Taking professional dance training was a worthwhile investment

‎42: 56 in... Anya Gallaccio talking about collaborating with dancers, the difficulties of working collaboratively, and choreographing her audience. A lot of her reservations, for me, stem from not understanding how to communicate with dancers, and possibly not working with dancers who have experience of collaboration outside of dance. Makes me very glad I took the time to do professional training and really understand the job of a dancer and associated thought processes.

Found an affinity with Lucy Skaer

Lucy Skaer talking about her installation for the turner prize. She is interested in the boundary between 2D and 3D and here she describes how she 'orchestrates' her installations and talks about the idea of 'presence' I wonder how much of that came from her collaborative relationship with Gill Clarke (Siobhan Davies Commissions)? I identify with a lot she says here.

Tate Channel shedding some light on things

I have been listening to the Tate Channel today in my studio. It has been such a relief to listen to artists talking about what they do in practical terms. It made me realise that you just do what you do, it doesn't have to be so complicated!

Jeff Koons, Paula Reago and Grayson Perry were my favourites so far, Grayson Perry: 'Everyone has a brand so I am the tranny potter, which isn't too bad'. Brilliant!

http://channel.tate.org.uk/#media:/media/26522806001&list:/channel/playlists/41803706001&context:/channel/playlists

I have rejoined the Axis community

Axis is a great community of artists and curators, I have just signed up again for another year:

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=12243

I'd like to know about you

I often wonder who all those people who look at this are.... drop me a line zelda_stevens@hotmail.com

: )

Cognitive wholes, embodied cognition

In the studio today listening to this affirming talk about the cognitive whole that mind and body forms and how this affects learning. The educations system's lack of awareness of this is why my mother chose to teach me at home, and thank god she did!

Although this explains why I have never quite felt on the same page as other people until I met contemporary dancers.

The late Gill Clarke, dance artist and Guy Claxton, learning scientist in conversation as part of The Independent Dance Crossing Borders and PAL talks:

http://www.independentdance.co.uk/rsc/MP3s/CB2011/GuyClaxton_11Oct2011.mp3

The bit at 54.35 secs about how we understand perception is enthralling: Guy tells us how the old model of the mind held perception at the fore and action at the back, action as a response to perception with intelligence in the middle. The new model is not linear however, it places doing at the forefront.

He goes onto talk about vision as the prototype for perception, when in fact it is touch.

Visual perception is a visual process of tapping the world. What is more perception is not building up a big composite picture. In fact you only have the detail, which enables you to build up expectations of the world, built by touching it.

Artist statement

It is four years since I started this blog and the new lines of enquiry that are now starting to take shape. To pin things down and move them forwards i have written an artist statement:

I make room filling installations, objects and drawings (drawing spanning traditional media/dance/assemblage). Between 2004- 2008, I extended my painting practice driven by my increasing realisation of the role of the body in perception. Because my experience of the world is highly sensory, visual and crucially mobile, I felt my work couldn't continue to serve the eyes alone. It remains important that the form of my work encourages spatial participation from the viewer.

In deconstructing painting I increased the scale of the work to encompass the viewer entirely and extended the work into their territory, requiring them to interact with the it on spatial terms. The architectural boundaries of the space replaced the 2D frame as a compositional device, and the work was constructed of painting materials. This work was often site-specific, always responsive to the exhibition space and sometimes related visually to the space outside the gallery/site. It was largely informed by the experience of moving through urban landscapes.

Having made this departure, since 2008 I have increasingly explored ideas relating to movement and by extension, natural forces: balance, tension/oppositional forces, exertion of force on a material of space, rhythm and energy. The work is informed by physical practices including contemporary dance/movement and direct observation of humans in movement and natural forms and forces.

Influences include Phylida Barlow, modernist painter Peter Lanyon (master of articulating sensory, mobile, landscape experiences) and contemporary choreographer Siobhan Davies, a pioneer of the body as a source of information for making visual art.