Building overtaken

A building being totally taken over by ivy and moss, its form semi-obscured.  The knowledge that it could be my home overtaken in such a short time, windows obscured, doors blocked, could be the stuff of nightmares.

Melancholy

The second tip of the day took us to a ditch and a despairing looking sofa, which even a comfy cushion and hot drink couldn't comfort... Judging by the algae on it, it was probably in the water until shortly before we photographed it.

'Melancholy' - (Tipping-Point series) - Nicholas Godsell

Armchair Portrait II

Following up on yet another tip about tipping, Teatime and Tide discovered this chair outside a very derelict public house...

'Armchair Portrait II' - (Tipping-Point series) - Nicholas Godsell

Still Shining

We spotted this merely by chance, didn't even have much in the way of accessories in the car. Fortunately just enough to light and add a couple of details which may not show up in the photograph.

'Still Shining' - (Tipping-Point series) - Nicholas Godsell

Shine On

Tips about tipping are starting to come in to Teatime and Tide, as people are becoming more aware of the project. I received a message saying a fridge/freezer had been tipped down a road in Greenhill early evening and  by the time I got to it the conditions were right for the image I had in mind. I like to imagine that even after it has been discarded the light in the fridge shines on into the night as a beacon of hope for other abandoned white goods...

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'Shine On' - (Tipping-Point series) - Nicholas Godsell

Not Longue

The discovery of fly-tipped furniture and re-imagining it's history continues with a home-made chaise longue spotted under a fly-over on the M2. Unpon closer inspection it would appear it is not in fact a chaise longue, but a sofa that has been dismantled in part to look and function like a chaise longue...

'Not Longue For This World' - (Tipping-Point series) - Nicholas Godsell

Poster

The poster for the exhibition is done...

'HOUSE:paradox' - Nicholas Godsell

All Houses

Continuing research for #houseparadoxexhibition Teatime and Tide stumbled upon this fantastic structure. From the road it looked like an old farm shed, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a chicken house in a state of severe disrepair which had been placed on an old trailer in an equal state... Definite camera fodder...

'Chicken House' - Nicholas Godsell

Furnaiture (Furniture Portraiture)

Work on the Teatime and Tide project continues... This time an abandoned armchair spotted during the day and revisited in the evening. I am currently investigating lighting for these portraits, to add another surreal element to them. Still collecting props to dress the items up with, so far I have a teacup and saucer, large canvass, hand-knitted throw, cushions, magazines, floor lamp, food packaging and other personal effects. Ideas and contributions welcome!

'Armchair Portrait I' - (Tipping-Point series) - Nicholas Godsell

House on Wheels

The Teatime and Tide research for the HOUSE:paradox piece continues. Whilst out and about in the car I spotted this wondrous mobile home... I like the way in which nature has started to make it's home in, out, under and over this vehicle: it was once a mobile home for the owner and now it has been immobilised by its surroundings. It is literally rooted to the spot... The palette keeping the door shut is a nice touch, making one wonder what has been trapped inside...

'Immobile Home' - Nicholas Godsell

Parts

The parts are gathering, the notions are maturing, the storyline is forming: the build will start next week:

House is Home

House is Home

Home is where the heart is.....

People make a place, they occupy the space and leave their mark.

So what happens when they are no longer there? They are intrinsic to the fabric of the building.

Their possessions may be there, their taste in decoration and their smell.  Ghostly marks on the wall where photographs once hung, worn down steps, worn tracks in the carpet. They are all an essence of the people once there.

Over time and many occupants there are layers of these existances haunting the building.

What stories do these houses hold?

Abandoned bungalow - research

In my research for #houseparadox I went to photograph the abandoned bungalow in West Cliff Gardens. The light was very flat and it was spitting with rain. The bungalow sits in a barely-kept-under garden, and holds its secrets well. Why is it empty? Does a cat live there, climbing the net curtains? Who are the owners?  Why is an empty property allowed to be kept empty for over 30 years when there is an acute housing shortage?  This shot is definitely just work in progress.

