Readymade | Kate McCalmont-Woods

I had a thing for Richard Gere when I was a teenager. I remember watching the film ‘American Gigolo’ which I had rented on video – one of his early films, before the likes of ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ and ‘Pretty Woman’ – which had a brilliant soundtrack, ‘Call Me’ by Blondie. I tried to source the 7” from my local record shop, but had no luck as it had been released a few years before. One of my classmates at school told me her brother had it, and that he would sell it to me for £10 – in those days I could have bought almost 2 LPs for that amount; a single was just over £1. Needless to say, my crush on Richard and my newly discovered love of Blondie made me cough up some of the cash that I had earned from my Saturday job at the local Sainsbury’s. Even now when I hear the track, it takes me back to the opening scene with Richard driving along in his convertible, shades on, the wind in his hair. Ah, I could but dream…

’Call me’ is a strange phrase – often uttered when someone is pushed for time and can’t stop to talk; doesn’t want to talk; can’t make the time to talk; wants to leave it up to someone else to initiate the talk; is desperate to talk; is extending an invitation to talk. It’s not even as if we speak on the phone that often anymore – many households in the UK don’t have a landline, relying on their mobile phones instead, but as Donald commented in one of our sessions, we tend to use a device designed to allow us to communicate on the move, to message, take photos, make videos, play games, navigate, play music, and look things up, instead.

Anyway, I have managed to source a telephone for the interim show, as discussed with Jonathan in my last tutorial.

Am I bothered about using an object which I have sourced rather than made? No, as Jonathan commented, there’s no point making something which already exists; I don’t grind my own pigments to make oil paint, although many do as they feel it provides a greater connection with the work, and I respect that level of patience and dedication – it’s just not for me. But I do, now and then, and if time permits, stretch and prime my own canvases, but this is something I know how to do – all things electronic are alien to me. Also, I generally only do it when I want to recycle some old stretchers. And at the end of the day, ‘readymades’ were ok for Duchamp. I think what is most important to me is the haptics of using the dial – many of the phones I researched had push buttons. I used to love dialling a number – the slight resistance, followed by that sound.

The phone will enable me to leave a pre-recorded message and allow members of the public to leave messages for me, which will then form part of my research – I plan to exploit the public nature of the space. My issue now is, what’s the message going to be, and how will I exhibit it?

It’s not a new idea, not surprisingly, but I will put my own take on it. Having done a bit of research about artists who have used phones as interactive exhibits in their work, I came across Joe Sweeney who, in 2019, installed a phone booth facing France on a beach in Dungeness entitled ‘+44… Leave A Message for Europe!’. Members of the public were invited to leave messages relaying their feelings about Brexit, forming part of a permanent archive of public opinion. The statement on site explains: “The inactive phone box acts as a beacon. It is a nostalgic call to action – a reminder of the way we once communicated – with the nuance of the voice.”

(Source: http://www.ignant.com – 17/2/25)

I also discovered a project in Basildon, Essex – the Rotary Dial Phone Project which is part of a bigger initiative, ‘Bit Time’, devised by artists Dave Norton and Laura Travail. https://magpi.raspberrypi.com/articles/bit-time-rotary-dial-phone-project-showcase (17/2/25)

Norton: “The inspiration for the question/answer phones came from a desire to build a device that lets you share a message with someone you’ll never meet. A digital time capsule of anonymous thoughts, advice, stories, and memories that could be listened to by anyone. You have no idea who might hear your message and how it could affect them.”

Unlike in these two installations, my phone won’t have the ability to allow viewers to hear other people’s messages. Mine’s not so complex, but I still think it gives the person a sense of speaking to someone anonymously, and perhaps sharing thoughts which they haven’t shared with anyone else. Those words initially communicated by a phone, then also have the potential to be further communicated in my work.

No, not the Pointer Sisters. My second tutorial with Jonathan this morning.

I’ve had some additional thoughts whilst writing this up and put them in brackets in italics as a reminder to me – they didn’t form part of our discussion.

He asked me whether I feel that I have been productive.

