|
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE. SAM FORD. 16.03.07-28.03.07Sam has kindly been our guinea pig for 12 days. he has not only made a plethora of sculptures and ongoing performance, he has also let us poke and prod his brain for information about setting up a collective artist experience. Sam was one of the founding members of CHAMP collective in Bristol (link to page at bottom of post) and has plentiful experience from such matters as keeping artists happy and warm in cold studios and building mezzanines for siestas to organising successfully chaotic and popular gatherings of performance, music and art in various venues around Bristol.
Sam's most important advice: DON'T FORGET TO HAVE FUN and get a studio kettle Sam will be writing his own post about the work he made here when he returns to england but for now I have some photographs of one of his works, a firemobile. https://www.facebook.com/champcollective/?fref=ts 27.03.2017The idea for Los Artistas came about because our landlord on the farm where we rent a studio mentioned that there is a lot of living space here and if we wanted we could run some courses to make a bit of extra money. Well, we had a little think for a few seconds and said "yes ok Juan we could do that but what about running a residency instead?" Juan said: "si" and the residency was born.
From April to September this summer we will be hosting 6 artists per month on the old farm. They will be sleeping in bunks, each has a 3.5m square studio space (we built the walls out of old truck floors from a local factory, very pleasing) and plenty of shared areas for talking, critiquing and dancing together. There were no requirements such as a university degree or x amount of years spent practicing as a 'real' artist and the rent is incredibly cheap and combines workspace, living and all bills. We have a small space to grow vegetables and plan to live as communally as everyone would like to in order to keep everyone's expenses down, as well as the obvious other benefits of community for young artists starting out their careers. Not having a specific set of criteria for entry doesn't mean we have just any old bodger turning up. We have a wonderful selection of painters, sculptors ceramicists, graphic designers, illustrators, performance artists and photographers. The unanimous message we have got from all of these artists is that they are struggling to establish for themselves a balance between living/studio costs and working. The Cortijo aims to be a place where they can escape their stresses and financial difficulties and concentrate all of their energy into the work. On this blog I will be sharing the work and biographies of the resident artists, as well as the goings on in the studios and hopefully news of upcoming shows, workshops and collaborations from our visitors, as well as the odd takeover from artists who would like to share their experiences of the residency. |