I am having the best time ever – I am 100% into the theme of circus circa 1870 – Barnum and Bailey etc.

The concrete floor has been laid and the windows are being painted.

I asked some scaffolders for a piece of their rope – I think they were so surprised they gave me 3 metres!!!  And by god what fun you can have with rope!!

I will put the 11 pieces I did last night in later when they dry – they look great – and I borrowed the wood from a skip!

Still toying with the idea of painting versus photography – may do both but here’s the first set of paintings anyway.

and you cannot have a circus without elephants – so I borrowed they best I could from the safari park!

New found freedom and the truth about that Michael Smiley Comment.

I catch up with Edinburgh based artist Sarah Wilson at her studio in Leith, she is cursing the Scottish weather as she cannot finish her outdoor sculpture due to impromptu rain and apologising for her taste in music (The Selector blares in the background).

Sarah has painted and photographed for as long as she can remember but its only recently she has put her past to bed and really focussed on her latest project – The AXO Gallery due to open at the end of this year.

Sarah laughed “Do you think the 3 degrees would have been so successful if they had called themselves the 3 HND’s?”

“Not getting into Edinburgh School of Art for the 4th time made me realise that only I can make this happen”

Sarah has just completed her 3rd book, a series of retrospectives of all her old work dating back to school and college and some of her poetry from her stint as a performance poet.  “I felt it was time to move on, at 42 I really should stop being a perpetual student and put myself out there as a professional artist.  I have an HND in acting, graphic design and contemporary art practise – and I am pulling it all together for my latest project”

Sarah has always been ambitious, she crawled from a typing pool at Scottish Widows and worked in their marketing department for 7 years, unfortunately her asthma, which she has suffered from since childhood caused her to take early retirement at 23.  “I nearly died on a Scottish Widows fun trip to Paris” she laughed “that’s what made me decide that there was more to life than office work”.

She went to drama school (the year below Euan McGregor) and blagged herself an equity card, got an agent and did bits and pieces for ages, never quite getting the big break.  “Acting is hellish!  I sat for hours in a bath of my own blood with my throat slit for the film Jack of Diamonds – it bombed and I got cramp”

Sarah then worked for Radio Forth in Edinburgh “I got the job because I had jumped out of a cake dressed as Marilyn Monro years ago for Big Al’s 40th birthday and they remembered me.”

“Radio Forth was great fun, I met a lot of interesting people and was sorry when the format changed and I was no longer needed.  I remember my mother being mortified when her favourite tabloid printed an article about the Edinburgh Festival – I was named and shamed as the woman who showed Irish comedian Michael Smiley her breasts for a fiver – hey I was drunk and I needed a taxi fare!  Rob Newman offered me £3.50 cos he didnt have enough – I offered to lend him the rest!”

She also worked as a stand-up comedienne appearing regularly at the Stand comedy club in Edinburgh and comparing at her own club The Rabbit Warren.   “Then my mum died and nothing seemed funny anymore”.

Sarah’s latest venture came about when her partner bought a house with a huge warehouse attached.  “This was the chance of a lifetime and I am very lucky, the garden is full of skips and workmen.  I am having a concrete floor fitted and walls lined, there will be disabled access and a wee office for my kettle!”

AXO gallery is a sister gallery to Axolotl Gallery, a large space in Dundas Street that her partner plans to open as a shop and gallery for contemporary painting, prints and photography.

“Rather than have an opening showcasing my work I plan to showcase the space.  I want people to come along and see its potential with a view to exhibiting there in the future.”

And by using her marketing skills she plans to have an opening like no other.

“I have always been fascinated by the circus, probably because I have never got to see one, when I was little the circus would come to Murrayfield every year and I would go along, unfortunately my allergy to all animals and straw and sawdust meant I would be removed wheezing and eyes streaming before the show started!”

I want to have my own circus and I have been researching like crazy – as early as 275 bc Romans witnessed performances by elephants.  It is Barnum and Bailey and the Ringling Brothers that really interests me- pre 1919, a time when ‘giant posters in lush colours foretold the wonders that would appear in town, usually for one day only’.  The circus has always been a larger than life creature, showing up out of nowhere and then, as quickly and unexpectedly as it came, disappearing once again.

