Yvette Hawkins dot com

It’s been all too quiet over here hasn’t it?  In that case I had better reveal some things I’ve been working on…

First up is a new installation of modular origami for an exhibition in a church in Gateshead.  The church is being converted into artist studios (I have my eye on one of them) and the exhibition is to launch a new phase of work for the conversion.  My piece will be a completely new work, what form it will take?  Even I’m not sure.  I have faith in paper though and it’s never let me down yet.

Next is the Newcastle Gateshead Art Fair as part of Globe Gallery’s stand.  I need to choose what work will go in.  Part of me wants to put the sewing circle sculptures in, but part of me loves them so much I just couldn’t bear it if they sold.  That’s the thing about spending hours making sculptures or drawings or anything, it becomes personal and letting go is very difficult.

I have a few other projects in the pipeline too, but they’re all too soon to speak about.  They’re exciting though, that’s for sure.

Visit the Newcastle Gateshead Art Fair on October 1st -3rd 2010 at The Sage Gateshead.

Here’s some images of the Gallery of Wonder Show in situ.  I love the glass with the books, I think it’s worked really well, especially in the noir light.  It’s made me think of working with glass again and may even mean I can make work that could be placed outside, something that I find doesn’t quite translate with my work at the moment.

I’m planning the next phase of work at the moment.  One of the things I’m looking at is this website.  I feel a redesign is in order to reflect a new phase and I really can’t wait to launch it.

Aside from being super busy at work, I’ve also really got stuck into developing ideas and being really ambitious with more complex folding and continuing to work architecturally.  I really feel as though I’ve found my place with the sort of scale I’ve started to work on and I just want to keep going.  I also want to explore different kinds of spaces and I’m a believer that bringing art and business together is the way to go for our economic future.  So with this in mind I’m looking to do more commissions with workspaces, commercial spaces, public spaces.  All of which bring new and exciting challenges, so let’s see what happens.

With the new look website I’ll be putting up more information about a commissioning service I’ hoping to offer.  In the meantime please feel free to contact me by emailing yvettehawkins@gmail.com

No Land in Particular has been reviewed twice this week.  Firstly here and then again in the Journal.  I’ve heard the exhibition has gathered quite a lot of interest from passers by.  It’s quite sad it’s coming down on Saturday.  I feel as if I’ve been on an art high with an influx of opportunity since working with Globe last year and it’ll be sad to move on.  Hopefully I can continue my relationship with the gallery in the future, I’ve loved every minute of it.

One great thing that’s come about from the show is a commission for a restaurant on the Fish Quay area of North Shields, which is where Globe lives.  It’s still a work in progress but I’ve seen the space and I must say I’m very excited about responding to yet another interesting space.

Here is something I’m experimenting with:

Origami tessellations.  It’s freed up the way I work and I hope to buy some rolls of paper (the largest I can find) to work on a larger scale.  If anyone knows any companies who do very large rolls please let me know.

I’ve moved house (again).  I also have a new studio, well it’s a room in my house but with lots of light and a great view.  I’m going to do a book installation in my living room as soon as I’ve got myself settled.  Really the whole flat is my studio so I’m going to experiment as much as possible on the walls, the ceiling, the back yard.  There’ll probably be lots of holes in the walls when I leave, the landlord is sure to love me!

Anyway, both the Globe and Gallery of Wonder Exhibition openings went down a treat.  The Hatton Gallery tweeted my show on Twitter and it really made my day.  Thanks Hatton!  I’m really thrilled with the Gallery of Wonder Show, which helped me focus on a new direction with my work which was much more intimate and delicate than how I’ve worked before.

I also really loved Paul Grimmers piece at Globe, a video piece entitled Changeling.  The frame he made to show the piece was actually modelled on an embroidery circle, which I thought was really neat and a bit of a coincidence because I’d been using embroidery circles for the Gallery of Wonder show.  I also thought that his piece worked really well with my installation.  I didn’t see his piece until the opening and I wondered how our work could be brought together, but the nature of Paul’s optical fractal video piece and the repetitive nature of my installation really sat well together and I loved how his circular projection paralelled the cylindrical shape of the sculptures and played with illusion in our own seperate ways.  The show is on until 14th August.

The Globe Gallery show ‘ No Land in Particular’ has had a change of date and will now open on June 24th.  Gives me some nice breathing space between the two shows so I hope I’ll see any readers down there?

