In a week or so I will be setting off to Japan for an artist\u2019s residency of several weeks to further my Japanese woodblock printing skills. At present details remain sketchy: I know I am the British artist, but don\u2019t know who my four other companions are or which countries they will represent. Interestingly this worries me far less than the thought of crossing Tokyo. Printmakers always have plenty in common; I and the noodle sprawl of the Tokyo subway less so…<\/p>\n
On the face of it, an artist\u2019s residency seems like a bit of a jolly. Five weeks to indulge. Indeed, \u2018aren\u2019t you lucky\u2019 is something I have been hearing on a very regular basis. I wouldn\u2019t argue with the fact that I am lucky, but what I see as luck may not be the same as the luck implied in the comment. Artists like me have the luck of possessing the drive to stick with a technique and work through the catastrophes, goofs and setbacks to get to a point where we can be good enough to be considered for residencies. After that, luck is out of the equation: selection committees select, they don\u2019t tend to pull names at random from a hat (at least I\u2019ve never been on one that\u2019s done that, however dull the evening and close the pub). <\/p>\n
The residency also brings responsibility. I am giving up earnings, cancelling a workshop or two and putting family on hold to go out there. I\u2019d better have something to show for it when I get back. I\u2019m gambling that five weeks far from my comfort zone will result in a move forward in my work. I don\u2019t doubt it will be a marvelous trip and I am certainly not asking for sympathy. I\u2019m more explaining that a residency has to mark a point of change for my work or I will have failed and not be lucky at all: I\u2019ll just have been self indulgent. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a week or so I will be setting off to Japan for an artist\u2019s residency of several weeks to further my Japanese woodblock printing skills. At present details remain sketchy: I know I am the British artist, but don\u2019t know who my four other companions are or which countries they will represent. Interestingly this … Continue reading “Des Res”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,44,12,50,43,14],"class_list":["post-232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-artist","tag-japan","tag-printing","tag-printmaking","tag-residency","tag-woodblock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}