Creekside Open

I finally got round to making my own version of the Willow Pattern. It's been fermenting for a while, but delayed in execution. I was trying to get hold of some round ready-made canvases but Cornelisson's who usually sell them were out of stock. I was also thinking of hanging out at Ceramic Biscuit Cafe in Greenwich and drawing a plate there and have them fire it...

With the deadline for submissions to the Creekside Open (www.creeksideopen.org/) approaching fast (last weekend), I found myself, three days before the deadline, helping friends with their submissions (getting images onto CD) but was undecided over what I would submit if anything. The artist Mark Wallinger is one of the judges. Wallinger won the Turner Prize in 2007 (www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/wallinger/).

The thought that Wallinger, of all people, might actually get what I've been doing made me get off my arse and begin my Creekside Willow. I nipped off down the high street and bought some white plates (paper, plastic and ceramic) in all the pound shops. The last pound shop I tried sold the perfect plate - big enough for an image and beautifully plain. At the newsagents I bought some blue permanent markers. These worked fine on the plastic surface and I transferred a drawing I'd been working on (with the help of collaging images on the computer) to the plate.

It turned out a bit wonky, but then the original Willow isn't exact either. It's an idealised version too - some buildings are still under construction and there should be more of them. Plus the two churches (St Paul's in Deptford and St Alfege's in Greenwich) ought to be in there...and there are no people on the bridge...


Creekside Willow With Vultures 30cmx30cm Plastic plate with felt tip

The plate was finished the night before the deadline day, but I still hadn't invented a border for the plate, so I got in touch with Nick Bertram at Creekside Centre and obtained some Creek mud...I was remembering seeing plates half buried in the mud in the Creek.





The mud links into the subject of the Creek, mud as clay, and the potteries that used to be here. I donned waders and dipped the plate in...




Creekside Willow With Vultures and Creek Mud

I took a bucket of mud back to the studio with me to set up a different presentation. If presented in a gallery, the mud would dry out, so I didn't really get it how I wanted it here - it's still wet and there wasn't enough of it.



I also tried presenting the plate on a Chinoiserie-style wallpaper sample that I'd picked up recently from B&Q. This gave me the idea of redrawing the wallpaper to show the pale pastoral scenes as more contemporary, but there wasn't time to do this.



The deadline was at 5pm on the Saturday and I made it with minutes to spare. Submissions were to be handed in at the APT Gallery where there was a show on of three female artists. One of these artists, Toni McGreachan, remarked on how many people had been into the gallery that day - she had counted over 70 - and most of them were delivering Creekside Open submissions.

The chances of being picked are next to zero, but I am glad that having the opportunity to enter gave me the impetus to start working on this idea...there's still some way to go: explore the contemporary Chinoiserie-style wallpaper idea, and work on a border (or ribbon) for the plate...perhaps made up of financial motifs like the Royal Bank of Scotland logo. RBS are one of the partners in the Creekside Village development. But the development is still going ahead; they seem to have completed the underground car park and are beginning the ground floor structure. You don't have three cranes on site if you're not doing anything.
www.thecreeksidevillage.com/index.html
I should really make more of those glass shards on my plate.