7 Sails Phase 5 – Part 1

I’ve been selected to participate in phase 5 of the 7 Sails project set up by artist Pat Law at Heriot Toun Studio. I’m the 5th artist in an eventual chain of seven and the artists who have so far come before me in this chain are Sarah Roberts, a visual artist from England; Jerker Fahlstrom, a story teller from Sweden; Su Grierson, a visual artist from Scotland; and Karine Polwart, a singer/songwriter from Scotland.

It’s like a creative version of the game Chinese Whispers and I’ll just use Pat’s words to let you know more about it…

The whispers began with a series of short voyages on the west coast of Scotland aboard a Loch Fyne Skiff – no itinerary, no set plan, except to explore that intriguing coastline, looking at different elements of the landscape or culture, scooping up moments and fragments to pass onto other hands for assimilation and interpretation…

7 artists have responded to 7 sets of material which took the form of sketches, stories, paintings, photographs, conversations, and the outcome will be shown here. These responses will be passed onto another 7 artists and so on… for a total of 7 phases/50 artists. Pat Law

So I’ve been given a piece by the visual artist Sarah Roberts to respond to. It’s a painting called ‘Swarming Princesses’ and I love it. Not sure of it’s original dimensions as I’ve just been sent a jpg via email, but I imagine it to be quite large. I’d certainly hang it on my wall as I love the colours and patterns used. Here are some details from the painting:

When I first saw it, the first thing that came to mind was the box of electronic components that Steve sent me recently and I’m definitely going to work with these for the project. Here are some images of the colourful components I’ve got to play with:

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I’m going to create and worried that I’m running out of time, but have decided on the fact that it’s going to be, either a set of three little sculptures, or a piece [or pieces] of jewellery.

So far I’ve ordered a load of copper sheet and bought some lead free solder and pinched Colin’s soldering iron. I’ve just got to clean up the electronic components I want to use and see where to go from there. I don’t want to give too much away so I will leave it at that for now.