Liz West at Light + Building, Frankfurt

The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) has announced the full program for IALD Lighting Perspectives, its two-day seminar at Light + Building 2016 this March in Frankfurt, Germany. This one-track conference features individual drop-in sessions provided to Light + Building attendees free of charge.

During IALD Lighting Perspectives, architectural lighting designers from around the world will give 60 minute talks – ranging from collaborative success stories to the latest technological discoveries – but the common theme among all of these perspectives is an insight on the light where these cutting edge designers work and live.

Next door to the sessions, IALD welcomes one and all to the Designers Lounge, featuring an installation by light artist Liz West. The IALD has involved the talents of West to make the Designers Lounge an appealing space to meet and connect with others – and with light! West’s work focuses on the human reaction to pure colour. In 2015, she exhibited more than twelve works in the United Kingdom, including the internationally acclaimed Your Colour Perception.

As a contributor to IALD Lighting Perspectives, West will be speaking during her session about her past works, her design theory, and her newest creation for the Designer’s Lounge.

Liz West will be speaking at Light+Building IALD Lighting Perspectives on Monday 14th March at 10:45 – 11:45am. Her talk REAL COLOUR: LIGHT AS MATERIAL will focus on the uses of light as a material that radiates outside of its boundaries and containers. She will speak about her past works and future projects as well as her journey of becoming an artist.

2014: My Year in Review

As we all try and combat the January blues (again), I find it a useful pick-me-up to reflect on the previous year hoping that it will serve up some interesting revelations.

2014 was a productive year for me; I entered the year being not quite sure what it was going to deliver (the same with any year), but as time passes more and more opportunities raise their head to me.

In January I was trying to focus on my studio practice and hit a massive creative block. I decided that in order to overcome this, I would start a daily project - I nicknamed this 'The Construction Project'. I would make, document and take apart a new idea every day I visited my studio, I would then write about the work on my blogs. This was a hugely useful experience as not only did it get my creative juices flowing again, it also allowed me to practice my writing skills.

Day 22 of my Construction Project

At the end of January I installed my work Vanishing Boundaries in The Studios at MediaCityUK as part of Future Cities and Quays Culture Sculpture Series in collaboration with Mark Devereux Projects. During its residency, I gave an artists talk at Salford University; I love doing talks, maybe its because I enjoy what I do, like talking and am comfortable with an audience (I wanted to be a Spice Girls as a youth and a ballerina or actress as a teen - this explains a lot!).

Vanishing Boundaries at MediaCityUK

In February I traveled to g39 in Cardiff as co-director of Mark Devereux Projects to take part in an In Conversation as part of the WARP programme. This trip was the first of many, in 2014 I saw more new spaces, met more people and visited more new places that ever before, this can not be a bad thing!

In March my proposal for an exhibition at Exeter Pheonix' Gallery 333 was successful and I set about fabricating, packing and instructing a new site-specific work to be shown for the month. It was the first time I have shown work in the South-West, I always enjoy hearing the responses of a new audience. As a result, my work was featured on the cover of the regional magazine Exeter Living. In the meantime I clambered on with my Construction Project, blogging daily.

In April I spent a lot of time in the studio and even more time perfecting my writing skills. I was startling to get better and felt more confident.

May brought some sunshine and also my first public outing for a couple of months; I presented my work for Cornerhouse's Show & Tell event alongside other North-West based practitioners and creatives. It was a fun day, but as always, it went too fast! As well as this, the long-awaited publication featuring my work and written by Jac Scott was released, The Language of Mixed Media Sculpture is an reference book including the work of 28 international artists. Before the Summer kicked off I was also commissioned by Adobe to create a digital artwork to help launch their new version of Creative Cloud.

June and July were a write-off! I indulged myself in a couple of family trips - one of which being my Hen-weekend in Carsingson Village and a week away with my mum in one of my most favourite places in the world: Southwold. My wedding followed in early July and then a honeymoon in Italy. Staying in Limone on Lake Garda and trips to Florence and Verona were culturally and artistically delicious. However, I did manage to slip in one cheeky artistic outing thanks to Turf Projects who commissioned me to make a crazy golf hole for their 9-hole PUTT PUTT #2 extravaganza in Croydon.

