Grants for the Arts

Submit Application

A button on a computer screen 'submit application' it represented so much. Inside that button was a lot of stuff. People stuff I'm talking about, friends who had invested time and resources, contributed ideas discussed this and that, told stories made things, wrote things, researched things, compiled things together and been enthusiastic.

'Submit' was a nervous moment as I kept saying to myself : should I re-read it just to make sure it was as good as I could make it. Could that be in phrased a better way, had I left out anything that was so glaringly obvious as to scupper the whole thing. Had I structured things clearly, was the budget detailed enough and had I got across that friends and acquaintances had contributed already to get it to this point.

Who knows?

I spoke with someone at the arts council over the phone about what the 5 pages of supporting material was best used for, basically the advise was its up to you! So I read the guidance notes yet again and what came across on those was nothing to dense. I went visual. Personally I hate documents of dense text and before I read anything I'm already looking to see if the paragraphs are long with small type. If the paragraphs are short and dispersed with bullet points and a few pictures with captions. Those are the documents I like. But nothing behind that button was like that. It was dense and every line was crucially filled with feelings, information, sentences describing methods and experience. Every word was agonisingly crucial and loaded. And in the end its not long before your not reading it anymore, your just looking at it with no understanding anymore.

That's when I pushed submit. It was a submission, no more I'm done. 

Computer told me that they would check it to see if the figures added up if I had I missed out any questions. They would also look to see if I had left enough time for them to decide and the start of the project.

 

 

I had made some hollow houses specially for a photo shoot in the dark

 I remembered a conversation with someone who said that they had trouble submiting their application as the word count was a little erratic. They were unable to submit as the word count was too high even though indicators said it was fine, the thought of having to rewrite paragraphs again taking out several words did not exite me.

But that never happened: A Good Omen?

The Fim Crew arrive.

A flurry of activity around the Imagined Village this week. A project logo designed and the arrival in the post of some small plastic figures labled as 'train figures'. I was going to populate the village with these small figures but they were way too small and they looked all wrong. Not the right style and looked out of place and we had arranged for a video photo shoot the following day.

Train People arrived in the post

These figures are interesting when you begin examining them they are about 20mm tall. I thought that may have been designed decades ago and never modernised. It was hard to place as they look old fashioned in a 1960's way, and modern in a 1980's way?  

Train People arrived in the post

It was easy to copy these small figures and made them out of card about twice the size they were. They were about the right size for our Imagined Village now at about 35-40mm. I placed them in the model as a test before the Film Crew arrived!

This second layer of interpretation blurred their identieties even more and placed them outside of time estimates.

 

 

paper train people made at the right size

 

The Film Crew; two good friends of ours, Al and Nick from CT6 Arts who generous with their time videoed the village, travelling through its streets and capturing the feel of the neighbourhood. I had not thought I would dwell on people for this model, but during the filming it became apparant that they were central and it was unexpected how important they would become. We have not seen the film yet but it will soon appear on this blog.

Inside - Out

I like to make Inside-Out art [installations] exploring things out of their normal context, so I used some wallpaper to make little Inside-Out houses, inspired by Hundertwasser’s wonderfully colourful art and architecture...

 although there is a shift in the way our towns and cities are being re-imagined we are still way behind  Hundertwasser’s visionary architecture, which incorporated trees and his art often features faces so I thought I would photograph them in in the garden with a huge head overseeing them.

I am loving working on this inspiring project which is encouraging me to look at things in different ways, to explore different mediums and techniques like this little slide show of Silhouette Houses.

Passage of Time

I rather like the idea that the brick pebbles may be the remnants of Hampton on Sea, so when I found some flat brick pebbles and a surprisingly flat oyster shell, I thought it would be fun to draw some little houses on them.

I've also made another experimental video, this time playing with the idea of abandonment, erosion and decay.

