dumfries and galloway | Katie Anderson

November 3, 2018

The Stories of Our Places are Hidden in the Collections We Make

Regular, or even occasional visitors to the Dumfries Hospital may have noticed a new addition in the ward areas in the past month. I was delighted to finally see the DGRI Collection Tables installed, following their completion by fabricators at the Glasgow Sculpture Studios (thanks Dave and Martyn). If you are about visiting an ill friend or relative, or are perhaps spending some time there yourself, have a look for the socialisation spaces in each ward, as nine of these contain one of our tables. There are also bonus points for anyone who spots the two tables out at Moffat and Stranraer community hospitals.

These are one of three commissions which I have been developing over the past two years for the new hospital, and comprises of a series of 11 coffee tables (nine of which are in the DGRI), filled with individual collections, filled with objects, found and gathered, and made specifically for the project.

One of the tables in situ amongst a collection of odd NHS furniture and thank you cards

For this project I have worked with students from HNC and HND art classes at the Dumfries College, and young artists as part of blueprint100’s open workshops at the Stove. Students and artists were invited to create an object that reflected ideas of health and wellbeing, that could be a positive message for someone to spot whilst spending time staying in the hospital, or that reflected their experiences in Dumfries and Galloway. The found objects are a mixture of natural materials gathered from around the region, old postcards and curiosities linked to places around the region. We then hosted casting sessions in the Dock Park and outside in the College grounds making their objects in pewter.

Inspiration from the Viking Hoard found in Galloway, during workshops with DG College students

I was really touched by the thoughtful and considerate approach students and artists made towards the project, and the love and care each person put into their objects. The concept of giving a gift of a positive message, or moment of distraction to a stranger who might be spending extended time in the hospital struck a serious chord with many of those participating. The generosity and creativity of everyone involved was very humbling, and a treasured part of the project.

The furniture itself was designed by Dress for the Weather and made by the GSS team from a coloured MDF material valchromat, which takes on a lovely soft and tactile finish when the medical varnish, Steriguard is applied to it.

The lettering in the casing is all hand painted, a copperplate font at a miniscule 12mm letter height, and will be etched on my brain forever.

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What is of real significance in projects like these however, is a more complex notion of ownership and association. Often, a little ‘community engagement’ is sought at the beginning of such large projects. ‘Could you just run a workshop with some key stakeholders to involve them in the project?’ This can be a great starting point. But the notions that this is the beginning, middle and end of ‘community’ involvement undermines the investment, and care of all of those involved. Whoever the community might be, in this case from staff and daily users, to patients, family and friends, and the wider community – almost all of whom will use these public spaces at various points in their life, to offer a tokenistic approach towards involving other people is insensitive and in the longterm, entirely un-useful to artworks.

Community engagement is not an afterthought.

For me as an artist, whenever I involve others in my work, by invitation, direct collaborative working, conversations in passing, or any other form, these people are then welcome to be a part of the ‘artist’ role, they too are invited to have a share of the ownership of the work, and to share in the journey of the works life. This is of course, not a requirement, but is open as a means of us creating a more meaningful artwork collectively.

Token inspired by the histories of Lincluden and Lochside, created by Jimmy Russell

Over 60 people contributed unique works for the DGRI collection cabinets. I hope that everyone who has contributed a piece to the collection cabinets will have the chance to seek out their own contributions within the hospital, and share their individual stories. The tables hope to be there for the foreseeable future as a record of our moment of shared collaborative practice.

Installation in progress

Ours is a transient community. But it would be disingenuous to claim credit for anyone else within this. I’m still hoping to get some form of permanent marking to tell the stories of those involved in contributing to the project, although unfortunately I don’t have a complete list of names.

Sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to the work, without you all it wouldn’t have been the success it has become.

Stag’s head by Isla Gracie

Special thanks to Jo Shennan, who leads the art courses at DG College. Thanks also to the blueprint100 team, and Matthew and Sophie for their support with leading the workshops, and the Stove for ongoing use of the Pedal Powered Foundry.

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October 13, 2018

Tattiefields: Reflections

I’ve been out of habit of reflecting on work, due largely to having taken on a little too much the past two years or thereabouts. With Tattiefields having been finally installed and launched last month, I have finally had the opportunity to consider the project as a whole. Here are the first considerations:

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The process of leaving a work

I don’t enter into making work half-heartedly. Works have to spend long periods of time being mulled over in my mind and on paper long before they become communicable, never mind entering the physical world, and even then, they do so tentatively, and through a form of extended internal discussion around process and material.

