A gallery in Athens wants me to do a live mosaic demo for their opening but I think they want "performance" not "slow work"
Got asked to do a live demo at a gallery opening in Athens next month. They said "the guests would love to watch you work." I said do you know what mosaic looks like in real time? Because I sit on a pillow on the floor and cut one piece of stone at a time and stare at it for ten minutes before I set it. That's a Tuesday. It's not performance, it's just slow. They said it's fine, people find it meditative. We'll see.
Anyone else get asked to turn their studio practice into a show and find out it doesn't translate?
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Ah sure look, I get this entirely. I do linocut demos now and again and there's always that moment where someone's standing behind you going "oh, you're just... carving?" and you're there twenty minutes into a single blade stroke on a bit of black ink and you can feel them willing you to do something more exciting.
The thing is, what looks like nothing happening is where the work actually lives. That staring-at-a-stone-for-ten-minutes bit you mentioned? That's not dead air, that's the whole game. But it doesn't read to an audience, does it.
I've done the market stall thing where people watch me proof a print and they're fascinated for about ninety seconds and then they want to see the magic bit again. And there isn't really a magic bit. There's just the slow carve and the pull and maybe a nice reveal if the ink's taken well.
Fair play to you for taking it on though. The meditative angle, they might have a point actually. I've had people tell me watching me cut a line is the most relaxing thing they've seen all week. Which is either a compliment or a devastating statement on their week, I'm not sure which.
Let us know how Athens goes. Bring a cushion anyway.
Oh I feel both of these so much. I paint in acrylic and people think it's faster than it is because the paint dries quick, but I still stand there mixing for ten minutes trying to get a green that doesn't look like baby poop, and that's not exactly riveting to watch either 😅
The staring-at-the-stone bit really got me though. That's the part nobody sees but it's the whole reason the thing comes out right. I think the people who find it meditative are probably the ones who actually make something themselves. Everyone else wants a magic trick.
The baby poop green line got me 😂 I've never mixed paint but I've spent enough time hunting for exactly the right colour of smalti from a box of a hundred similar blues to know that particular kind of staring.
And yeah, the meditative thing, I think it's real if you've sat with any kind of handwork long enough to know the difference between waiting and watching. If you haven't, it just looks like someone who forgot what they were doing.
The linocut thing is a perfect example actually. Because with carving you can't even pretend there's drama, it's just you and a tool and the slow removal of stuff. And yeah, that moment where they realise you're not about to do something explosive... you can almost hear the disappointment. But that's the work, isn't it. The bit that looks like nothing is the bit that takes everything.
I've done the market stall thing too. People walk past, stop, watch for a bit, then ask if you do commissions like you've been sitting there for decoration. One woman once watched me place maybe three tesserae and said "you must have a lot of patience" and I said no, I just don't mind being bored, which is different. She didn't know what to do with that.