As part of this year’s Arches Open Studios, I was lucky enough to be selected to produce the physical part of the Arches Artists Story, the event’s legacy project for 2021. It’s my first formal applied-for commission, so feels like a big deal – here’s a bit about it…
The idea was to create a piece covering the physical and digital realms which somehow responded to data about all the artists who had ever been residents at The Arches. It could in principle have been completed by a single artist, but in this case it was split between me and another artist J Walters who produced the digital aspect (more of that later). The two realms needed to be joined in some way and we decided on QR codes that would link to examples of artists’ work in a virtual reality gallery. So, to sketching out ideas. The data came in the form of a spreadsheet of names, years (joined and left) and very brief statements about practice. The ‘canvas’ for the piece was a 1.2m x 2.4m wall-mounted board. Initially I imagined some sort of mosaic/scatter of artists’ name with their residency dates and an icon indicating their work.
Though this idea didn’t feel terrible, it didn’t really work in practice; the end dates were not clear in many cases (for various admin reasons) and choosing an icon was tricky – in some cases there wasn’t enough information, and of course some artists’ practice had changed so there was a risk (probably a certainty) that their work would be misrepresented by whatever I chose. In principle they could all be contacted and asked, but in practice there wasn’t enough time (there are about 130 artists).
So, some discussion and a partial rethink changed this concept to a timeline organised by starting year rather than specific date, and the icon idea was removed.
A lot changed at this stage. The whole piece was styled as a treasure map from a children’s adventure book. I’m have fond memories of such stories and still like maps of imaginary lands, so felt it would bring some joy and nostalgia to something based on a very dry spreadsheet. The landscape chosen was the outline building plan of the two halves of the studio complex. The idea now was that there would be a meandering timeline of artists’ names from when The Arches opened in 2005 to present, and space left for further names to be added, at least for a few years – so, a physical object that isn’t finished when it’s finished; it has to be able to evolve. The board having been prepped (lovely surface, thanks!) by a tech/intern, time to break out the paint pens. Those who follow my drawing know I typically don’t use rulers, compasses etc or underlying sketches. Freehand is the way for me, but in this case, I decided the plans needed to be measured, so some pencil points were used as guides, but the paint still went on freehand. It’s always a nervous moment when a straight line or smooth curve is about to be applied but it worked.
At this stage there was another name to be added and a couple of tweaks where typos hadn’t been picked up, but basically it’s done. Little Post-It slivers were also added to show who’s a current resident, and they’ll be moved as artists leave and others join. It was lovely to follow the line round to see who I personally know – there are a few long-term residents, but mostly the familiar (to me) names are from the last few years as you’d expect. I’ve separated the years by colour for clarity and to add some welcome brightness after (well, sort of still during, but less so) horrid pandemic times. The timeline will grow and weave its way through the blank spaces – most likely it’ll be me doing this in the short term, but after that who knows – will there be a change of handwriting? While I was doing this, J Walters was creating the splendid virtual gallery (you can tour it here), and printing the QR codes for me (cheers!) so I’ll end with some images of the timeline in situ, including the VR environment.
Dave Hubble 