Fear of an empty white house

I'm interested in phobias and in the past have made a series of artworks about some of the more common ones: clowns, spiders, leaving the house, driving and cats. "Vacansopapuroso phobia" is fear of blank paper, maybe writer's block, a form of which also affects artists faced with a blank white canvas. My starting point for my #houseparadox piece is a 12th scale factory produced slot together mdf doll's house  - "Willow Cottage" - which was given to me by another artist as it had been  started badly by someone and was unwanted. After knocking it apart and re gluing it accurately, plus a good scrubbing with detergent in between to get rid of the kid's multicoloured pva paint sloshed over it, I whited inside and out with acrylic undercoat primer. It's beautiful and kind of pure and blank, yet imperfect, still with slight tints of mdf and textures, showing amazing shadows in the sun and reflected colour from somewhere. I almost can't begin, I almost have that phobia but I need to begin the exciting journey and take the risks

AtmosphereMatters examples

I brought examples of recent work to the first meeting for #houseparadox in May. These were two of my large, atmospheric photographic images of abandoned post First World War bungalows built for returning soldiers. Recently demolished to build an Aldi and MacDonalds, instead of being reconstructed for today’s housing needs, their empty windows, eroded by sunlight, were a comment on today’s undervaluing of the home when retail development takes priority. The windows reflected the lush garden spaces and mature trees that surrounded the properties, which provided beautiful and productive spaces for families to grow and sustain themselves over the years.

Earmarked for Demolition II and III (below), Preston Hall Colony, May 2015
Jenny Fairweather

June Artist's 'Meet Up'

Veronica and Karen were joined at the June ‘meet up’ by Jenny Fairweather, Teatime and Tide, Mike Harrison, Mark Priestly, Nina Shilling Alan Hockett, and Sue Willis in the Marcel Gallery Beach Creative.

Jenny Fairweather was starting by photographing abandoned houses, continuing her fascination with “absence” and the issues around houses that are not lived in, including homelessness. She mentioned the current tragedy of Grenfell Tower and unsafe housing.

Teatime and Tide works in photography and film and have initial ideas of bringing outside elements into the house, like  investigating fly tipping into the cosy apartment and maybe portraits, scenes of former lives and issues like domestic violence.

Mike Harrison is progressing with ideas around his found object of a large hamster cage, which synchronized with being invited to show in HOUSE Paradox. A kind of abandoned building with allegorical links to the home, yet something that could have resonances to the human body, self and a relationship to Duchamp’s Large Glass.

Alan Hockett and Sue Willis from Essex were collaborating in work on empty houses, the essence of what it was and memory by experimenting in film making and sound using layers, which they found very exciting. They were also looking at town planning and issues of the idyll.

Mark Priestley was moving on with his large scale, autobiographical work relating to childhood fears of his unlit bedroom on the top floor of a Victorian house. He is focusing on the graphic imagery of torn, multilayered wallpaper whose sinister shadows play into a child’s imagination.

Nina Shilling is working with a Victorian dolls house she acquired as an abandoned, unstarted, white painted project. She plans to destroy its perfection, creating a ruinous and imperfect “messy” house and a feeling of absence. She will explore what makes a home (belongings, clothes retained even after someone’s death) and has meaning precious to the family.

Karen Simpson is developing her household medicine cabinet, dealing with the issue of healing versus disaster, and the presence of poisonous substances in homes of the past. Her cabinet, about 15 inches high, will be set against arts and crafts wallpaper and she is adding to her cache of found glass bottles from a disused coastal tip.

Veronica Tonge has a similar start point to Nina but plans to create an alluring Victorian cottage exterior which reveals unspoken dark fears behind shuttered windows and locked doors. Using a stage managed “Hitchcock effect” and deceptively ordinary scenarios in miniature, this work will be surreal and ambiguous.

