, darling) when a thought occurred: can I persuade people to make my art for me?

Actually, that’s not strictly true. This might seem lazy, but I want other people to interact with my next work – even to participate in the making of it. I consulted my friend Carla Easton, creator of some superb pieces which invite viewers to stand on sculptures and make the pieces sing. Getting folk to make your work and passing it off as your own – that could save some wear and tear on my joints. But that’s not the point. It’s about input, and participation, and a different view.

And also laziness. Well on my part anyway. Carla’s work meanwhile, is (I hope she doesn’t mind me saying this) entertaining. People clamber over her work, initiating a joyous cacophony of recorded pieces, triggered when they tread on hidden points of contact.

Carla said: ‘When I made my interactive sculptures I required interaction in order to activate the piece. So the pieces already existed as objects without interaction but once played with it was the activation and the relationships formed through the activation that became the work.

So you need to figure out if the finished painting is the piece or if the passers by being part of the finished painting is the work I think. And the tricky thing is getting people to want to take part. You have to figure out why it is essential that they do and try and invite them in.’

My wise friends are genuinely helpful. Dismissing all my servants, I decided to make a collaborative interaction, and took my trusty watercolours to my life drawing class All The Young Nudes at The Flying Duck (many thanks).

Handing the set of paints and a blank page could be unnerving even for a seasoned artist, so I set rules: one colour, and one stroke or action. The result would of course be abstract, not figurative (or so I assumed.)

I applied the first stroke, which could have been made into anything really – it was quite amorphous which in itself set the tone, and passed the baton/brush to Charlie, who ran with it, adding well-placed mauve stipples. People kindly joined in: some appeared to be doing their own thing, others apparently reacted to what had gone before. The choice of colours was telling: nobody selected the same shade as their predecessor, and everybody worked with  in contrasts.

One maverick waited to the bitter end (I had to declare the piece finished) and placed his mark with a black thumbprint. And I wanted mavericks, so was gratified to see stippling, dots and watery hues running deliberately across the page. So intriguing is the result that Joanna of AYTN has suggested a follow up session, on a larger scale than A4.

This is one form of practice I can tick it off my list with big plus sign. No hive mind here: but any individuals making work in harmony, started by my one brush stroke.

Exhibition.

Outsiders, i.e. those who do not attend themselves, might have acquired an unfortunate idea of what goes on at private views, imagining pompous uber-trendy strangers gathering to sneer, or of louche, debauched paint-botherers being lauded in a coke-addled frenzy as the next Hirst/Picasso/Vettriano after casually placing a shoe on a plinth (quickly sold for fifty grand.)

In my experience, openings feature art loving liggers propping up walls, chatting, draining the bar and sometimes pretending to care about the work. Jaded? Cynical? Guilty? Yes. I am a freeloader myself, but I always look at the work (I know!)

Recently, and totally out of the blue, Whitespace Gallery in Edinburgh requested a piece of mine for an exhibition - Whitelines, a show about the practice of drawing. They found me via artists community website Central Station but I was still flabbergasted and flattered to be asked; so amazed that I even checked to see if the place was real, and the owner legit (he is.)

This is my first exhibition. It’s unnerving to be showing work in public, but friends travel to support me (and also drink the wine, served luke warm and in plastic cups by ancient tradition.) People are examining my work, and even discussing it. Perhaps because of having a research masters, I fight an evil urge to explain the piece. I admire how practicing artists do not unveil their intentions or bully a supporting theory into the viewers head: they hang work on the wall, and away they go.

Still, hearing visitors debate my picture is bizarre, and slightly frustrating, because it is so specific in purpose (see preceding post.) I can’t exactly jump in to insist: ‘No – that’s not what it’s all about! You’ve got it all wrong! Don’t come back until you’ve written a measured critique – one I agree with!’

Seeing ‘Am I Safe’ alongside other pieces, provides some useful context, and what I self-deprecatingly describe as colouring-in (or more formally hand-tinting) has been treated with respect. I remember the work that went into it, the layers of colour; hardly working down a coal-mine, but it took a while to complete. Just because work doesn’t take years to finish doesn’t mean it isn’t viable and valid. You see - I can’t help but justify what I do. I must learn to resist.

My work featured in another exhibition – the excellent Text Festival  in Bury Art Gallery. I was overwhelmed at the sight of my samplers displayed in a magnificent Victorian hall, although both halves of a diptych are separated – a minor annoyance, but that’s what curators do. As I walked around the spectacular show, which crystallised the view that words, text and fonts are beautiful when presented as objects in their own right, I decided to take some pictures.

Immediately, an invigilator challenged me to stop.

‘It’s okay.’ I said. ‘I’m one of the artists.’

And it felt good to say that out loud, in public: to come out as an artist, a word I have avoided until now. I need to grow accustomed to curators. I must harden myself to the comments, impressions and ideas of others regarding my work. And I must get used to exhibiting, because more shows are in the air.