I’m currently working on two new shows which open next week.

‘All The Books I Have Never Finished’ is a body of new work which looks at the role of women in bookbinding.  Traditionally, women folded paper and sewed book sections and men took on the hammering of spines, glueing and casing in the book covers.  I was interested to look at the parallels of womens domestic life and their role in the bindery.  The new work combines materials used both at home and in the bindery such as embroidery rings, zips and thread.  I’ve been fortunate enough to have some victorian tools donated to me for this exhibition by the Literary and Philosohphical Societies very own Bookbinders.  The show opens on June 15th, at The Gallery of Wonder (time to be confirmed).

‘No Land in Particular’ is the third showing in a sequence of bookwork installation which engages the viewer in the physical acts of looking and reading.  The installation takes on yet another new form as each piece is fixed to the wall creating a large sculptural wall drawing based on the contours of maps.  The piece is installed at Globe Gallery’s Hub space in North Shields and opens on 17th June (times to be confirmed).  I’ll also be showing alongside artist Paul Grimmer which is particularly exciting.  Read about his piece here.

I’ve been featured in this months Living North Magazine, a regional magazine based in the North of England.  It’s my first ever full page feature so it’s a real milestone for me.  I’m not sure how wide their readership is, so for those who aren’t from my part of the world here is the interview in full.

How did you come to be an artist?

It was something that happened over a number of years, starting from when I left University in 2007.  I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute to an exhibition in an artist run gallery in Heaton and this gave me the confidence to put my work and myself out there.  I started making my own opportunities, approaching galleries to stock my sculptures (which thankfully they did) and eventually Globe Gallery gave me my first solo show last year, which is the achievement I am most proud of.  This allowed me to finally have the confidence to call myself an artist, which is of course, the first step to becoming one.

It was a huge accident really.  I was printing on the edges of things (lines of poems on napkins and then stacking them to make whole poems)  I was interested in language and peoples perceptions of the way we read and how, when we see a page of words, we are compelled to read the page rather than see the patterns and marks on them.  I really wanted to manipulate the way these words could be seen. I discovered that I would need to find a way to control this viewing experience so moving onto working with books was just a natural progression for me.  When I started folding books I had no idea they would become cylindrical and once I made my first one, I just couldn’t stop.

I used to feel guilty, but after a while I stopped thinking about them as these sacred vessels of knowledge and more like objects or materials for me to explore and manipulate.  Whenever I run a workshop there are always initial gasps as I extract the covers, sometimes I forget to warn people beforehand. Of course there are books I can never fold and never will.  All of the books I use are second hand or donated by charity shops or libraries, so it’s like giving them a new lease of life and reinvigorating them into something new.

Definitely my solo show ‘Their Silence is a Language’.  Globe approached me about doing an installation in one of their spaces.  When I went to see it, it was so huge and I must admit I felt very intimidated by the amount of space they had given me.  After I’d pulled myself together I thought this was the chance for me to do something spectacular and produce something on such a scale I could only dream of.  I decided to make a secret maze out of hundreds of book sculptures which would bring in a socially engaging angle, which visitors could interact with.  This produces loads of problems, including folding over 1000 book sculptures in time for the exhibition, organising nearly 100 volunteers, interviewing people to contribute to a sound installation of memories, arranging the lighting and working out the logistics of hanging the work, but we all worked together and in the end it was really worth it.

I’m really proud of the globe show, it has lead to future exhibitions, installations and even potential commissions in hotels and libraries both in the UK and abroad.  Alongside my career as a practising artist I have also managed exhibitions and events for new artists and graduates, which has enabled me to pass on my knowledge to others and make a better world for other artists.  Currently I manage The Shed in Gateshead, which provides rent and rate free studio space to creative businesses.  It’s really great to be able to help others who may not have the confidence to develop or push their work in the right direction.

I would love to have an exhibition or installation in The British Museum.  I’m currently obsessed with the way artefacts and objects are displayed in museums and would like to make a body of work which addresses the social barriers of the act of looking within museums.  I would also really like to work with a library on an installation especially somewhere like the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle.

I love the notion that being an artist can give you the freedom to express opinion or research an idea on absolutely anything, it really is a luxury and sometimes it makes me feel guilty, like I should be doing some real work.  I also love the way creativity can improve and contribute to, peoples state of mind, well being and happiness.

