Day One

Take 8 inexperienced young artists, approximately 10,000 sheets of information (I’m still digesting it..), 5,000 cups of tea and put them all in a studio with a huge window.

Welcome to day one of our work experience; please enjoy the awkward silence while it lasts (which could be some time). Don’t get me wrong, day one has been a great introduction to the world of contemporary art. Vicky has shed some light on what we’re going to be doing and the other people in the scheme seem lovely (I’m sure we’ll be talking by next week…) the endless stream of tea and coffee is enjoyable, and the guest artists and support folk seem interesting.

After the mountain of sheets were all tucked away neatly into our new folders, we learnt some skills on interviewing and practiced on another person in the group as a way of getting to know them. It was a good exercise, as we learnt how to interview but also started to chip away at that ominous cloud of awkwardness and start to be more comfortable around each other. Well, the person we were interviewing anyway.

Before this I might add, we set up our own little folders on our own little mac books in the studio, so that we could later edit the interviews we had recorded and edit out any ‘umm’s and ‘errr’s.

After I risked the rain at dinnertime (Another thing I learnt today was not to wear open foot shoes in this weather), we met a lovely artist called Lesley Guy, who gave a really interesting presentation on her favourite artists and contemporary art.
I really enjoyed this as she showed that any old crap (literally) can be used in art.

She then showed us some bizarre but totally intriguing artwork of her own that included drawing on people she finds in the newspaper who have recently died. Strange as it may be, I really actually enjoyed her artwork and it really inspired me to do some of my own (although people aren’t particularly fond of me doodling on their only copy of their wedding photos as my mum ‘kindly’ pointed out… just kidding ;) ). So today has been a slightly awkward but captivating success of a first day in my work experience. Better than sweeping up hair any day.