How to start? Clare's notes

A question or a 'how to solution? I think I've been asking the 'how to start' question for some time now. The answers will have to come gradually when I am able to piece together all the unexpected components and add ons of this project. The first, how to make an introduction and set the scene...and before I could start I paused, where to do this and for whom?

Where? Virtual residency blog and Virtual residency web album

Still investigating all the 'whos' this project can reach.

It begins with lots of casual, curious conversations about the nature of an artist's space. By convention, the space an artist inhabits publicly, tends to be owned/managed by others, and is a temporary platform in which the artist can exhibit, talk, demonstrate or teach. As open and generous as an artist can be in communicating within this space, is there still a sense of mystery that lingers? Maybe its better to switch the ambiguous word mystery, for distance. There can be a distance between the artist, the work and those trying to 'get the picture'. The quality of time to formulate ideas and produce artwork is a challenge to doccument, package and deliver effectively towards a receptive audience.

My own work is developed gradually, the end point/resolution showing itself very slowly, dependent on a series of processes gone before such as photography, printmaking, stitch, construction, painting and drawing. All these elements pull together to create a large scale textile hanging. This development occurs over a period of months, deliberating in the studio, trying things, making wrong turns and occasionally stumbling on a sense of 'rightness' about the project which springs it forward. It is a large undertaking to meet an artist and their completed work. The audience has been removed from a large chunk of creating time and content. As a result, information on technique and subject matter is weakened. It is these two elements I will be seeking to illuminate over the course of the project. To bring others closer with that unique deliberating period. A period which occurs in the artist own space. Already, the notion of an artist's space must surpass the studio walls and is dependent on a shaky, less concrete quality, one of time.

I was fortunate enough to experiment with an unusual work space when accepted for the Art Council South East Setting Up Scheme Award in 2005. For 18 months I established my studio in the art department at Waddesdon Secondary School. Marking out independent territory in a public terrain; the classroom. Merging these boundaries would be frequent, ever changing and require an openness and trust from both sides. This model was of great mutual benefit for host and artist and went a long way to manage the issue of audience and artist space. The audience in this example being staff and students, impacting the group and the individual.

It was while at Waddesdon School, that the question of sustaining this quality of relationship between host and artist was discussed. I was able to visit and work with a variety of partner schools during my time at Waddesdon in the form of day visits. The new challenge is to be able to offer an equal level of engagement simultaneously with all four schools, sustained over a whole term. An engagement to stimulate my own practice as well as collaborate with student's work would be ideal. A sustainable model would have to maintain the same openenss and trust described for the Waddesdon studio.

Digiatally equipped and technically confident, Head of Art, Mr Berrett led Waddesdon School's proposal of a virtual artist residency. Scheduled times to fit both school and artist have been arranged. Communication will be via webcam from my new independent studio space, (now in Kent) back into the classrooms I had visited in the past (Buckinghamshire). The geographical distance highlights the ubiquitous benefit of the internet connection.

This is a trial residency style being undertaken with great enthusiasm by all schools. We will test a variety of exercises during the scheduled meetings via webcam, linking students work practices with my own to suit both parties. The Adobe Breeze software allows discussion, sharing of files, and live video streaming with audio, all of which can be recorded as future resources. Already there are clear benefits to the virtual collaboration and I am sure new examples will show themselves as the project develops.

Here lies the intention and background for the project. I am looking forward to the collaborative opportunity. If my private studio is to go public, it seems right that the work takes on a more public dimension, group efforts, interchangeable work, feedback and a general loosening of ownership in response to this trialling.