Tattiefields began as a work for me in November 2016 – although the site and back story existed long before – and over the course of two years the work has lived with me more or less constantly, before arriving on site in September this year to begin it’s life ‘on site’. The production phase lasted near enough nine months, with various intensive periods interspersed by periods of waiting, and slow pace.

By comparison, the installation was a whirlwind of movement, change and finality as at the end of the day, we were required to pack up and go home, leaving the works to grow their evening shadows across the park.

Image credit: Euan Adamson

In the run up to the final installation – a date which was unsettled and ever moving during the summer, I mused over the act of leaving a work in a place. The Tattiefields sculptures, which are intended to be permanent additions to the site, are hoped to settle into the place, to become part of the landscaping and surrounding area.

A public artwork, has certain aspects of gift-giving attached, in that I was spending large portions of time considering, and creating with the intention of then placing it within a location to develop a new, and somewhat independent relationship with the other residents of the location. But it was also unlike traditional gift giving, I was aspiring for associations of gift not to be primarily about value, or necessarily a relationship with artist and reciever, but about creating a relationship between artwork and receiver – in this case, residents of the place and the objects themselves.¹

The work is also intrinsically a part of me. I have grown with the work, and developed new interests and approaches as a consequence of the project, (as well as having earned the title Princess Tattie, Tattie Lady etc.) To leave ‘casually’ the work to the elements and the place has imprinted the work into my memory. I check back regularly, driving a circular route around the site, and pausing to touch and check each element of the work.

It is settling in already.

Image credit: Galina Walls

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Following the conclusion of this project I’ve been left with the sense that Public Art is a series of relationships between

the artist – and the artwork

the artist – and other makers and contributors – and artwork

the artist – and place – and artwork

the artist – and residents – and artwork

Image credit: Galina Walls

Each of these relationships forms a new network that informs the work, and our on-going understanding of the place. In this way, it is not possible to claim exact authorship, even with a project that has been heavily developed independently, as each of the relationships created has grown the project in new ways.

Many of these were built through chance encounters, casual conversations with neighbours and the generosity of local residents who gave their time and efforts to support the projects development.

The relationship with other makers and contributors was a new one for me personally, as the first project where I have worked extensively with others to create an artwork. The process has been intensely rewarding and humbling, and I have so appreciated the calm, patient and sharing nature of each of these contributors.

Creating works like these draws some interesting questions about the balance between authorship and ownership. The authorship I explain a little bit more about in an earlier blog², the ownership in that for these works to be truly successful, the ownership cannot be solely with the artist or client – in this case the housing partnership who officially ‘own’ the works. For an artwork to truly belong to a space they also need to belong to the people who occupy and reside within and surrounding the space. Each of the houses immediate to the site overlook the work, and hopefully as they become part of the place, the residents too can feel a sense of ownership towards them.

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Becoming ‘Resident’

At a recent workshop I led collectively as part of an interior architecture course, I asked the question ‘what does it mean to be resident of a place?’ How do we ‘reside’ I, or occupy place? In the development of the Tattiefields site this has been one of my on-going questions. The sculpture too will become a resident of the place, but this also asks a bigger question of us as people, and as citizens of a place, to reside are you also an active citizen, or is being resident a passive role?

Image credit: Euan Adamson

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Public art and the monument

In many ways, this is the stereotype of public art – monuments in places (‘what do you think it’s going to be?’ ‘A giant tattie, for sure.’). In a certain way, Tattiefields is a monument, albeit to a vegetable rather than a historical figure, but it also seeks to determine an alternative approach to permanent public artworks. One that plays a close relationship with the place and the people, whilst also drawing out the less well known narratives of a place, celebrating the everyday and commemorating unique memories and identities of the places we live in. It’s all a question of scale.

Image credit: Euan Adamson

¹For more on gift giving, have a look at Lewis Hyde’s The Gift, a book I have never yet finished but has influenced my thinking about gift giving.

²https://katiejanderson.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/international-technician-day-everyday/

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May 3, 2018

Postcards from the Past

As part of one of my ongoing projects for the new DGRI hospital in Dumfries, I have been gathering collections of objects, with connections from across the region. From artist made objects, to found stones and pebbles from across the Solway’s beaches, forgotten tourist tat and old memories of Dumfries and Galloway past, to new visions of the region as viewed by young creative groups in Dumfries.

I first stumbled across old postcards on an extended eBay hunt, and have since become a bit of an avid collector. As it turns out the inscriptions on the back are every bit as exciting as the images on the front, however in the final installation, the inscriptions will be sadly hidden to keep the postcards safe and in good condition for the future, under glass. The earliest card is dated 12th August 1903, and the most recent ones from the 80s.