Appearing and Disappearing

We took Rob’s little houses down the beach for a photo shoot, we drew a background on the promenade steps setting them out one at a time and as I’ve been experimenting and learning a bit about photography and animation on another collaborative project I thought it would be interesting to have a go at making one of the little houses. 

As our project is based on the rising and failing aspirations of a fishing community due to coastal erosion I thought I’d play with the idea of them appearing and disappearing… 

'ouses - 'ouses - 'ouses

I made a series of model houses and painted them white

arranged them in my workshop as if playing with a dolls house

then I took photos of them

arranged them again in a different set up

 and took photos of them again...

I made some little cars

 

and some little trees

 

I drew a backdropfrom an old map

showing the layout of the
original Hampton Community

  

Discovering Folk Art on the beach

Whilst walking on the beach today I found some interesting examples of what has to be described as 'Folk Art'. They are painted Cuttle Fish, I photographed them and left them on the beach for someone else to find, except one which I thought I'd keep in case we decide to do an exhibition of Folk Art sometime. I have added them to a small collection of photos of other creations I have found on the beach, many of which are arrangements of objects found. I am going to describe those as 'still life's'.

  post added by Karen.

On The Edge

One The Edge : Karen's Cairn

I walked up and down the beech looking for a particular type of pebble; ones that were once clay bricks. They stand out quite clearly because they are so red. I was doing this as my partner on this project (Karen) had done this a day or two earlier and built a cairn on a groyne post. I was now following up thinking I would make a red brick beech installation of some kind? 
The reason Karen was using the sea tumbled bricks was she had wondered if any of them were originally part of a terrace of houses which were lost to the sea between 1909 and 1911 at this location in Hampton Herne Bay. My interpretation of the title 'On the Edge' was a description of these houses before they fell into the sea!

This ill fated oyster fishing company which was established in Hampton in the 1860s is really the starting point for our project. Their community was destroyed and plans to create a seaside residential estate also failed. Rapid erosion of the coastline meant that only a few houses were constructed, and before long they too had to be demolished as the sea came further inland.

Close to the Edge (Old family photo provided by Margaret Phipps)

Hernecliff Gardens

So, were we building our beech installations with what was left of the houses of the original Hamption community? You would hope so. 
I was wondering what to build with my carefully selected collection of sea tumbled brick pebbles and felt really taken by this powerful action of the sea. I noticed how it had worked away at the wooden groynes leaving the odd stone embeded between the planking. In a intuitive response I found myself plugging up the gaps in between the eroded timbers, as if to attempt some kind of repairs to keep the sea out.

building with bricks from the past : Robs Repair

building with bricks from the past : Robs Repair

Much more about this original Hampton Community can be read on the Abandoned Communities website click here
http://www.abandonedcommunities.co.uk/hampton.html

2nd post by Rob. 

Hillman Avenue to Hillman Avenue

Rob and I went on a R&D trip for our project which now has a title ‘Imagined Village’ to Jaywick Sands and more specifically Brooklands Estate which is the sister estate to Studd Hill yesterday, more will become apparent re: destination as the project evolves but I have attached a map which may help.

We were warmly welcomed by residents and we met a few of the local artist community at an event we gate crashed in the afternoon! From the Trenches to Tendring, again we were warmly welcomed, a project incorporating art and history a bit like ours. We met a poet, singer song writer and two visual artists all working together on the project and we even got to do a bit of art and contribute to their project 

They were really interested to meet us and our project idea and we’re hoping to get some sort of cross collaborative project going within our project, but we also think it would be great to make a more regular connection with them.

Judith the poet was telling us how she’s been working with a photographer and she has previously run a project bringing artists and writers/poets together, pairing them off, the artist makes a piece of work which the writer then uses as the catalyst for a piece of writing… so this is something we’d like to look into and get off the ground maybe we can connect people via our Coffee & Culture mornings.

We came away feeling very inspired by a group of people living and working in an area that has been described as ‘the most deprived area of Britain

below is a slide show showing our first visit to Jaywick



First post entered by Karen.