The memories of these colourful days are all black and white photography and I hope to capture that feeling”

For those lucky enough to go to the opening may not be aware that they are part of the artwork, as the actual piece will be created on the night and for those that visit the gallery after, the circus will have left town.

“‘It’s not just my work that will be on show, I am collaborating with four other artists; Sarah Green, Elaine Boyd, Jill Farquhar and Jill Skulina and Estrella the Elephant”

Flew over to Berlin on Friday morning to check out the Celeste prize – and to have a lusting look at the Hamburger Bahnhof for my fix of Bruce Nauman and Matthew Barney.

Been playing about with photos – taking shots through different things – check this oot

and from Die Kunst ist Super! a week bit of FLUX

Duchamp van photographed through a kaleidoscope !

The Celeste Prize is an International contemporary art prize and a network for arts professionals – check it out on www.celesteprize.com 

We had arranged to meet a few of the artists with a view to inviting them to exhibit at AXOLOTL Gallery.  

www.celesteprize.com/tommasoneri (Italian painter)

www.celesteprize.com/hyerimlee (South Korean – graphics photographer)

www.celesteprize.com/clementpricethomas (United States – Installation) ***** MY FAVOURITE********

www.celesteprize.com/surabhisaraf (Indian – Video) ********MY FAVOURITE VIDEO EVER*********

the artist firing tomatoes at a poster of Hirsts skull!!

Finally I have pulled all my ideas and peoples advice together and the blokes arrived this morning to start making small changes to my gallery space.

The best advice I got was from Ben Fallon who said “just do it!” – so I am.

Be careful what you wish for ……..

Cos it may come true YIPPEE!!!!!

Today we registered and set up two galleries.  We got the lease on 4,000 square feet of space on Bernard Street now known as the AXOLOTL GALLERY and I have agreed to sole ownership on the AXO Gallery at Queen Charlotte Street and have registered such at Companies House.  

Having spent months fannying about arguing about the content of the galleries I am delighted we finally agreed that Axolotl will be our main gallery where we exhibit paintings and sculptures submitted by Scottish and European artists – currently focussing on the work submitted to the Celeste Prize.  My gallery will focus on contemporary work and contemporary paintings with regular exhibitions.  Pieces being sold in the main gallery once the exhibition ends – at least that is my current situation.

Currently arguing about the gallery layout and the architects plans!!

I have gutted out my studio space and set up an easel and work top so I can throw myself into my next project.  

and now -please google an axolotl cos it’s cool and we have one!!!!

I have been asked to paint a couple of canvases for Dionika Tapas Restaurant so I decided to do pieces based on my absolute favourite painting by Fauvist artist Emil Nolde – here is my interpretation of Fire Dancers – bright, colourful and full of energy and movement….with cracking big boobs!

I read an article in the Sunday Times about military parades held in Pyongyang, North Korea.  These propaganda events become a beauty pageant – the best looking young women are pushed to the forefront to convince westerners that the entire female polulation of North Korea is easy on the eye.

I decided to capture this in a painting, taking care of the position of the woman soldier, I wanted the face to be the focus point, reflecting her beauty, then, as your eye moves around the painting you catch a glimpse of her military insignia on the hat and shoulders.

As with most of my paintings here’s a step by step to the final piece.

Not quite finished – stay tuned

Summer is here and I’m back to my happy place – painting.  I have been asked to paint a series for Napiers Gallery to exhibit in the Edinburgh Festival.

They gave me a disgusting picture on canvas from IKEA and I was given free reign to do what I wanted with it.  As Napiers is all about fitness, health and flexiblity I decided to paint a gymnast so I researched circus performers, dancers and gymnasts and this is the step by step process to my first canvas….

She worked so much better when I flipped the canvas !! This took 2 weeks by the way!

LIGHT, SHADOW AND REFLECTION

RESEARCH

VIDEO

I looked at the work of the Light Series Artists; Lynn Marie Kirby, Saul Levine, Guy Sherwin and Luis Recoder.

