The latest from James Allott:
This photo was taken by Patrick Carter, who, along with Tim Maley, is currently an artist in residence at Midland Junction Arts Centre. Both artists are part of the Startspeak project which I’ve written about in a previous blog post.
The photo is of me imprisoned behind Pat’s jail bars.
Christina and I have been accompanying Simone Flavelle, Manager of the Startspeak project, and Kate Campbell Pope, Studio Mentor to Pat and Tim, to the artists’ studio.
I wrote previously about using the iPad and projecting recordings and drawings. As a group we’ve been guiding and assisting both Pat and Tim in the creation and development of their work.
Tuesdays have been really fulfilling, meaty days. Full of drawing and painting. Photographing the drawings, manipulating them. Projecting them onto surfaces and people. Pat’s a great mover and has been interacting, dancing amongst the projections to music. Facilitating and guiding two very talented and able artists has been very rewarding. Kate and Simone have been mentoring us and guiding our practice.
This Tuesday we pushed these techniques and methods further, using multiple iPads and projectors to create a dense, layered session. Pat and Tim are rapidly building up a large body of work both on paper and on screen. This work feeds both into the Startspeak technology development project and the Here and Now 13 project overseen by Katherine Wilkinson.
Here and Now 13 is designed to develop and mentor the artistic development of 12
WA artists with varied disabilities. Katherine will touch base regularly and mentor all the artists over the coming months, culminating in an exhibition next year. It is impressive and a tad intimidating to see Katherine, who is the around the same age as us, spearhead such a large project with focus and precision. Katherine’s role is as Here and Now 13’s Emerging Curator – it is refreshing and exciting to see opportunities be given to emergent artsworkers.