Sorting the mess and 'deskavation'

By Bridget Strevens Marzo

Last year was busy, crazily so at times, and there was no time for pondering projects.  

Just one commission which I've mentioned before.  A cube-shaped bookshelf of seven mini board books of rhymes, Ma Petite Bibliothèque de Sept Comptines à Chanter, published next month withBayard. 

My illustrations to Mini Racer by Kristy Dempsey, are also due out in February 2011 but they were mostly done in 2008-9.

I've talked already about clearing out my parent's home.  Many of us have to do that at least once in our lives.  Are we ever prepared for it?   I groped for some kind of structure for dealing with it all.  
First I archived my father's paintings.  In his very limited spare time, Mick helped me put online a web site I wrote about my dad's work.

But I had to tackle the real physical stuff by myself.  My father's wall-to-ceiling bookcases of dusty old tomes nearly undid me.  I thought of old Soames in the Forsyth Saga,  killed by a bookcase falling on top of him.  I gave myself a deadline, setting sights on a a time when I'd be free from some of the weight.  
Auctioneers, a local charity, and clearance people came for the final haul.  I had never appreciated what an essential role such people play in the human ecological cycle; excavating, digesting and recycling for other lives. 
And what a lot of stuff there was - half a century of my father and mother's lives,  both makers and hoarders in their very different ways.

I kept asking myself,  how much more space is there in our world, to fill?
Anyway it got me thinking about creative processes and how much it's about sorting out, structuring, giving meaning, throwing away, bringing to life.  
Our shrinking spaces may be one reason why increasing numbers of contemporary artists work with archives.   Rather than generate more stuff,  they sort.  They take some aspect of the pre-existing stuff, and invent new structures for ordering it, creating new meanings for what's already there.

And I thought about how small kids learn from structures, and want order almost more than they want information, at kindergarten.  "Chaque chose à sa place / Everything has its place"  my kids were told, encouragingly, in French maternelle school from aged 3.  ("If only that were true!" I sometimes think...)   But how kids love putting things in boxes, laying out bricks or plates, fitting one lego onto another - and breaking the order and re-inventing it too.   

Back in my home, on a much smaller scale: all the work I'd done for Mini Racer  jammed and finally broke my cheap Ikea drawer.   To sort it out, I had to spread the mess all over the floor

I've sorted and kept about a quarter of this 'archive'.  A lot has gone into paper recycling.
Really the whole process is all about making messes and sorting them out. 

I was delighted to receive last week my pile of advance copies of the US edition.  In a real sense, it's a re-ordered fragment of the mess above, condensed into a coherent, beautifully-designed and bound 32 page fly-leaf hardback.   

And bravo to all involved in helping make that happen from the first words that Kristy put on a page to send to her agent, to the editor, art director, designer, printers, not to mention the distributors and the guy who packed the box and the delivery man who knocked on my door!
But now I have to find a space for them in my house.
Better get back to excavating papers on my desk and drawing table - a repetitive task which I never quite get to the bottom of....Deskavation - a new word proposed by a listener to Broadcasting house on BBC Radio 4 today.

Sheffield Sketchcrawl Number Four

By Lynne Chapman

Around 30 people turned up on Saturday for the 4th Sheffield SketchCrawl: some old hands, several brand new faces, all different ages. This is Bryn Hughes, who seems not to feel the cold at all, choosing to paint outside as usual - brrrrrrrr!



The lovely Sheffield Telegraph article brought a few more closet-sketchers out of the woodwork too. We had a great time and drew until our pencils were smoking!


This is one I did in the morning, in the library. You can see more of my sketches and read all about the day here.


But you really should take a look in the Picture Gallery too, where I am gradually posting the drawings done by some of the other people there, like this one by Sally Jane Thompson:


As usual we all chilled out at the end of the afternoon in a bar and passed round the books. Such a lovely way to meet new like-minded people.

Introducing SketchJam: Sketchbooks & Beer!

By Lynne Chapman

No, not exactly a SketchCrawl this time. SketchJam is SketchCrawl's younger brother, so to speak. It's a brand new, musical idea that I tried on for size this week.

Remember how the snow scuppered our chance to draw an orchestra recently? Well, I've been mulling things over with my good friend and fellow artist Martin Hinchcliffe (who also did this lovely painting). We've cooked up another way to draw live music.


SketchJam's world premier (!) started at the Cubana in Sheffield on Thursday evening, where we were entertained by soul and jazz from the 50s and 60s, played by Simon Peat on the Sax, with Joel White on vocals and keyboard.


It was wonderful, and I was bobbing up and down (while also trying to draw!) to all the old favourites I remember my mum and dad playing when I was young. Unfortunately though, as you can see from my sketches, we couldn't really get close enough to the musicians, plus it was a bit dark and VERY warm, so we moved on after a bit, just down the road a way, to The Grapes:


Our merry band of 7, some old hands from previous SketchCrawls, but some new faces too, huddled happily over sketchbooks and beer in a cosy side bar, drawing the locals:


We thought we had missed our chance, yet again, on the music front, but we discovered at 9.30 that we had struck gold: a knot a old folks in the corner suddenly whipped out guitars and spent the rest of the evening taking turns singing wonderful folk music!


We had a smashing evening and all drew and painted our socks off until about 11.00. It was so casual and friendly, bantering with the singers and generally chilling out to music and drawing. What could be better?

Email me if you live in my neck of the woods and fancy coming to the next one.