Playing and working

Sometimes projects excite me and I do like a mail art project, it allows you to do something different and connect with a different community. 'The Arbroath Correspondence School' has an odd sound about it, it could be ancient, it sounds formal and yet also funny. So when it was announced, before anything happened I started researching Arbroath, mainly through old photographs. I have never been to Arbroath, it is not far away from me so as soon as I can I will pop up for a visit. 

So my first response before the project had even started was a reaction to two images of a whale stranding, the otherness of the dead whale, and the wonder that the beaching created made me think of the whale as a mythical creature a mermaid seemed the obvious choice.

Kirsty McKeown is the artist leading this project at Hospitalfield and she sent the first mail-out last week a hand reaching out in friendship. Kirsty works predominantly in collage, text, and print-making, she also works a lot with the theme of hands.

                       

I sent her a smile back. I know from experience that organising these exchanges is both exciting and somewhat disappointing as you don't receive as many responses as you would like, but it is rewarding finding some creative connection and having a dialogue traveling by snail mail, in this case, 53 miles north. 

Currently being transported is a collage of the circus arriving in Arbroath.

I can remember from when I was a child, that buzz of the circus arriving, I enhanced mine with little Technicolour as this image has a little 'Wizard of Oz' about it. If you want to join in the fun please get in touch with Hospitalfield or Kirsty McKeown.