Colour Intervals in PUTT PUTT #2

As soon as our flight landed at Manchester airport in August my phone was ringing... I had been commissioned by Eden Arts to make a new work for Kendal Calling music festival in Cumbria as part of their Arts Council England funded Woodland Arts Trail. It was a fantastic opportunity to test a new work in the great outdoors. It rained all weekend, the music was good, the pies were even better and the work survived 4 horrendously wet days and nights. Success?

Beyond Space at Kendal Calling

In August I also took part in Bury International Summer School; a wonderful 5 days were spent getting to know great people. I must say that the food was amazing (thanks to Sue Trehy) and kept all our minds concentrated throughout. I made some wonderful connections which will hopefully lead to some AMAZING projects this year! Please watch this space...

At the end of August and throughout September I helped lead several workshops for LeftCoast in Blackpool. The aim was to share ideas with the great people of Blackpool to illuminate their bikes and dogs for two separate events: Ride The Lights and LumiDogs. I was also commissioned to design and light up loads of bikes for the event in which 10,000 people took to the promenade and ride their bikes underneath the famous Blackpool illuminations. A real spectacle and a privilege to be part of!

In the month I re-made, re-interpreted and installed my Barnaby Festival commission into Sevendale House in Manchester's Northern Quarter. This is still in situe if anyone wants to catch a glimpse before it comes down in March. I also found some time to move studios from the 2nd floor to the 4th floor at Rogue. Phew!

Consumed #2

At the end of September was Rogue Artists' Studios annual Open Studios event, which was a great success this year with more people attending that ever before. I was put in charge with all the marketing for the event as well as taking the job or Social Media officer for the studio group on a continuing basis. I made a new light installation that filled the whole of my space and allowed me to explore my new home. Thank you everyone who came, it was a great weekend. September was a CRAZY month!

Shifting Luminosity at Rogue Open Studios

At the Autumn drew in, so did the opportunity to create more light-works. At the beginning of October I took part in Light Night Leeds, where I created a brand new site-specific installation in Leeds Art Gallery. Thousands upon thousands of visitors came and saw the work, a great event to be part of! In October I also had a piece of writing published in online magazine EDGEcondition vol.3 Art & Architecture, have a read if you haven't already?

Intervals at Leeds Art Gallery

Mid-way through October, I took the opportunity to go on my first artist residency to Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn at the Cylinders Estate in Cumbria. I blogged about my experience every day. It was a tough week as I had, by this point in the year, started to totally pull apart and reassess my practice. The residency acted as a well-timed retreat, where I took time to think, draw plans and read a lot. Thank god I went with friend and fellow-artist Alana Tyson for moral support.

In November I had my work included in Hanover Projects' In The City publication as well as featuring on the cover and inside The University of Texas publication/journal Reunion: The Dallas Review. I am gathering a nice little collection of books that my work has featured in, they all sit there on my shelf, in date order...

The Dallas Review

At the end of November I was asked to write a piece for A-N News about the 30th anniversary of Castlefield Gallery. This really tested my writing skills and was a very useful exercise. More of that please? I also did some filmed with A-N for a new film they are making about their bloggers, all will be revealed soon!

I installed new work at Airspace Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent for their In The Window space, this allowed me to create another site-responsive work, this time using cellulose acetate and florescent bulbs. A wonderful opportunity to see the development of my practice and the working-up of fresh ideas in the flesh.

Assaulting the Asphalt at Airspace Gallery

To finish off the year with a bang, I was approached by I-D Magazine and Vice Magazine in New York who were/are making a series of documentaries about obsessed collectors. Me being the Guinness World Record holder for having the Largest collection of Spice Girls memorabilia was a perfect subject for one of their films. The filming took place in December and was tiring but fun... not as glamorous as you imagine and involved leather trousers (I will say no more). The mini documentary will be shown in the Spring via online channel Noisey TV.

Me with some of my Spice Girls stage costumes on the I-D shoot

So, there it is! My 2014. It was a good one personally and professionally. Thanks to everyone who made it so brilliant. x

Reflecting on my Residency at Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn

My creative reflections were all discussed in my previous blog post. I discovered more than just artistic revelations on my residency.

Now I am back from Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn in Cumbria, I am pushed back into city life. I have had a lovely bath and snuggled in my own bed, however, it is the simplicity of Merz Barn I am missing.

