Applying paint with sandpaper; making arcs with match pots; working on wallpaper… This is no ordinary project – and it’s happening in a tower.
Clients working with me over the Summer know that I’m spending two days a week on artist residency at Tower Gallery, in the Memorial Community Church in East London. It’s a Byzantine revival church designed in 1911 and opened in 1922 – and whenever I’ve had work in a Tower Gallery exhibition, I’ve found myself drawing bits of it. So that’s what my residency is about.
There’s been quite the rabbit hole of research to find out more about who designed it, who built it and where some of the materials came from. I’ve been visiting archives, poring over maps, striding out on sketch walks, picking brains, even listening to a bell… and there’ll be more on that in my talk during Open House, on 18 September.
But what have I been up to in my first two days at the residency studio, in what was built as the church’s projection room?
Well, I’ve been keen to work at large scale and to draw on and with materials related to architecture and building crafts. And this week, that’s come together neatly: There have been working drawings of the tower to do for another artist making a model. Making them by hand (string compasses, anyone?) has made me feel my way around the building. And with a drawing in hand – big needed to be even bigger – my creative experiments with materials have found a use: a 1m high annotated introduction to the project.
Oh, the mystery window? No idea! Come to my talk to find out what it is and if I solved it.