They produce short works in series format to explore the essence of cinematic light.  I particularly liked the work of Guy Sherwin who produced a piece using a Metronome slowly ticking.  Also “Eye” where he focussed directly on the pupil of a woman’s eye, recording the subconscious reflex actions manipulated by lamp and lense aperture.  As the film goes bright the subject’s eyes dilate as do that of the audiences. 

I bought a 3 metre piece of transparent silk and tied white buttons to each corner to weight it down then tied white cotton thread to each button.  I experimented with tying two corners the bottom of a window frame and attaching the other two to hooks on the floor – pulling the silk tight and filming the light moving across the fabric.

I then tied it to a tree in the garden and filmed the light reflections and shadows when the wind blew the fabric.

I took the fabric in to college and tied it to the railings above the stairs and the buttons weighted it down, I then filmed the fabric gently moving in the breeze through the college.  I also filmed the fabric falling (this was not so successful).

PHOTOGRAPHY

Main influences:

Dan Flavin – Untitled (in honour of Leo at the 30^th anniversary of his gallery) 1987.  A series of fluorescent tubes to illuminate existing architecture and suggest new space from old.

Marcel Duchamp Tu m’ 19181 – shadows cast by his ready mades

I started my project by looking back at every photograph I have ever taken (I keep an archive) and printing out all the photographs that I have focussed my subject around light and shadow.

Once I decided to explore photography more – I took every opportunity to photograph shadws and light – one particular photograph I took at a church on the North Bridge, the light cast huge shadows of the railings across each step breaking it up into a clean composition – I was so pleased with this photograph that I am using it for my website, logo, letterhead, cv and comp slips.

I started reinventing space by masking the shards of light that fell on my bedroom floor – I then did the same in the corridor at college and photographed them.  I really like these but don’t want to rely on light to reproduce this effect at the sculpture workshop – and producing a large photograph wouldn’t be strong enough.

I worked on a photograph I’d taken at Turkey zoo of a peacock I chose to expand it beyond the edge of the print in my sketch book – drawing the lines of light shining through a fence behind it and connecting them to the corners of the page.

I enrolled in a class at the Printmakers Workshop to learn how to do stone lithography and made two stones to print from the photograph, one for the dark and the other for the light. I printed the light with a blend of yellow and transparent white, printed the dark with a warm brown.  I am very pleased with the final prints but don’t want to use them for the exhibition as they are not striking enough.

I then started a new series of photographs, starting with light reflections appearing as I opened and closed the door at the sculpture workshop – this created 3 successful photographs that I used on my business cards. 

I continued photographing light reflections on my kitchen floor and cut into them building collages in my sketchbook.

SCULPTURE

Fred Sanback 1943-2003 Minimalise concept-based sculptor – sting sculptures and prints.

Yarn/wire/string define the edges of virtual shapes and ask viewers’ brain to perceive the rest of the form.  “Corner” pieces whose shadows assist with this form completion process.

Sarah Sze 1969 –

American Artist, work that is painterly and sculptural.  Boundaries between art and everyday life.  “The piece ….. breaking of the floor plane, the soaring ceiling, the open space and the natural light.  The space allowed for a piece that unravelled as one moved through it.

I sketched out some ideas and made cardboard maquettes to decide on a shape to have made in iron, I tried wood but decided I wanted to weather the sculpture and didn’t want it to rot or split– I wanted clean sharp lines that cast bold shadows.

Looking at Sol Lewitt “Five models with one cube” – ‘the form itself is of very limited significance; it becomes the grammar of the whole work.”

I sketched chalk drawings similar to Lewitt’s “Open Cube” using 3, 4 and 5  ‘legs’ to decide the best design.

I then set up the two iron sculptures I had decided on in my garden and photographed them from loads of angles, catching the light at different times of the day. 

FINAL PIECE

A projection of a photograph I took of light on the kitchen floor – it is bright and the lines are clean – I propose to project this low down and relatively small.

The rusted sculptures – I want to place them outside the Sculpture Workshop.

Photographs – 6 photos of the sculptures and their shadows (final choice to be made on the day)

I really should start going to gigs to watch the band and not just the pretty lights and shadows!!