It has been amazing to retreat for a week. 

I loved the fresh air, fresh eggs, the DIY approach. I enjoyed cooking vegetarian food with Alana and our evenings of chat.

I thought pictures would do more justice than words to my time spent at the Merz Barn between 13th - 19th October 2014.

Thank you Ian and Celia xx 

 

 

Day 7 - Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn Residency

On the last day on my residency at the Merz Barn in Cumbia it was time to reflect on my thoughts over the duration of the week. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had stapled a huge sheet of plastic to one of the gallery walls and had been writing the contents of my head on it all week with a permanent marker pen. It had grown quite a lot, as I had added to it whenever creatively conducive thoughts popped into my brain.

At the beginning I really struggled to write anything, but by reading, thinking and talking I managed to squeeze out lots of interesting ideas, starting points, questions and suggestions.

Before I set off to the Merz Barn, I had been questioning what, how, when, where.... I had been trying to think about my practice conceptually, formally and aesthetically and question myself on all accounts. I was trying to get to the bottom of why I was doing what I was doing, without losing any integrity and my personal interests: - I wanted to come away from the residency with some starting points for the future, not end points to a final work or to draw a conclusion. I wanted this residency to help challenge my ideas of thinking and allow me time to question my main concerns.

 

On the last day of my residency, Mark Devereux of Mark Devereux Projects was due to visit both fellow resident artist and buddy Alana Tyson and I for a critical feedback session. Alana laid out her works in the gallery space and I was ready to show Mark some of the photographic projects I had done over the course of the week - it was the sheet of plastic with my scribbles on that he was more interested in talking about.

Firstly, he asked me to talk through everything I had written down and add to the diagram if I needed. By saying my internalized thoughts out loud, I heard them for the first time (sounds obvious, I know). I further emptied my head during our conversation - this was a relief as it had been swirling for weeks regarding the questioning of my practice. Mark added to the wall diagram, picking out pivotal things I was saying and adding his ideas too. By the end of the session my mind was spinning again but this time in a good way instead of a confused way.

I had begun to realise what my focus was; I had even managed to pin it down to just one word: Luminous! I had thought about which of my previous works were the strongest and why, I had clearer ideas for the future and for possible lines of inquiry, I also had room to add to the sheet; which is exactly what I am going to do when I get back into my studio at Rogue.

It was through externalising my thoughts that I had come to realise that it wasn't the objects within my work that was of deep interest; they have been there as a device to stabilize the lighting elements and to create bridges for the colours to balance from. It is the purity of colour and how it effects our senses within an immersive environment that is of real interest. How do different colours affect us mentally, psychically and spiritually? How do our eyes respond to light? It is artificial light that interests me the most; where the colour choice is the saturate hues available in chemical manufacture, that I will investigate with rigor, intregue and delight.

The pieces of work I have made up until this point have lead to more sculptural end-points, where the lamps act as divisions or additions within the space; never-the-less illuminating it. It has been a frustration of mine that when people visit my works/exhibitions they sometimes fail to notice the glorious reflections and reverberations of colour around the room. Colour theory at work. It is my job to direct people to look at what I want them too, as well as their surrounds.

I want to take away any structures and investigate the impact of coloured light on us as a pure form. Light fills spaces, like a painting or sculpture or video or a performance. Only in my future inquiries it is the viewer becoming the performer and the walls becoming a huge light painting.

 

Then in was Alana's turn to have a critique. She learned lots of things too, you can read her blog from our time at Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn here: alanatyson.tumblr.com

Day 2 - Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn Residency

After an interesting first day of exploring the estate where the Merz Barn is located, I tried to set myself to work on something, anything.

I struggled.

I had put way too much pressure on myself to fabricate something, but I did not know what to make. I had so many elements around me to explore, so many exciting forms and shapes, different colours, equipment and not a clue what to do with them all.

You could say I was overwhelmed.

I felt I should be making something. I felt I had a very limited amount of time on this residency in which to come away with something credible, exciting, final and/or lasting.  

I tried to make something out of found bamboo sticks; a shape in the landscape. My aim was to cover it in plastic and light from within; trying to think about a future commission I had been set. It didn't work, the bamboo was too weak to hold sturdy. It collapsed shortly after this photo was taken. Boo! But maybe that was a good thing, because if it had worked then I would of spent all week playing with that idea and that would not have allowed for new struggles, deliberations and new ideas.

