I’m spending September doing my first ever artist residency with Art Gene as part of their U-Hang exhibition programme. Based in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, Art Gene is an arts research facility that works with a range of artists, architects, other specialists and communities on ambitious projects that examine and ‘re-vision’ regeneration. It’s inspiring stuff and a real privilege to be working there.

U-hang is a rolling exhibition progamme that brings artwork to the public areas of Art Gene’s building, the Nan Tait Centre, which is shared with local government offices. Artists are invited to ‘engage creatively with our Grade II listed historic building’, which is what I’ll be doing…

The Nan Tait Centre opened on 1903 as the School for Advancement of Science, Arts and Technology, and was later renamed Barrow Technical College. When the college moved in the 1980s the building fell in to disrepair until it was renovated by Art Gene’s founders in 2002. There’s a wealth of original architectural detail, and it’s a pattern-lover’s dream.

I’m one week in, and this first week has been about exploring – the building, my work space, the town. And where to get a three-meat carvery for under a fiver. I’m based in a lovely, open landing space, and I got straight to work creating quick, temporary paper collages around the existing tile detail. It was a good way to get comfortable in the space and start coming up with ideas. Other activities this week have included sketching the elegant curves of the iron bannister panels (I generally work with lines and angles, so curves are a bit of a novelty) and doing rubbings of the tiles and textures of the floors (buying wax crayons was harder that you’d think).

My aim is to create ‘site-specific surface pattern’, which responds to and interacts with the existing pattern and decoration throughout the public areas of the building. I’m working towards an exhibition at the end of the month – not knowing what the final work will look like is equally exciting and scary. I’ll update this next week, by which time a plan should be coming together…