Trading Places/CR.E.A.T.E. Programme

Third Phase Residencies

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Holy Family School, Cootehill, Co. Cavan; Julie Forrester

words sounds rhythms history

Written by artist Julie on 17 September 2005

One of the things that helped to reach into the past was saying the archaic words used to describe processes and specific terms for things in different forms. I have been talking to people who remeber the times when flax was produced in Cootehill and I have invited people to talk to me, only in the context of this history will these words be spoken and have any meaning.
One of the experiments we made at the Holy Family School was the repetition of the wordsaccording to the spot scores we made, building up rhythms which somehow managed to evoke the sound of the industry in our imaginations or not, in a modern context the words have become a kind of nonsense whose power exists in the pure sound of them, I like this invokation of the past, a summoning of ghosts......
If I can record the voices of people who intimately understand the terms through living experience I would like to do this

paper sound

Written by artist Julie on 5 September 2005

On the residency I have been preoccupied with how we can feel history, from what is passed down, the information we have in texts and images, the evidence that remains in the landscape which provide clues to other existences. This can all seem rather academic ....While making paper I have tried to make connections with the past by mirroring processses, using the repetitive body movements involved in the processes of production to echo the movements of people in the past.
During the documation of this process the most vital connection I have felt is with sound: the parallel rhythms created by the movement of the body in context with the sounds of production and the human interactions of voice, which are the expression of here and now. These snapshots have been captured by the camera person when looking at the process before them. While making the paper so much was happening around it.....
The sound of people has become the missing link with my imagining of the past, where we can recreate machine sounds today we can only imagine the sounds of the people, the ghosts in the landscape, or the machine.
The making of paper is a wet and fluid process but the result is dry, sedimentary, layers of the process are contained within it, more clues to what happened but somehow we see before us a very dead substance.
I like the idea of folded paper, which mirrors the folding of lengths of cloth, and which can express the folding of time, opening up or closing to show only one surface, the top layer, but which has the same constituents as all the other layers.
I am working on a piece which invlolves paper and sound, the forensics of dry evidence and the animated.

Nora's Views

Written by artist Julie on 29 August 2005

I have been editing Nora's Video. This has been the most difficult for me to edit. As in all the videos I have tried to preserve the pacing and sequencing of the views. I was fascinated by the painterly quality of Nora's camera work, the way the image is framed and the particluar way she deals with edges and objects which seem to me to be protagonists within a drama, building up a narrative that is about colour and form...there is the pink cloth which acts as an anchor throughout the footage, the camera returns again and again to this and other objects seem to be juxtaposed in relation to this main player. As in the other views I have slowed the footage to emphasize some of these concerns.

Sean's View stills

Written by artist Julie on 19 August 2005

I have been working in my studio with material from the residency. I have begun work on the second video of the Trading Places 'different views' trilogy. The first video was called Orion's View, it was dark and concentrated reflections in the water as seen by the camera operator, the sound was incidental sound of the business in hand (papermaking) including exclamations, machine sounds, vocal instructions and informal dialogue. I was interested in the parallel ryhthms of what is taken in by the eye, and the ear of the camera person. Of course the video is not entirely Orion's view, as passages have been selected, edited and in some cases, altered, by me, much as in the way we make exchanges in communication..it is Orion's View traded with Julie's view.
I have been working on Sean's View, and in Sean's passages I love the way he has been recording colour and pattern, I also love the incidental vocal telling of the nursery story 'The 3 Little Pigs' which sets off a kind of ironic background to the process of production.....

Goodbye

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

Goodbye from us all at the Holy Family School! We had a lot of fun,
thanks to Kidsown, Orla, Heather, Richard, Linda

We're off

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

Here is a photo montage by Anthony, we spent some time setting up the shot and he really wanted a horse! We lost our horse image in a computer meltdown (sadly Julie' old dinosaur has expired) so here we substisited for Shane's plane...meanwhile we will consult the computer doctor about the wellbeing of our virtual black stallion.....he may rise from the ashes in time for our big day!

Dress rehearsal

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

We were amazed and relieved when the work was finally done and our paper dresses looked like the real thing! We managed to get them on and off with minimal tears ...which were easily remedied by a dab of PVA glue...perhaps paper really is the new linen!

The photo session

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

The big event....Along side the blushing brides here you see Sean modelling his own design......this will be finished for our exhibition in May and the girls will be making finishing touches to their creations too....our exhibition will be in the library in Cootehill and it will be open to the public from the 20th May till the 10th June, we will be showing our work alongside the work from St.Michael's School in the town.