After a moment of self-torment I grabbed a staple gun and a roll of plastic sheeting attached it to the length of a whole wall in the Shippon Gallery. This was to become the basis for the outpourings of my brain for the duration. A brain chart, a mind map, a spider diagram, whatever you call...

I started by en-circling four things to focus on:

• Why be an artist?
• What does my work intend to say/do?
• Why colour?
• Why light?

I added a few things initially, but then started pondering and scratching my head - hard! This residency was starting to push me mentally and emotionally. I never expected to feel like this, or be doing this. I expected to be making, but I wasn't.

I had brought some books with me on the off chance that I might pick them up for a read. Let me enlighten you on my reading habits - I don't! - I am dyslexic (aren't most artists?) and therefore struggle to read a chapter before instantly forgetting it, I find myself reading the same line over and over, I loose concentration and therefore I hate it, it is a chore.

But, BUT I decided, seeing as there was little else to do, except procrastinate by going on a lovely walk (which I didn't), that I should read. Part of the Merz Barn set-up includes a little yurt library that Ian and co built in a day. It is a cosy hub full of his art book collection, soft chairs and a heater. I curled up in there with a cup of green tea and got stuck in. I had selected David Batchelors newest essay 'The Luminous and the Grey' as my starting point.

 

For me this was a momentous occasion. The last book I read cover to cover (not sure I should be telling you this) was over 7 years ago!!!!

I began to recognise theories and arguments relating to the use of colour in out direct environments, it made sense. I hurriedly circled interested snippets and quotes. It felt like all my questions could be answered, whereas before I thought they couldn't and wouldn't be. This is not to say I haven't read around my subject, but instead I have dipped in and out of essays.

I made the decision to set myself mini-projects in response to and after I had read each chapter or section. A starting point.

Day 1 - Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn Residency

Arriving at the Cylinders Estate; the location of Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn in Cumbria, last Monday was like entering a little bubble. A bubble where life is simple and pure.

Fellow artist Alana Tyson and I were to be artists-in-residence for one week (13th - 19th October) in an attempt to push ourselves, our practices and perhaps an opportunity to spend some time together. I could have gone alone, but didn't want to, I felt that the opportunity would be perfect for the both of us and that the critique and conversation that we would engage with together would be helpful.

 

As soon as we arrived Ian Hunter gave us a tour of the grounds and then left us to it. It was time to explore. We made our beds, brought our (limited) bag of equipment into the residency space, unloaded our shopping for the week and made some lunch. It was glorious to just be able to sit outside and eat. A pleasure I rarely have at home as I am without a garden. 

There was a synergy between the indoors and the outdoors. Where the outside space acted as another room. I would step from one 'room' to another as I do in my house, except in this instance I was breathing in fresh air and sitting on a bench. 

I love the outdoors and wish I could spend more time in it. Just by having this simple pleasure I was starting to think about my future; where I might like to life one day; somewhere more rural perhaps?; How important was outdoor space to me? Very! etc, etc. How does living in the city effect my work and ideas? I tend to move too fast!

 

After lunch it was time to get to 'work'. But in this first instance, work did not mean making art, it meant the daily chores of living in the natural landscape. We chopped wood for the log burning stove, we fed the chickens, we retrieved our first fleshing laid egg, got the fire going and explored the woodlands surrounding us ready for potential pursuits in the week to come. 

  

As Autumn is well and truly upon us (Kurt Schwitters favourite time of year, as I am told to believe), the colours around us were of all hues. It was a treat to be a part of. Normally I am not a fan of this time of year as the darker nights draw in and the colder it becomes. I suffer from S.A.D and am frightened of the looming depression I always find myself in at this time of year. However, seeing the foliage change colour in front of my eyes and being outdoors and therefore making most of the natural light that I wouldn't usually see - as I would be wrapped up indoors - felt very different from this time of year in the city. 

It was the perfect time of year to take up residence in this type of setting for me. I also had a lot of questions to ask myself about my art practice; Why, why, why?

I had come a point where I wanted to question my ideas and bring in-depth context to the work. This residency was the perfect time to do this. I had one week, starting NOW.....