On Beuys...

"The more elliptical the writing, the harder the act of reconstruction. It’s like walking into a classroom after a lecture has taken place and trying to imagine the contents of the lecture through the notes remaining on the chalkboard. Or like forensic expert arriving at the scene of a crime. Or like a maid cleaning up a hotel room in the morning. As she clears the smudged wine glasses and the two trays with room-service meals (one eaten, the other barely touched) and strips the rumpled sheets (which have not however been kicked off the bed), does she stop to think how the couple spent the night before? Did they quarrel? Did they make love, and if so, was it perfunctory or passionate?  Was it their first time? I can’t imagine she isn’t at least a little curious. How often do we peer into a bedroom of someone we haven’t slept with?"

Birds and the Fox

I finally got to meet Brian from NOBs on Monday 20th December at St. Erth train station, he delivered, four pheasants and three woodcock as a result of the weather he had found it difficult to get hold of rabbits and also the wood pigeons but has said he will deliver these soon, hopefully in January. As long as the weather stays normal it should be fine.

It's interesting to suddenly have a few dead birds in your possession and to have to work as quick as you can before they turn. I had to go about my everyday life of working as a sales assistant also and felt a little like superman with a double identity. By day I was working on the tills and by night I was stood upon a table amongst my birds performing. Christmas eve I performed also and Christmas day I took the birds to the woods and placed them in the field beside the lake and documented it. I then left them and returned to find just bones and a few feathers left, a fox I assume. I wish I had had the means to stay overnight and within the next two months hope to make that happen, so that I may document the entire event. The idea was simply to take the still life further, more so than Sam Taylor Woods version and to also push the idea of 'live art' to the limit.

Here are some pictures:

Bucket, snow and birds

I managed to get to Hester Berry on Tuesday which is fantastic and had a good chat with her, and my bucket for my sound pieces finally arrived even though it was delayed by a week as a result of the weather. Now I am waiting for Brian from NOBs to reply to my suggestions of days we could meet up and hope and pray that it will be soon, I fear it's cutting it a bit fine!

However, I think what I need to do is test the piece out with meat even though its not the aesthetic I am going for I think that I would rather not loose time and worry that the birds won't  be available in time and if that happens I don't want to have done nothing.

It's difficult to round off a project in preparation for my presentation when although I definitely feel like I have completed 3 months worth of work at the same time I feel that a lot of that hard work is only just beginning to pay off and my understanding of how to get a space etc has only just triggered with me, and most importantly, the realisation of the kind of artist I am as well as the kind of artist I wish to be has finally been realised. I look forward to continuing with this project after the hand in date as I feel it can grow and develop in a very exciting way.

One of the things I have found the most difficult is having to rely on other people and working around them. I feel like if I had interviewed myself, owned a gallery and had gone out to shoot the birds myself a lot more would have been done, but of course arguably that in itself would dramatically change the work and also have problems of its own!

Website

I am in the process of setting up my first website which isn't as simple as I thought, my living room is suddenly a mini library, looking at all of my works and trying to attempt to select them for the site. Which interestingly is working hand in hand with my CEP even though there is of course a section ready to place my CEP work into, the fact that my project is evidently about archive and biography the action of making the site is actually on the verge of becoming a work in itself.

Check it out: www.martinavermorel.com

Other news of the week, unfortunately I was unable to meet with Uta but hope to meet her in January in Gloucestershire when I meet Ray Hedger also. It's a shame but not terrible as feel at this stage I have plenty to be getting on with.

Brian from NOBs is meeting with me next week with the delivery of some birds, 20 wood pigeons and 3 pheasants hopefully; I will be travelling to St. Erth to see him.

Also, am meeting Hester Berry a painter in North Devon on Tuesday, I'm really looking forward to meeting her she's an amazing painter and very interested in what I'm doing.

Later in the week and the week following I will be going to St. Ives to make some works. I'm waiting for a bucket to be delivered, it's amazing how the simplest of objects are the most difficult to obtain. I need it for my performance works outside.

I'm so excited!

Am a little dubious about this presentation, not because it's assessed but because of the email asking me what kind of room I need and what equipment, it's all very dramatic! I'm worried I'll turn up and there won't be a projector and I hope I'm not given a microphone or anything. God, it's all of a sudden a little corporate, which may be why I've found my work going down a more organic route.