Here are some of my favourites before they become hidden in their new homes:

‘Just here for the day – the weather isn’t too good.’

‘Have enjoyed relaxing while it rained’

‘I went down for a bath’

‘one good turn deserves another’

‘We are hoping to go to Stranraer before we come home.’

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January 9, 2018

Collections: Part One

As human beings, one of our more interesting traits is that of collecting, from the gradual process of gathering and selecting, through to our individual approaches of cataloguing, organising and eventually displaying. These can of course, be on a large scale, and done on behalf of communities and peoples, such as in museums, galleries, and shop fronts of many different kinds – and now the online purveyors of exactly-what-you-might-want-to-purchase-for-your-home, but the more interesting collections are those of the everyday, the individual collections of pebbles from the beach, mementos from previous holidays,fridge magnets, wine corks, postcards, pogs.

This man apparently owns the worlds largest yo-yo collection, of over 6,000 yo-yos. Thanks internet.

We live in an interesting time, so overwhelmed by materialism and disposable culture, that I see the objects we chose to keep, collect, and save as imbued with an innate special-ness. These collections can come to represent us, to our friends and families, and to those who may find the collections after us, as representations of our place in this time. Even the smallest, and most insignificant of collections has a story to tell. Collections don’t need to be fashionable, they just have to be curious and loved. I’m slightly fascinated by the now highly unfashionable thimble collections, cases for which can be found in most charity shops, along with a large collection of mostly uninteresting thimbles from obscure British towns and faded seaside resorts.

I’ve also held a long term curiosity about Cabinets of Curiosity, or Wunderkammer, (thank you University of Cumbria..), and collections that are neither ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’, that have been gathered, grouped and collected in a manner inspiring and pleasing to the gatherer, creating an individual narrative rather than an accurate depiction of natural history etc.

According to wikipedia*: Ferrante Imperato’s Dell’Historia Naturale (Naples 1599), the earliest illustration of a natural history cabinet

But where is all this going? As part of an ongoing project I have started to assemble a collection of objects, made, found, gathered and bought, that will hopefully encourage a little closer examination, a little conversation, and a little curiosity as to their reasons for gathering and placing. I’ve also been working with artists from blueprint100, and students from the Dumfries and Galloway Art and Design courses to create some of the works for these collections which has been a really exciting sharing process. All the participating artists and students were invited to make objects that related to the region, and that were suitable, caring and mindful for a healthcare environment.

Pewter cast object, by artist Agnė Zdanavičiūtė

Slip cast conker from my studio collection

Salt, gathered from the North Sea. Studio Collection

Pewter cast key by artist Liam Templeton

It hasn’t stopped there. I’ve since been drawn back to eBay, madly collecting old, used postcards with curious snippets of tales on the back, cream pots and milk bottles, scrounging charity shops for old tourist tatt (whilst trying to avoid excessive mass produced plastics), my medal celebrating the last dip at the old Dumfries pool has gone in, as have other curios, pin badges, beach pebbles and seed heads.

The collections will be housed in bespoke designed cabinet-topped coffee tables, by Glasgow based design company, Dress for the Weather, and will hopefully be under production shortly.

If anyone has an old curiosities from the D&G area you’d like to see repurposed into a permanent artwork locally, from items of local history to tourist tat, please get in touch. I’d especially like to find some milk bottle tops – the kind that had the name of the area on them – or some pogs. Just because.

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December 11, 2017

Mapping

After a hectic couple of weeks, a series of five wall murals have now been completed for the new Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, with huge thanks to painters Louise Todd and Kirstin McEwan for all their help. Each one is hand painted in colours complimenting the existing ward and departments palette.

The murals, which will form the backdrops for the main artworks to arrive in the New Year, have been placed in both A+E and Maternity, and are based on contour maps of various locations around Dumfries and Galloway, from Kirkcudbright, to Galloway, Annandale to Criffel – I’ve hopefully gotten a reasonable spread across such a large region, and happy with how they are looking.

This project is part of Staying and Waiting, a commission by Dress for the Weather to create new artworks for the waiting areas around DGRI, with support from the Holywood Trust.

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November 29, 2017

Works in Progress – Can’t See The Wood for the Trees

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It’s interesting how ideas grow and change as they develop. The growth of an idea from initial concept through the various layers is a bit complex in the artistic process. Pieces are added, stretched, shrunk, thrown out entirely; materials change, colour palettes shift and move, scale, size, and the actual point of the whole thing in the first place can get lost en route and magically reappear on reflection after it’s been at the back of a metaphorical cupboard for a couple of months.

