Assignment 2

Photography 3 – Sustaining Your Practice, Assignment 2.

Publication Proposal

This proposal aims to explain how I intend to publish my project titled ‘Shul’ which began in Body of Work.  I have already begun work on my plans and I expect them to be resolved by mid March 2018.  The main aspects of this plan are itemised below:

·         An exhibition of the work in a local gallery.  To this end the gallery space in Cleethorpes Library has been booked from 19^th March 2018 – Saturday 24^th March 2018.  I have chosen this location partly because it is local and I have a lot of contacts through my networking with the area’s artist community and also friends, therefore I hope that I could generate a pleasing footfall.  I also have experience of mounting exhibitions here through contact with the post-graduate fine art group, East Coast 7 to which my wife belongs.

·         I plan to have a preview on Monday afternoon/evening.

·         The exhibition would comprise my body of work either mounted and framed, mounted/printed on aluminium or acrylic, printed and mounted on foam board or prints on high quality matt finish paper hung using bulldog clips.  Although this decision is yet to be made I favour mounting and framing. 

·         I also hope to make, in collaboration with a local bookbinder, a hand-made book (see details later) which would form part of the exhibition and also a video installation on a laptop.  I intend to be a presence at the show all the time; in this way I can monitor the use of the laptop and the book and organise sales as well as keeping a record of footfall and talking to people about the work .

·         It is intended to produce business cards

·         I intend to publicise the event through word of mouth (already underway), social media, flyers and posters, advertising in the local press and camera shop both of which I have good contacts and the redevelopment of my website.

·         At the moment I intend to self finance the event and offset the cost to a large extent through the sale of cards and prints, both during the exhibition and during my regular talks to a wide range of organisations.

The Work

The work is based on my major project from Assignment 5 in Body of Work.  I used this work as the basis for Assignment 1 in Sustaining Your Practice and asked a range of professional, practicing photographers, artists and curators for their views and suggestions.  I was delighted with the feedback which can be found on my blog.  Not only did this encourage me in my endeavours, but constructive feedback was provided which will help me develop the work further.  I found this experience, showing the work at a local artists Peer Group review organised by Arts Meridian and showing it and talking about it during Insight, North Lincolnshire’s Open Studio event (our garden studio was open for two weekends for the public to view both my work and my wife’s rope sculpture and textile work) invaluable.  It is by talking about our work and explaining it to others that we really get to know it. One of my Level 3 degree colleagues who lives in Lincoln visited during Insight and wrote the work up on her blog (Link here).  We were also fortunate enough to have an article written about us in the Lincolnshire ‘glossy magazine’ The Journal.

Proposed Exhibition, Hand-Made Book and Video Installation

The proposed exhibition will take place in the gallery space in Cleethorpes situated on the popular and busy sea front.  Below are photographs of the space taken during the hanging of Landmarks by East Coast 7.

The room measures 9m square with two doors and one corner occupied by a window which has blinds that can be adjusted to cut down any glare.  There are adjustable spotlights set in the ceiling and the walls are white and repainted and holes filled following each exhibition.  It is at the rear of the single story library with internal access from the internet cafe.  A plan of the room is included below.

As my favoured method of presentation is currently to mount and frame and I have agreed a price with a local framer for 60 cm square frames in black, my current calculations are based on this.  With these measurements I would need 20 images.  This would allow for the body of work as it stands with 5 more to allow for further developments.  Initially I planned to present the images in much the same order as for my body of work, but one feedback suggested that as I have alluded to choice of broad, well-defined paths or more ephemeral ones and posed the question of what to do when the path ends, I could present pairs of images to show the different extremes.  Hanging unmounted prints on their own would be a significantly cheaper option as would mounting on foam board which I have yet to experiment with.  Printing/mounting on aluminium/acrylic, although an attractive option, would be  significantly more expensive at £170.00 per image for Aluminium and £140.00 for acrylic.  This would be prohibitive without applying for funding.

As part of the exhibition I hope to produce a hand-made book working in collaboration with a local bookbinder, Mags Bradley.  I have shied away from the blurb type book, but, having known the bookbinder for some time, I have had the idea of a hand-made book for a while.  Partly it came to me during my meditations during my walks through the Lincolnshire woodlands when I pondered on the possibility of a book with covers made from the wood of the trees through which I was walking, or at least the same species.  Mags says this would be eminently possible and showed me an example of one she had already made.  As well as materials we have discussed the practicalities of making such a book such as the use of a ‘guard’ to allow for the thickness of the print.  The pages of the book would be 200gm/m² Somerset paper interleaved with printable translucent dividing sheets to both protect the images and take the text.  The title page would have the title Shul embossed in the shape of a pathway.  I would print the images on a suitable permajet paper.

Finally, I am considering having an audiovisual installation of the project which could be played on a laptop with earphones.  This would be a further development of the video I experimented with for Assignments 4 and 5 of Body of Work which up until now I had intended to leave as a web presence on my blog.  However, I decided to include it in the work that I sent out for feedback and Emma Roberts, owner of the Steel Room Gallery in Brigg, responded very positively to it: The video also brings the photography to another level.  A docu-photography piece, I could see it working as an installation in a gallery or space.  Lee Gilby also commented that: the accompanying video work, for me, takes the concept further and the sound of footsteps is almost hypnotic adding a level of isolation and immersion for the viewer that the print wouldn’t.  As this would only require a laptop and earphones, it would be easy to set up.

Budgets

Exhibition

A3+ prints on permajet paper 20 x £2.50	£50
Mountboard 10 x £1.50	£15.00
Framing 20 x £13.00	£260
Gallery hire	£35.00
Total	£360

Although expensive I feel that the cost of framing is offset somewhat by the very inexpensive gallery space.  I also intend to add my print and card sales and talk fees towards the cost.

Handmade Book

Wood for cover	£33.00
Somerset paper	£50.00
Additional materials	£20.00
Labour	£120.00
Total	£223.00

Again expensive, but I would hope to offset some of the cost from card and print sales and talk fees between now and next March.  I already have 5 talks in the diary which equates to approximately £250.00. 

Website Development

I currently have a website hosted by Clickpic at a cost of £40.00 a year and the domain name of Mike Pickwell Wild Images.  I originally set this up to display my wildlife and landscape photography.  I am currently in the process of bringing it in line with my OCA and future work.  I may decide eventually to start a new website from scratch which, perhaps, better reflects my current work. The website in its current form is here.

Obtaining Feedback

As the exhibition is only on for 5 days I have blocked this in my calendar and intend to invigilate it for most of the time.  This is partly for security purposes for laptop and book, but also because I have paid an extra £10 to be able to sell prints and cards.  It will also mean that I will be available to talk to people about the work and record their reactions.  I will have a visitor’s book with a comments column so that I can monitor footfall as well as reactions to the work.  There will also be a preview event on the Monday afternoon/evening to which I will personally invite a wide audience through email, messaging, and social media.

Conclusion

I have spent a long time thinking and planning for this event.  Although I am greatly excited, it is a new venture for me and it will take me out of my comfort zone.  I do feel though that it is a good way to bring my work to a wide audience and being local I feel that I can tap into more people than if I had travelled further afield.  Many people are used to seeing my photography when I do talks as far afield as Lincoln, Scunthorpe and Gainsborough, but this is both a different aspect of my work and a different way of viewing it.  I shall use these talks as a way of personally inviting people.

Although I am going to incur a not inconsiderable expense to put on this show, as I have mentioned, I hope to recoup a large amount both during the exhibition itself and at various events during the next seven months.  I also feel the culmination of my studies warrants the expense.