NEWS

March 2008 

Last week I spent a very funny two hours working in public.

You know how people sometimes set up easels outside and paint, and you can go up and look over their shoulder at what they're doing? I've never worked out if artists are irritated by that or not; actually I think they're secretly thrilled with the attention.

Anyway, I did a similar thing as part of my writer-in-residency at York Art Gallery. I set up a table next to this painting:

It's by Harold Gilman and it's called "The Artist's Daughters." I put up a "The Writer Is In" sign and began scribbling. Not for long, though: people came up and asked what I was doing, I showed them, and we got to talking about the painting. Before long there were 15 people gathered around, discussing which girl was older, what the girl on the left was wearing on her hands (red mittens?), what names I should give them for the story (someone suggested Georgina; I used it for the girl on the right, and the girl on the left is Flora). Someone told me that dolls in those days were all called Abigail, as were servants, whether that was their name or not. I hadn't known that. I used it.

The gallery got noisy. Some people pulled a bench over so they could sit and watch me. (That was a big deal; it was a heavy bench, and English people just don't do that sort of thing!) They chatted to one another. They looked at other paintings and talked about them. They wandered over to see if I had added any new sentences. Some asked advice about their own writing, and I began to feel I needed a doctor's prescription pad, especially when at one point I ordered, "Cut out the adjectives and adverbs." Maybe I should have added, "And eat more fresh fruit and vegetables, and cut the carbs."

I confess I only wrote two paragraphs in two hours because I got interrupted so much, but I expected that, and it was a lot of fun, and something really good happened. Not only were benches moved, but barriers got broken down: between writer and reader, word and image, gallery hush and high spirits.

I'm going to do it a few more times - next one is 7 May, 2-4 pm. This time I'm not nervous, but really looking forward to it.

For another perspective on that event, see York Art Gallery's 18 March blog about it. 

And here is a recent interview a York University student did with me about the residency.