What can I do here that I can’t do anywhere else?

by Chris Wright

          A page from my sketchbook just to remind myself why I am here, not there! Doing my tried and tested routine stuff has helped me into the making mode straight away. I now need to break away, develop new things. However, the routine also gets me ready for the day. So, get up, stretch, run, shower, write and develop the thoughts from my run, household stuff – unfortunately, they still exist- and then the day is pure art/making/gathering until a break, then editing until sleep.  It is working for me.

Yesterday went with Margit to the studio where we, that is, Ashley and myself, can show our work for the long nights open studio. I know, I know, I need a new phone that takes better photos.

It is going to work out well though and is an amazing studio set-up. I am so grateful to the generosity of Margit whose work is beautiful www.margit-rusert.de

Hope we will be able do do some work together while I am here.

This morning,  I took some water samples from the side of the track where I ran and got very bitten by mosquitoes. I don’t know how this is going to fit into my overall scheme of the residency but it does fit into the overall scheme of my practice. I like the way that things wait until a particular moment and then become right. I will have so much data about water quality from Derby, Nottingham, the river route south to London, Normandy and Osnabrück. One day, I will collate it all. But, back to this residency – looking at the studio, I have decided to hang in loops the drawing/sketch with 3 speakers placed around it in some way or other so that it seems less linear. The sounds will be different aspects of the journey underpinned by train noise. I have begun editing this and it will be finished in a couple of days. I have been looking for some kind of instrument to explore the resonant spaces and have been thinking of making my own stringed thing. I would really like to find the owner of this brush that was left outside the Felix Nussbaum Haus. It is the perfect shape. Do you think they would sell it to me to become the ‘Felix Nussbaum Stringed Brush’?

On that note, I will go and do some work. I will go to the studio and sit and contemplate the space.