Tag Archives: Fred Gatley

Do One Thing and Do It Well.

Earlier in the summer, at a point when I was concerned about ‘Life after the Diploma’, I started applying for everything I came across; exhibition; events; support programs for emerging artists.  You name it I threw my hat in the ring.   Last week I was slightly hanging my head – I had had either no response or a rejection from each one.  Clearly no-one else thought as much of my work as I do myself.  Conceit had got the better of me.

The Battersea Vessel low res
The Battersea Vessel

If I had been checking my spam folder regularly I might have been a bit chirpier, having discovered that my work had been accepted for the exhibition Battersea Arts Station.  Suddenly rummaging around for hours in the muddy banks for the River Thames is worth it – yippee, my first proper exhibition!

But then things went a bit crazy in my inbox.  It was as if somebody had been reading my blog and felt sorry for me.  They had then rung round all their contacts and suggested that they could stave off my suicidal tendencies if they asked me to take part in something.  So Now. in addition to Battersea, I need to find work for the Royal Opera Academy Gallery in London, just off Pall Mall and for the Great Northern Contemporary Crafts Fair.  All three events take place in October and will be rapidly followed by the November Open Studios.

TheNumberOnes[1]
There will be another one along shortly.
Well what was I to do?  I suppose I could have told them all that I was too busy.  But opportunities like these don’t grow on trees.  You have to grab them when you can, don’t you?  Particularly when you are just setting out and you need the breaks.  I just wish rather that they came with some sort of timetable so that, just like London Buses I could be reasonably confident that there would be another one along soon!

2015-09-12 14.28.08
Organised chaos has taken over the studio.

So now I have a bit of a tight schedule.  Suddenly I need a whole lot of work and, given that they all seem to like the newer pieces on website, I cannot simply hand over the work from my final exhibition – not that I would want to anyway.  I am so much more pleased with what has come since.  I know have a day by day plan of what needs doing when which includes working in the studio on Saturdays and means that there are going to be a great many days when my work space is going to represent organised chaos.  Moral of the story – keep applying, keep your spirits up and be prepared to make like crazy from time to time.  By the end of November I shall be getting quite practiced at this form of vessel and, as Fred Gatley told me ‘do one thing and do it well’, I shall stick to that.  I just wish he had warned  me that although there would be times when the phone does not ring, there might also be times when you have to add ‘and do it quickly’!!

Swings and Roundabouts

rejected[1]
If at first . . .
maverick1[1]
Hold tight and keep your nerve.
It has been a bit of an up and down week and I am, as a consequence, over 24 hours late with my blog.  Suffice it to say that I have spent the summer applying for a number of schemes to support emerging artists and am getting slightly depressed by rejections now!  On the other hand, I have begun talking to people about my new work and I am getting some very positive responses, including from Hothouse, the Crafts Council support scheme for graduates.  They have rejected me for this year but they took the trouble in their feedback on my application to be very positive about my work post-qualification and reminded me that I would still be eligible to apply for the scheme for next year.

So all is not lost!  I suppose . . . .

I am not so dreadfully downhearted.  It would be great to gain the encouragement of acceptance for sure but this is very early days and I cannot expect too much too soon.  On the up side, everyone who I talk to about my new work believes that it has real mileage and I am feeling extremely good about it.  In fact I have been thinking over the weekend that it makes more sense to focus on November when the Studios in which I work, in Wimbledon, are open to the public once more for a 4 day stint during which thousands of people will be flocking into the studios and might well get excited by the idea of commissioning a story vessel from me – one that tells of an important event, a memory, a place – it is up to them to approach me with their thoughts really then I will transform them into their own personal Progenic Vessels.  However, over the weekend I was approached by a gallery in central London which is holding a sculpture and ceramics exhibition in the autumn and which I might not be able to resist. It was also suggested to me that I should consider researching events such as the Country Living Christmas Fair as an outlet for my idea.  That is something which I had not thought of until now but it might be worth considering.  The important thing here is to decide where I am pitching my work – gallery or fair because I am fairly sure one should not be aiming at both.  So I need to knuckle down and make up my mind – what am I making? why am I making it? How am I selling it?

When I think about it there is loads going on and I just need to keep a level head, hold my nerve and find time to get down to the studio and make – now that would be very nice.  I also need to remember what Fred Gatley said to me towards the end of the diploma – do one thing and do it well!