I told him about something my husband had read out to me from his Facebook feed last night on the basis that he thought it was relevant to me: “ambition without action turns into anxiety”.

In terms of posting on my blog and thinking and having ideas, yes. In terms of actual physical output, no. But that doesn’t really concern me as I feel that I am about to enter a different phase; up until now I have been collecting ideas and inspiration. I’ve done enough now, although the process of collecting will always continue. I tend to have periods of inactivity, of thinking and pondering, followed by intense periods of activity.

We talked about the exhibitions that I’ve visited and written about in my blog; my thoughts and takes on the artists and work I have seen, which he found interesting.

I mentioned entering the Summer Exhibition as a way to make myself make and how I’m viewing it as an experiment. In previous years I have spent a lot of time and emotional energy in creating work which has then been rejected, but still I enter every year – it is almost a masochistic ritual. This year I’m not investing the same amount of energy, although it’s turning out that my time has been taken up with problem-solving, rather than emotional input anyway. It will be interesting to see whether the feeling of rejection stings as much. Theoretically it should, because a work which I create in 5 minutes should still have the same value to me as a work which takes me 5 years to create.

*(How to value work? Time spent? Size? Type of material used? Obviously, there’s a break even point, but beyond that?)*

This feeds into my concern about the extent to which I can take credit for a work in which others have had an input, or in which chance has played a major part. I mentioned the possibility of having to engage the services of a professional printer to screen print on a mirror and referred to the Phyllida Barlow video in yesterday’s session; I saw an exhibition of Barlow’s work last year at Hauser + Wirth and watched the accompanying video documentary in which she had technicians assisting her. I also mentioned artists such as Damien Hirst who have a team of people who help make their work. I tell myself that it is enough that it is my idea, or that I created the particular circumstances in which chance created something. It is a mantra I keep repeating to myself, and I think that I am starting to accept it.

Jonathan advised that it’s absolutely ok to have others involved in the making. He mentioned master printmakers to whom artists would look to print their images and his augmented reality project in Cornwall in which he had to enlist help with the more complex coding he couldn’t do himself. These others don’t necessarily have to be acknowledged on the label (although he did acknowledge his) – it is enough that they are acknowledged in the process and the work itself. In fact, printmakers would often supply a certificate in an edition print to confirm that they had destroyed the plate, their input being acknowledged that way.

We then went onto to discuss readymades. I mentioned that I’d had an idea for the Summer Exhibition (which in the end wouldn’t have worked because it would require having to be regularly recharged) of using an old rotary telephone with a message on it from me inviting the viewing public to leave their own messages. Donald had mentioned in the session last week about mobile phones no longer being used for their initial primary purpose of calling people but as a messaging tool. I have researched sourcing an old one and getting a sound board fitted etc, but then discovered that the wedding industry has actually already produced one. I thought that I could possibly use this idea for the interim show; the fact that it is a space which is open to the public for a prolonged period of time seems to me to be a resource which shouldn’t be wasted – I could use the phone as a way to collect research data and then use that to inform my work. Jonathan commented that it is interesting that I have thought about the space and what it offers as a potential for interactivity. A student in one of the past interim shows had a work which was made by the public writing on postcards on the subject of grief and loss – there were the odd few on which children had drawn pictures, and that’s the issue with interactive exhibits. Usually in a gallery setting there is a line across which the public cannot cross; once the public are encouraged to cross it by an interactive piece, they are without any guidance as to how they should behave. He referred to an interactive exhibition where many of the exhibits had elements which had been damaged by the public, although not maliciously, even whilst the exhibition was being invigilated. I would probably need to think about maybe just having it there for the opening night, which would give me the opportunity to engage with people.

