Getting tense
These are the last few days in which to prepare our show ‘Pattern Industry’. We are giving a talk to students at the Slade the day after the show opens. As we make amendments to the paintings, we discuss our practice and try to guess the sort of questions we might be asked. The talk is being filmed, so it is easy to feel nervous.
Today, as Matt and I have been putting the finishing touches to the paintings, Claudia, Sandra and Monica have been working on the wallpaper. Accuracy and tidiness seem important to both processes and I can’t remember when either the studio or workshop looked so well organised.
The mosaic roundels are the same dimension as the smaller canvases, and the broken circles on paper (a printed version of the mosaic laying style ‘opus circumnactum’) are also based on these proportions. The attention to scale is a strategy aimed at unifying the diversity of elements .
We broke for lunch late yesterday and ate with my son, who was watching football on TV. My loyalties were divided, as Arsenal (our local team) was playing Stoke City. Arsenal is often thought of as rather middle-class and namby-pamby, in contrast with the down to earth, carthorse kickers of Stoke, Pete told us. He illustrated his thesis by contrasting managerial behaviour in the dressing room.
At half time, Arsenal’s manager is reputed to leave the boys five minutes to calm down, then to allow them five minutes to analyse their play, before giving his measured thoughts on general strategy. This is not the style of other managers – who may approach matters more emotionally. In fact the last time Stoke (who won yesterday 3-1) played at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, the manager head-butted the captain. It is hard to stay calm when things get tense.
No head-butting among YOUR team — esp if you’re to set an example for the Slade bunch. The work is marvelously subtle. I look fwd to lots more pics.
I see you put Arsenal & Emirates Stadium among your key words — think you’ll pick up a mess of footy blokes for the blog or the show? Here’s where we test the class affiliations: wine or beer at the opening? Thought so.