Wishing Well

Teatime and Tide's continued research for the #houseparadox project has me continuing my quest to photograph buildings that have held a long term fascination for me. There is a boarded up house on the corner of West Cliff Gardens which has a wishing well in its front garden that has been this way for as long as I can remember. Once again, the narratives that could be supposed about this dwelling and about what events may have unfolded behind these sealed entrances are only limited by ones imagination...

'Wishing Well' - Nicholas Godsell

Tipping Point

Teatime and Tide's initial idea for the #houseparadox project has been placed on the back-burner...

In the meantime a new investigation into the relationship between the home and fly-tipping is currently underway. It is hoped that a series of domestic portraits will emerge from our new line of inquiry which will explore alternative presupposed historic narratives for the abandoned objects we photograph and film...

'Creature Comfort'- Teatime and Tide (Concept)

Hidden

The research for Teatime and Tides' HOUSE:paradox piece continues with my endlessly driving around trying to find interesting buildings to photograph. This search led me to discover this outhouse obscured by its surroundings. The outside was infinitely more interesting than it's inside and I liked, as with all these places, the endless possible narratives that one can imagine about it...

'Hidden' - Nicholas Godsell

May Artist's 'meet up'

Karen & Veronica were joined by Peter Cordeaux, Jo Eden, Mike Harrison, Mark Priestly and Camilla Swire to the Rossetti Meeting Room at Beach Creative to share and discuss more ideas around our challenging brief of exploring the paradoxes of “house/home”.

Peter Cordeaux is interested in making a visual assemblage, thinking about objects that people accumulate excessively in their houses as a result of over consumerism, dumping usable stuff after just a few years, yet paying for storage to keep possessions that we don’t need but still want. His philosophy was for a ‘second life’ for these objects, but acknowledged that it is impossible to keep (or amass) everything. He admitted that trawling eBay, imagining what he could buy, but resisting, was an antidote.

Jo Eden’s creative work is inspired by the natural landscape and an interest in the social fabric of community and how these knit together. Also a writer, she has worked with the “house” theme previously and is formulating a book for the exhibition. Her deep involvement with Rose Street Cottage of Curiosities in Sheerness, Isle of Sheppey (a Victorian docker’s cottage preserved as an arts centre/museum) informs her practice.

Mike Harrison is investigating structural form, thinking simultaneously about the abstract, formal and the 4^th dimension. Continuing working with a found object of a pet house (not a toy house), he was considering viewing angles, the challenges of a free standing construction and how to light the object meaningfully. He was also developing ideas on the paradox of house as haven but also threatening, collecting innocent household tools, which could have a surreal, sinister meaning.

Mark Priestly brought a “found object” connected with his concept of reproducing an atmospheric and disturbing version of the spooky landing and unlit attic bedroom of his childhood home: a large piece of multilayered, bright and muted wallpapers, seemingly ripped from an old house and giving a “feel of uncomfortableness.” He intends to experiment with bicycle lamp light to throw claw like  shadows from the torn edges.

Karen Simpson is continuing to think about and work on her medicine cabinet focusing on and illustrating the risks contained in historical household remedies. She is currently sourcing poison bottles and other artefacts from Victorian rubbish dumps along the local coastline for this assemblage.

Camilla Swire from Canterbury often explores in fairy tales and myths in her work and is considering two strands in her initial thought processes: a woman seen through doors in houses relating to the concept of “behind closed doors” and the Alice narrative, especially the house of cards imagery, perhaps related to the country house.

Veronica Tonge is using a Victorian cottage doll’s house to create an interior that subverts the “home sweet home”

message of the exterior, dealing with issues and fears that we prefer to keep hidden. The interior will be like a miniature stage set with illusions and illogical situations, such as a spiral staircase in the attic leading only up to a distorting mirror, allowing for the viewer’s personal interpretation.