Project Director’s Journal
August
I have just returned from a very, very
hot Japan where, together with the Project Co-ordinator Keiko
Kawashima, I visited the two remaining partnerships there
Tim Parry Williams is based in Kiryu,
the home town of Junichi Arai and the two seem to have established
a very close working relationship. Tim is known for his commitment
to natural materials and brings this sensibility to the synthetic
materials he and Junichi Arai are using. Their time together
has been shorter than other partnerships and both feel this
keenly, particularly as both are determined to be well on
the way to an outcome by the end of their time together in
Japan. We spent an extraordinary afternoon in Junichi Arai’s
‘office’ discussing the Project and the thoughts
each had about their involvement. Process is extremely important
for both and there was a most moving, revelatory moment as
Junichi Arai described how he observed how Tim approached
the making of the cloth, the winding of the warp and realised
that Tim was someone with whom he could work in a collaborative
manner. Certainly, although it is very early days, the projected
outcome of their time together looks incredibly exciting.
The partnership between Teruyoshi Yoshida
and Claire Barber is a most wonderful contrast to Junichi
Arai and Tim Parry Williams. Claire’s concerns with
surface, texture, time and place have led her to remarkable
locations already in her working life. In Japan, as she describes
so eloquently in her Journal, the sites for her work reflect
those preoccupations, sometimes in the most unexpected places.
The underlying focus of this project has been Cultural Differences
and the Creative Processes and I have been interested to hear
Teruyoshi Yoshida’s observations on this theme and wonder
if he will choose to reflect them in the work he makes for
the exhibition.
I also re-visited the studios of Machiko
Agano and Michiko Kawarabayashi to discuss with them the work
they are doing for the exhibition. It feels now that the first
phase of the Project is drawing to a close and the second
phase, the exhibition, is becoming a reality. In Japan I could
see the progress of these two artists’ work and begin
to think about how the works would look in the various exhibition
spaces in which they will be seen.
Before I left for Japan, the exhibition
designer Philip Bintliff and I visited Maxine Bristow and
Kyoko Nitta in Chester where they are re-united to work on
their collaborative piece. Damian Chapman, who will photograph
the UK work for the catalogue, also travelled up to take the
first of these photographs.
Again, it was wonderfully exciting for
me to see the outcome of a partnership beginning to take shape.
I ended my July Journal anxiously
watching for the post; well, the electronic postman came and
brought the best possible news. We have been successful in
two of our major funding bids and, although we do need further
support, we can confidently move forward with exhibition plans
– thank goodness for January is remarkably close.
Lesley
Millar
Project Director THROUGH THE SURFACE
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