What inspires you?

Other peoples enthusiasm, lists, Ginger beer, repetition, people who wear bow ties, Jenny Holzers exhibition at Baltic, Rob Ryan, beaches.

I really love Durham Catherdral for ‘me days’ which consists of walking a lot, drinking coffee and having cake.  The Canteen and Bar in Newcastle is my current favourite eaterie (because of their childrens book menu’s) and The Central Bar in Gateshead is definitely my new favourite place to drink real ale on lazy Sunday afternoons.

My large installations can be found on my website www.yvettehawkins.com and my sculptures can be bought from my etsy shop http://paperfaerie.etsy.com or at the Laing Art Gallery and Shipley Art Gallery craft shops.

After quite a busy few weeks things have come to a halt and now I have time to breathe.  I’m 56 hours over at work, which is quite a feat and honestly I have no idea when I’m going to find the time to take back all of my hours as things are really picking up on that front.  I’m grateful it’s the bank holiday though and really grateful that I have the next week off (though actually I’m still working on my two shows, but I don’t think of it as the same, perhaps because I enjoy it too much, perhaps because I don’t really get paid for it).

Aside from the shows I’m coming to realise that much of the advice I’m giving at work, should also be advice I give myself.  I told an artist recently that being an artist and running a practice is like running a business.  You want to sustain your practice (ie; earn money from your work) and you have an idea of what success looks like.  But with the arts and being an artist the notion of writing a business plan is totally alien.  Perhaps this is because the general perception of running a business is the more blatant approach of having a product or service, knowing your market and getting people to buy/rent your product/service.  With art, the boundaries are much more blurred.  For some artists making work and consistently developing new ideas is the product, but still we need to find a way to sustain ourselves so we can continue to do this and for that we need some idea of how we can earn money to do so.  I think many folk (myself included) take on freelance work, part time work or other sorts of work that may not directly be related to the practice (to fund its development) and it is here where we come up with our first blurred boundary.  If the paid work has no relation to the practice then how can it be a viable business?

I think the first place to start, or more importantly, the first place I’m going to start is to actually write down my vision for my practice.  Once I have that, I can come up with a plan to achieve said vision.  It’s funny how I have a business plan for Paperfaerie but not for me.  With Paperfaerie it’s more clear cut.  This is the outlet that I sell my sculptures within, simply it’s a label I use to sell my work in a variety of online and offline spaces.  However though I have seperated it somewhat to my installations, it is still invariably linked and therefore should the two be one?  The reason I seperated it was because I felt that the vision for each was different and also the market was different.  With Paperfaerie, I felt I wanted the work  to move more towards affordable functional items for the home and workspace, whereas the installations are more about exploring spaces and peoples relationships between communication and physical spaces.  My market for Paperfaerie was the general public or consumer but for the installations it was galleries, public spaces and also corporate businesses like Hotels and Architects.  Then of course the third part of what I do is the paid job.  Whereas once upon a time not very long ago I was doing jobs that were completely unrelated to the arts (admin, volunteer co-ordinator) now I do a job which is directly linked to it.  Furthermore it’s using the skills and knowledge I’ve picked up from my practice and curatorial projects to help and encourage others to develop themselves.  So really is it all just one business?  If it is all one business then how would I describe what I do in one sentence?  Maybe that’s not important at all.  The thing is though, being an artist isn’t clear cut, there are lots of hats to be worn and all of these hats use different parts of the brain.  When I do my finances, I switch off my creative mindset ( it also hurts more).  So now I’m neither more forward than I was when I started this post.  I think perhaps the thing to do is write 3 business plans.  Actually I don’t like the word business, so I’m going to use development plan instead.  The word business makes me think of wall street and number crunching which sort of gets me thinking about the 30s depression and also the recession.  Development plan has more of an inspiring connotation to it, makes me think I’m moving forward.

The next question is ‘why write a development plan?’.  Well for me it’s about moving forward and achieving my ultimate goal of sustaining my practice.  I haven’t done that yet for the installations and I know if I want to get there then I need to build new contacts, relationships and work outside of my current view point, which is something that will never happen without a plan.

So here we go.  I like to think that a plan is just one very big elaborate to do list.  See already it’s becoming easier to think about.