The finishing touches

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

We worked fast and furiously on finishing our dresses for the Big Day. We needed to get all parts together and have a fitting session before the photo shoot

instruments

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

This made a great sound and was one of our favourite instruments

experiments

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

We tried all sorts of instruments which we thought might sound good

equipment

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

We took it in turns to work with the microphone and minidisc

recording

Written by artist Julie on 28 April 2005

We spent the last few days working together making sound recordings. We improvised using voice and found objects. We were collecting sounds to see what sounded good and to learn how to play our found instruments.

spotty scores

Written by artist Julie on 12 April 2005

We have been making scores from colour spot patterns. This morning we listened to the Ballet Mecanique by George Antheil. We heard the music he made about machines, it was very loud and it gave Shane a headache! Imagine what it was like for the workers in the factories! I imagine the only way to get by in these conditions would be to immerse yourself the rhythm(s) and make it into a song, something like a marching song perhaps.....
We spent the morning playing sounds on our classroom clutter, we banged things and rolled things and made our classropom sound like a factory. Then we made some spot scores. We made patterns that we liked for their colours. Then we each picked a colour that represented ourselves and an instrument that we enjoyed and Michael conducted the classroom orchestra....can you imagine what it sounded like by looking at our picture? We tried all the scores and we sounded quite good (actually!)

all stitched up

Written by artist Julie on 11 March 2005

All stitched up by Matthew

Deisigner gear

Written by artist Julie on 11 March 2005

Matthew is working on his own design

bodice

Written by artist Julie on 11 March 2005

A bodice in the making, pinned and sewn and taking shape!

seams stress for wedding dress

Written by artist Julie on 11 March 2005

Sarah and Leona have been working from a dress pattern, they are making wedding dresses using fake damask linen and real hand-dyed flax (we know its real, we dyed it!). Sarah chose the brazilwood coloured flax and leona is using the logwood. We have cut out the shapes and pinned the bodices together, now is the work of the seamstress

Inside Oryian's box

Written by artist Julie on 11 March 2005

Oryian took a photo from inside his box, this is what he saw!

Oryian's box

Written by artist Julie on 11 March 2005

Oryian made a door for his box.
Everyone chose bits of the flax that we dyed in the first residency, Leona remembered that we used logwood for the blue and brazilwood for the red. aisling punched holes and made finger knitting ties to link the sides, other people had different techniques, Oryian, Aaron and Kaolan sewed their boxes, some boxes are going to be large and square, others small and square, Kaolan's is going to be rectangular, all based on the cross pattern. I wonder which side kaolan will use for his "door"?

OsOpOoOtOtOyO

Written by artist Julie on 10 March 2005

we have been making more patterns with spots and creased paper

a cross makes a box

Written by artist Julie on 27 February 2005

and here is the 3d box......

revisiting paper

Written by artist Julie on 27 February 2005

We have been making up boxes from the paper we made during residency 1 here is the flat pattern......

spotty faces

Written by artist Julie on 27 February 2005

We made some pictures using cut out punch holes and then we animated them, this is Kaolan's sad mad bad head!

prototype

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

Here is Shane's prototype plane, it flies very well but there is always room forimprovement.... it has nose-dived into one of our place settings...oops

holy odyssy

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

We are continuing our search into the odyssy that is holes, most appropriate as we are the Holy Family School (!) We used hole punches to mkae patterns in paper and held them to the light to make constellations and saw the shadows they made, this one looked like a runway that might work for the paper aeroplane that Shane was perfecting......we shall see....

Buttons

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

We have been using buttons to make patterns, here is a juggling man by Noel.

white on white

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

In the first residency I was interested in the whiteness of linen and how this might remind us of ghosts and the past.....these days we tend to use disposable paper more than linen but the types of paper we use still refer to the old linen ways, doilies are fake linen crochet and table cloths are fake damask, it would be fun to build a fantasy phantom table with white place settings and things we have made that look like cutlery and crokery.......

fun with photos

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

Sometimes there is so much going on in the Holy Family School that Julie gets to work with students in a corner on the computer, this is an animation Gareth made..you might need to wait a little while for it toupload...it moves quite fast when it is going properly!

and results....

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

this is a picture of the rubbing

rubbings

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

In this residency we are going to look at patterns. We began by making some rubbings. We staped bits of twine to card. We put paper over them and rubbed the surface with a pencil on its side. We saw that every one had their own rhythm for making marks, and this ryhthm was just as important as the relief on the card in producing the the way it made the final impression.

back trading places again

Written by artist Julie on 24 February 2005

We looked at some of the work we made in 2003, we saw Darren making a paper box and we saw some of the holy pictures we took through the punch cards. We had fun guessing who was in each picture. We also saw "Orion's View" which was part of the artist's response exhibition in The Millenium Hall, Portadown. Oryion was camera man on this film and he said he was seeing magic when he was looking through the camera lens at the rest of us making paper around the big black bucket full of purple liquid.

cat's cradle

Written by artist Julie on 27 January 2005

Winter Fun! we had 4 fantastic days setting up the exhibitions, showing children and teachers and collaborating on creative ventures for the year ahead. It was very fulfilling as usual and we had a very productive time...looking forward to the days ahead!