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I am not a digital artist by any stretch of the imagination. I was dragged, kicking and screaming into the digital world realising post-graduation that an artist career without a computer in the 21st century was a physical impossibility. I love the insignificant and the small, indelible and slight mark of our hands to be left on everything. Illustrator and Photoshop, genius as they are as programmes, remove to varying degrees, the mark of the maker.

This project became an investigation into how best to hold onto this essence of artist. I’m sure a designer or illustrator could have easily illustrated this task, but stubborn as I have a reputation for, the idea of creating a repetitive image to be used across nearly 300 bedrooms was a challenge that appealed.

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The practical challenge, aside from the large scale repetition (image must be the same throughout all rooms – although this was negotiated to three variations by the end of the project), was the available space and shape available in each room – 800mm x 2500mm, and the material – digitally printed onto a medicare-approved plastic. This is possibly one of the least attractive materials I have ever worked with. The inspiration drew from the local area, and the view from the intensive care rooms to the back of the building, of forests, half hidden in the mist, and of – closer up – the tree barks, lichens and mosses that make of the close up detail of our woodlands.

Then came my introduction to the beautiful world of coloured vinyls, with thanks to Sam Sparrow, and later to Elite Display for helping me to get started with these designs.

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I LOVE coloured vinyl. It has a great smell, great tactile-quality and looks great layered up. (Please vinyl manufacturers, more colour variety in transparent vinyls though!). The grey vinyl was my absolute favourite. Too bold though, in their original colours, for the environment.

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Layering up by hand and enjoying the play between vinyl and mount board (difficult to view through these scans I appreciate) – the hand of the artist was still squeezing back in there. I loved the interface and relationship between the hand drawn ink lines and the glossy vinyls.

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So began a long battle with colour. And composition. And other things. Huge thanks at this point to Euan Adamson who spent some time in my studio scanning and copying multiple variations of works for me at short notice.

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And then again.

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Patience is a virtue. Or something.

Now give all of the ideas and work time to stew, slow-cooker style for a period of months before they are whisked off to the great digital printers in the sky.. or the South of England somewhere in this case.

If you’d like to see the final works, you will need to visit a sick relative staying in one of the bedrooms in the new Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary. This project is part of Staying and Waiting, a commission by Dress for the Weather to create new artworks for the waiting areas around DGRI, with support from the Holywood Trust.

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September 18, 2017

Wave Decay heads for Sanctuary

This is really a work about listening.
It is about what you hear before, during and afterwards.

It is about the act of listening, and about experiencing through listening.
It is about how we understand environment, through our audible landscapes.

It is about switching on and tuning in, in order to switch off.

Come and explore with me. Wave Decay will re-emerge from an indecisive few months of false starts ad uncertainty in it’s new beauty as an experiment in the wilds of Galloway as part of Sanctuary Lab. The installation will run from 10am on Sunday morning, 24th September, all are welcome. Full details available here, hope to see you there!

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August 21, 2017

SURGE

Excited to have new work showing in Edinburgh as part of Upland’s SURGE exhibition at the Patriothall Gallery next month. The exhibition launch evening is free and open to everyone, if you are about in Edinburgh town please come and see some new work from a selection of excellent D&G based artists.

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August 2, 2017

Wave Decay, Sanctuary Headed

Really excited to announce that Wave Decay will be making a second appearance, later this year at Sanctuary. Having first created the sound and sculptural installation in collaboration with Justin K Prim last summer for Milkbank House, (details available here) the work is now being redeveloped for a new location in the Galloway Forest Park.

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Full details about the project at Sanctuary here

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July 23, 2017

Running on the Backs of Whales

Beautiful weekend was spent in Galloway avoiding the rain showers, running across the flat and empty Solway, and revisiting the Stove’s Ferry Bell in Creetown.

Also, very excitingly, I went to check out a potential new location for an installation work later in the year. ‘Like the backs of whales’ was the general descriptor we went out on the search for.

And so it seemed. Huge granite spines crack open the surrounding greenery, heaving gently through the landscape.

There’s a tiny human (full size) for scale reference.

The surfaces and textures are beautiful, and the sense of scale about the place before it opens up to reveal the valley and burn running below are perfect.

The site might be well known to you if you are a particularly adventurous mountain biker, as the McMoab Stones feature on the area’s more hardcore mountain biking routes, but it is a beautiful site to explore on foot equally.

There’s quite a bit of logistics and detail to figure out next, but I am IN LOVE with this location. (Thanks Robbie, for the hint.)

Stay tuned.

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