Deliveries, delays and drawing dialogues

Very excited today as my silverpoint supplies were delivered. Not sure how large I'm going to go - still have a lot of experimenting to do - but think the subtlety of mark will be really interesting. All the research I've done so far says how long drawings take using silverpoint - but can't believe it takes any longer than drawing with ballpoint pen!
I realised last week that I had completely underestimated the time it would take to finish my two aliminium panel pieces and have revised to end of October at the earliest. Actually not that suprising when I checked back - I expect them each to take at least 350 hours each and I didn't start them until April. Still on target for 4 large drawings this year so all good. Feeling very chilled and positive after a bit of a wobble.

Looks as if 'Drawing Dialogues' (see previous post) is all set for first meeting at end of September. I'm setting first text and have decided on 'Museum of Touch' by Susan Stewart - have Lesley Bricknell to thank for this (link to her blog 'Surfacing Art Journal' on right). Came across it on one of her posts - and title fitted perfectly into my thoughts on presentation, encounter and other issues of 'to frame or not to frame'. Still haven't read properly but that is the whole point of 'Drawing Dialogues' isn't it?

The Reading Room revisited

I've been trying for a while to organise my reading - without much success!! Have a stack of books I want to read, but never seem to find the time to actually read them. If I do start reading, I then get distracted by my own thoughts and go off on a tangent. Still haven't got past the title of Deleuze's 'Difference and Repetition'! One of the things I found really useful about my M.A. was that deadlines etc. were imposed for reading/ writing and dialogue. Have been talking with a few people about organising some sort of regular meetings to discuss our work, particularly in relation to drawing but it hasn't really got anywhere yet. Recently came across a website about Hinterland, a group in Nottingham and part of their programme is The Reading Room which seemed such a simple, but brilliant idea - a text is selected and each member of the group receives a copy to read before meeting to discuss. Of course, reading groups have been around for a while - but for some reason I had always related to literature rather than art. Seems to me it would be really good to set up a small group, where each member takes it in turn to select a text or writing which has some relevance to their current work and use this as the basis for discussion about the text and the work? It would mean access to a variety of reading material and provide a structured basis for dialogue about the work itself?

In progress...

A fairly useless but interesting fact...

I have been working on three drawings using a space pen on aliminium panel for about a year now (they are nearly finished) and have just started my 4th refill.

'The product literature states that the pen will write exactly 30.7 miles (approximately 48.15 kilometers) - that means I have drawn at least 92 miles/ 144 km so far!

Etched glass

I've been playing around with glass etching - not sure how it will progress or what I'm going to use it for but the ultimate aim is to do some images which are 'barely there' or become more/ less visible depending on the position of the viewer. Fits in with the idea of shadow drawings too. Early days....