The Story So Far..

Now we are into the 3rd week of our cross pathway project half of the year have disappeared to New York for approx 5 days. Meaning ourselves and a few others have been left a few persons short this week, however I thought I'd post a run down of how things have gone so far...

Week 1:
I'll be honest and say that I was quite nervous as to how these groups would go, whether there would be clashes of personalities etc, but we have all bonded and started working well together from the first day. Right from the get go we were throwing ideas around, bouncing them off of one another and our minds were racing a mile a minute... this is what I most enjoy about group work/collaborations, the fact that I personally love getting and giving ideas about work and basically seeing how far we can take ideas and make them fun. This is why I love a studio environment, what can be seen as idle chit chat can actually spark new and interesting ideas or references to use within a piece of work, however I do still enjoy my solitude!

The only real problem we faced (as a group) was having too many ideas with what to do with our door. Our ideas ranged from cutting pieces out of the door, making a sculpture from it or placing it in and around Manchester and turning it into a installation or performance piece but we settled on keeping it simple to fit a schedule. After viewing the Barnstormers DVD (featured in early blog entries) we had decided on our idea and all that was left was to start it.

Week 2:
We had our schedule to meet and a rough running order of how we could all get to paint 3 ideas throughout the 2nd week but as we all know, the best laid plans... often dont allow for cock ups ;) which I am happy taking responsibility for as I spent the morning of monday hunting down some permanent markers to draw on the door with, however I failed! which left us running a little late and we only managed to start the first piece around lunch. This then had a knock on effect as we also underestimated the ammount of time it would take for the emulsion paint to dry after each piece of work was covered. On top of this, I bought 40 markers to use on our board and they were rubbish, the ink kept bleeding through the emulsion whilst drying meaning we'd need to add another coat once it had dried.

It's only after you find a solution that you realise there are easier ways to the same end, basically we ended up turning the door around and painting on the other side and we stuck with our initial tools (Posca paint pens). We speeded up the drying process with hairdryers and heat guns and this landed us back on schedule almost, we still have a little bit to finish in the final week when the New York party returns but this shouldnt be too difficult.

Week 3:
So whilst Rory is away, Stacey and myself are left to arrange the exhibition space and our final bits for displaying the work/video at the end of week 4. The agenda meetings that we've been having each week have been fun (pretending we are all professionals) but it also hindered us a little having to interrupt the painting process. I can understand the benefit it will have for other groups in making sure they are working together properly yet for ourselves, we've spent the week working together anyway and our communication has been great. The atmosphere in our group is excellent also, we've been having fun and making jokes yet remaining professional so that we get the work done and still discussing ideas up to and beyond 5pm.

Anyway, this is were we are up to at the moment... we have plans to try incorporate ideas from New York as well as hints to each piece we created on the door to include in our board surrounds for the exhibition... we just need to continue....