My own belief is that placing art in the public arena is a very valuable thing. We often find that art is restricted to the gallery space where it becomes the refine of the elite, and therefore it seldom makes it's way into real world, which is surely what it is made for.
Because of this it may be true to say to make an artistic statement, that is recognised by enough people, including non-artists we should explore the idea of working outside of the gallery and stepping into the public arena.
After the St Ives trip I was thinking about competitions and how I have always wanted to win one (..ha ha). Well I have looked a lot into the idea of doing a residency abroad, going somewhere hot and making sculpture – but it always came back to the fact that I was too scared to apply, and a bit on the lazy side. I remember searching for the type of residencies available:
Scottish Sculpture Works - http://www.ssw.org.uk/
John Micheal Kohler Arts Centre – http://www.jmkac.org/
Artquest – http://www.artquest.org.uk
There are lots of residencies, on Artquest alone you can access a whole database of ongoing opportunities, it's great. I have to say that mostly this was wishful thinking on my part, but it did make me think that in the future I should give competitions a go even I have to concede and never apply for a competition again like Bruce Mau suggests, not to say I have applied for loads.. but who knows.
So when I saw the Wildworks www.wildworks.biz/ brief, I thought that I should give it a go, and sent off a creative CV. I chose to design the CV around my current ideas, I made it so that it would open out in layers and hopefully be exciting to look at.
The map folded into a small square which I put in a self seal plastic bag witch was meant to protect it, a bit like when you are walking you can put a map in a bag so it does not get wet. I then printed my CV onto the map itself and included photos and a cd of my work.