*(I need to think about this. The benefit of people using it when no-one else is around is that it would encourage a more personal response? What is the piece of work? The telephone or the messages? Does it matter if it is damaged after the first night as long as I have downloaded the messages from it? Leaving it longer will increase the number of interactions, but increase the risk of misuse.) *

Jonathan asked me what energises me. I don’t really have much energy at the moment, but maintaining my blog energises me: I enjoy doing it and it’s something that I find easy to do on a regular basis. I see it as being very important to me as both a note making tool which I can just scroll through to remind myself of what has interested me and as a record of the process. I see it as being a piece of work in its own right at the end of the course as it will embody everything about me. Jonathan mentioned that a past student had actually turned her blog into a book, which takes a lot of time to work out how to do particularly when deciding what to do about videos etc. This is actually something that I have been thinking about doing myself. Jonathan commented that the tag cloud at the moment shows ‘mother’ and ‘drawing’ as being the areas of interest. I need to go through all my past posts and make sure that I have categorised and tagged them correctly and this process itself, Jonathan observed, would be a valuable reflective exercise.

Jonathan then asked me what is a challenge. Making ‘finished’ work. I feel that I have been dipping my toes in various ponds, trying things out, experimenting but not taking things that step further. We talked about the kitchen lithography and whether I would do it again. I think I will. The DIY aspect really appeals to me in the sense that I can do it at home, and not have to go into a specialist place, with expert people, where I don’t really know what I’m doing. I mentioned that last summer I became obsessed with cyanotypes and want to revisit them. To this end I’ve googled how to make my own lightbox and have bought a UV light etc.

He asked me whether there is any particular mark-making process that I like. I am not sure at the moment, I’m still dipping my toes. On the subject of liking something, I mentioned my painting which I recently did in my oil painting class, and not liking it but enjoying the process and my subsequent quandary about thinking that I should, as an artist, embody everything that I like in other artists and their work, which I think has made me feel as if I’m in an identity crisis. I can’t be every artist that I admire, I can only be me. I love colour but I’m not a colourful person in terms of the way I dress. I don’t want to pigeon hole myself. Jonathan asked whether I felt that there is an expectation to. I have in the past in the sense that people have told me that as an artist people expect a consistency in approach, although Picasso was a painter, printmaker, ceramicist and sculptor.

I’ve also asked myself whether I should even have to like my work or if enjoying the process is enough. I think I have reached a place where I will choose the mark-making processes which I enjoy, and not worry about the result. Jonathan read my comment back to me, because this is a huge shift in perspective for me. I really think that the blog has been instrumental in this – making me put work up which ordinarily wouldn’t see the light of day. He said that he gets a real sense of everything that I’ve been doing is being directed towards a point, which is unknown as yet, and that I shouldn’t feel a pressure to produce work.

Whilst I can multi-task, I find it difficult dealing with several things which are mentally and emotionally draining at the same time. I think that once I get the study statement out of the way, I’ll feel like I can start to make. It’s not that I see the statement as a barrier to making, unlike the inertia I felt at the time of my last tutorial. It’s been incredibly helpful to focus my thoughts and set out a framework within which to operate but which allows enough room for exploration. I commented that I often go off on tangents, for example, I was looking again at the flowing water posts and thought to myself that it would be interesting to follow a river from its source to its end, and make a body of work. Jonathan said that would be an interesting project as it could involve all sorts of media, such as video. He said that it is important to make note of these ideas so that they can be revisited in the future.

As from next week I feel that things will change. It’s a bit like learning how to play a new game. You can look at the rules, but the real knowledge comes from actually playing it. I feel like I’ve been having a quick look through the rule book to get the general gist, and now I’m ready to play the game. Jonathan asked whether the interim show is helping with this. It is, definitely. Aside from the telephone, I have been thinking about cyanotypes on fabric which can be draped – I’m in the process of digitising my parents’ family photos which I’m thinking I could use – or maybe some prints. I hope to become a bit clearer on where I’m going from next week.

I told Jonathan that I feel like a different person to the one who started the course in October. I feel like me, whoever that is. I feel alive.

*(On that basis, I should have answered the question about what energises me, as being the course. I mean ‘alive’ in the sense of feeling open to new experiences, noticing so many more things, feeling whole, engaged and energised.)*

Jonathan ended by reflecting that it’s great that I’ve really put myself into the blog and that I’m letting myself get lost in the confusion. He’s looking forward to seeing what comes next, and that I should carry on as I’m doing. He’s excited. I’m excited.