Frieze 2010

Every year Frieze Art Fair graces our beloved Regent's Park, and manages to spark excitement and inspiration for many. However, although I am happy to appreciate the variety of art forms the many international galleries that take part provide, I am NOT happy with the fact I spent 45 minutes queueing in the cold, having booked my ticket online, only then to spend another 2 and a half hours traipsing around the huge marquee of 'Art Market Stalls' being jostled by millionaire art dealers and gaggles of school trip students with their A3 sketchbooks!

Rant over.

What I'm trying to say is, in Frieze it feels like a typical Saturday morning market in an airfield in Essex, just a bit more expensive and without the stall holders hollering "Two pound for the pair!"

Here are some things I discovered, and will be following these guidelines next year...

1. Don't take a big bag a small handbag will suffice while carrying your camera and a SMALL sketchbook. This way you can avoid the queues of people facing bag checks!
2. Look at the map of the stall layout work out a system, if you wander about willy nilly you will get lost and/or miss something.
3. Bring a bottle of water and snacks trust me, you won't want to pay the cafe prices, and you'll need to keep your energy levels up.
4. Learn what you don't like quickly there are so many stalls and so much art, you will get to a point where enough is enough, don't waste your energy looking at something for the sake of it, concentrate on what catches your eye.
5. Take lots of photos if you find a piece interesting, take some photos of it! And don't forget to photograph the wall sticker of the artist's name so you can research them further.
6. Be sure to take regular breaks there's a lot of walking and standing around, you'll need to rest your feet every one in a while!
7. Try to enjoy it! it may be overcrowded, but you are in the worlds biggest and most popular contemporary art fair, artists and famous dealers are always milling around, so get excited, ask questions and take as much as you can from the experience.

The ball is rolling... a bit too fast

Good afternoon all! 

My apologies for a lack of posts over the last couple of weeks! It has been incredibly hectic since starting at UCL, I've had a lot to deal with. My diary is filled for this month already with seminars, tutorials and lectures to attend, and I'm not going to lie, I feel incredibly overwhelmed by it all.

However, me being me, I have chosen to avoid getting help and have instead opted to push it all to the back of my head and concentrate on getting work done. We have had our studio spaces for just over a week now and the majority of us are cracking on getting work done, with only 40 people in my year it's been really easy getting to know everyone's faces, and a quarter of us came from the Chelsea Foundation course anyway!

Being in Slade is a really exciting thing, I'm happy to be in a lovely studio space and have the opportunity to make whatever the hell I like, and the tutors are more than happy to talk to us about our work. I am also impressed with their Contemporary Art Lecture programme, we had a lecture by the artist David Batchelor on Wednesday; I felt privileged to listen to such an established artist discuss and share his triumphs and fails with the whole of Slade art school.

Although I'm still trying to cope with everything being thrown at me, I am making the most of everything on offer and perhaps it's just a matter of time until I can feel like I really belong in such a prestigious establishment.

Watch this space.