For the next two weeks I’m doing a residency at In Certain Places in Preston. In Certain Places have led a programme of artistic interventions and events in the city for the last 12 years, producing an impressive range of projects that explore, question and test the boundaries of art, culture and urban development.

They’re based in a two-up, two-down townhouse in the centre of Preston, and that’s where I’m working for the next few weeks. The space is an odd mixture of domestic turned institution, with lots of white paint, boxed-in features, a huge amount of plug points and hardwearing, un-cosy carpet throughout. But there are still signs that it used to be a home, and that’s what I plan to work with. I want to bring some character and domesticity back to the house, with a series of interventions dispersed throughout the rooms. I’d like viewers to stumble across different pieces of work as they nose around, and to have the sense that they’ve discovered something special or forgotten.

The work that I produce, along with work by Claire Tindale, Steph Fletcher and Cherry Tenneson, will shown at In Certain Places as part of the launch of the Hannah Directory and the UCLan degree show on Friday 12 June at 5pm. The exhibition will also be open the following week.

I’ll update this blog with notes about my progress as I go along, but in the meantime, here are my initial photos taken to help me get to know the space...

I’m currently working on an AA2A residency placement at the University of Lancashire’s print department. As this is where I did my MA, it’s really nice to be based somewhere that I’m familiar with, plus the people and facilities here are lovely. I started my placement back in October, but as I was going to be away for a lot of November and December, I wanted to get my first project completed before I went, so I could have work on show while I was away.

I was allocated a section of corridor to exhibit in. It’s a corridor I’ve walked up and down a lot over the last few years, but when I walked along it with a view to exhibiting work, I realised I hadn’t looked at it very hard before.

The walls are a weird painted breeze-block type affair. And the ceilings are a mishmash of exposed pipework, wires, switches, lights, board, joints and machinery. I get excited by seeing the workings of things that I don’t understand – I feel as if I’ve been shown a glimpse of a secret world. Seeing what’s under a dug-up road, engineers working on those electrical boxes on the street that are full of wires, even mysterious goods trains going through a station and never stopping – they all make me think about how much I don’t know about what goes on around me.

So this corridor seemed like an opportunity to look more at what was there, and hopefully get a few other people to look a bit harder as well.

I had a week to research, plan, make and display everything, which in hindsight was pretty ridiculous. But it was good to learn which parts of the process I’m comfortable doing quickly and where I felt as if I was cutting corners.

My plan was to create a long piece of work that spanned the part of the corridor I had to fill using modular pattern elements made out of the textures and shapes from the ceiling.

I started with photos. Lots of them, in black and white with increased contrast to reduce them down to the most basic shapes and patterns. No time for tone!

Most of the pipes were grey/beige anyway, but what excited me colour-wise was the odd bit of bright label or printing, so I kept this in some of my photos.

I picked out areas of the images to develop into positives for screenprinting and spent some time working digitally on the image files to isolate each part and make up modules that could be repeated, rotated, combined and overlapped. This took more Photoshoppery than I’d hoped and was pretty time consuming.

Next step was to make up the screen and get printing. I didn’t have a plan for the main composition, but wanted to experiment with combining the different elements as I went, with fingers very crossed that it would all come together in time. I’m naturally a bit of a planner, and doing something with no time for mistakes leaves me twitchy.

As I tried out the various combinations of modules, a plan emerged. I decided to use two main lines – one going straight along the corridor made from a repeated section of pipe and one that wound around the pipe made from a metal plate. This would provide continuity throughout the piece and reflect the continuous nature of the pipes in the ceiling, so I could then add detail from the rest of the modules in layers over the top.

I had a day to print everything. So that stage had to be decisive and quick. I’d already decided to stick with the colours I’d used in my research – greys with accents of bright colour here and there. I also found I could paint on the odd patch of colour to the screen itself, giving a hint of the rust and dirt on the surfaces.

I was printing on 12 x 12 inch squares of paper – even though I was covering a large area, they are really quick to print and are cheap. I also wanted to work in a way that meant I could play around with positioning as I put it all together. Like a giant puzzle.

A day to print turned into nearly two, so my day to put it all up turned into a few hours. I was working right up until the building closed, the night before I was leaving for two months, but it got finished. Just. It took 47 hours in total, and I used 88 prints in the final piece.

It all felt like a bit of a dream, so coming in this morning was a good chance to confirm it had really happened and give myself a bit of time to reflect on what I’d made before taking it down. So, this is what I learnt:

I probably knew this already, but although I can do tight deadlines, I’m not someone who thrives on them. I prefer the luxury of getting a bit lost in my research and some contingency time if things don’t work as planned. But…
adrenaline gets me a long way.
Lots of ideas got thrown out before I’d really had time to explore them – I wish I’d documented these better, so I could come back to them more easily now.
I usually take on too much, but it always gets done and that feels brilliant.
Taking photos at 7.55 on a Friday night, when the building shuts at 8, is not a good idea. I’ll be back in next week with my tripod, some daylight, snacks and a calmer mood.
This bit (thinking about what I did and putting it into words) takes a while but it is really helpful; it all makes a lot more sense now.
As a process, this worked - I learnt a lot from it and was pleased with the journey it took me on. But I'm not crazily happy with the final piece - I'd have preferred to slow down and spend a bit more time on decision-making. Too many of the questions I would ask about it as a viewer ('Why is this bit like this?') have the answer: 'It just is - there wasn't time to do anything different' and that leaves me a bit dissatisfied.
I can fill a big space. I’ve done it a few times now, and it's started to feel exciting, not intimidating. (I'm VERY happy about this!)

Here are a couple of photos of the final piece - more to follow next week...