Featured image: I recently put out a call on my socials for a lend of some hydrophones, and someone local kindly got back to me and dropped off his equipment in a venue for me to later collect. I took the equipment with me on a recent trip touring around Argyll and the Firth of Clyde by boat, recording (amongst other things) porpoises, as well as the hum and noise of various marinas in the area. Small acts of generosity help the seeds of projects get off the ground, so special thanks to Geoff for helping out!

This year I have been the fortunate recipient of one of the South of Scotland VACMA Awards, for Visual Arts and Craft Makers. The small grant scheme offers fixed bursaries to enable skills and project development, mentoring and much else besides. In 2023, my award is towards the making of a new studio piece, working title Gestures that takes a lead from the more sculptural and sound inclined parts of my work.

Over the past few months, I’ve been finding spaces in amongst other projects to research and develop the potential for a new sound installation for gallery settings – including an ambition to tighten up the technical aspects of my installs and enable them to be easier operated and ran by gallery teams. It sounds like a small detail, but the reality requires quite a bit of additional thinking. Alongside these technical considerations, I’ve also been aiming to sharpen the focus of the piece – originally loosely conceived as a sort of audio sketch or collage created from a series of recorded environments and curiosities, as I continue to gather and record sounds for the piece it’s potential in turn develops a more complex and nuanced narrative.

Particularly in regards to my studio work, but also across all other aspects of my creative work, when in the midst of things I’m not always too sure about ‘why’ I am making, or to what end. For this particular project I am working without a fixed end point – a final exhibition location has not been selected, or a date for it’s launching and without any restraints the work is free to meander through the development process. I’m hopeful that this slightly different approach will be a useful one, as I seek to make space for more work without deadlines and a more self-sufficient (and self-disciplined!) approach to studio practice.

Images: I’ve been making some more test pieces considering the sculptural elements for the project alongside this, pictured making casts of my own hands from alginate, then pouring them in plaster. The final stands and supports for the work are also a main focus of the project’s development.. bit more on that to come before too long. Thanks to Kirstin McEwan for the lovely photos.

The opportunity to learn is not lightly skipped over. The act of turning something over, constantly re-evaluating its performance or potential is key in my drive to make new work, and to produce in each new piece or project a more robust, more finessed, more complete variation of my explorations encourages the next steps.

More to come!