For the next couple of weeks I will be staying in Devon to have some focused time to make work. I have a little shed-studio here, and will be making work alongside exploring the area and talking with family about the family history of the village. I’m so excited to have a space allocated to making again. It feels great to be here and enjoy my time.
The village I am in is a little fishing village. Part of my family have lived here for generations, and so the place is steeped in stories. I am interested in how connected my family here are to place. I find it fascinating that 50 years ago, when my grandparents were working, they could put a name to every house in the village. I want to learn about this history whilst I am here and let that inform the work I make.
Placelessness is something I have been thinking a lot about increasingly so over the last 2 years. Or, on the other hand placefullness! I like that word. Can a person feel ‘placefull’? Can a place feel ‘placefull’? Is it the place or the person – the perspective of a person or the built environment of the place – that shapes how placefull or placeless a place is? All things to consider!
The last time I had a studio and focused on making work was in central London. This dramatic shift in place should inform my practice in an interesting way!
As I write this I am sat in the shed-studio I’ll be working in. It’s a little shed with a large benchtop and lovely big windows that my great-grandfather painted in when he was retired. One little window has a fantastic view out to the estuary. It’s such a change to be living and working in a place with family history. It feels strange, because I am not used to it. I haven’t painted in a while, and I must say it feels a little daunting to start. New place, new studio space.
Thinking through:
– I want to get back into painting outside whilst I’m here
– Walking and recording moving through a landscape, the possibilities of that through painting
– Vibrancy, animacy of land
-Place and collective? memory
– Grid lines! Perspectives, using grid lines, inspired by maps, shifting them.
I am going to be posting on here once a week with a round up of the previous week, so stay tuned!
Georgina Harris 