Submitting work online

There's nothing like a deadline... so when I found an exhibition with the theme of "line" and a deadline of 31 July, it seemed like a good idea to enter something. That was in mid-July - and the first step was to go back to Studio136 and see if I could lay my hands on the work I had in mind. (Why make new work when some of the finished work hasn't seen the light of day yet?)

There was no way to get hold of the piece I had in mind, but something else turned up that would do as well, in terms of a submission on the theme of line. It's been exhibited several times - any chance I get, really - and between times it lives in its special shoebox

When it came to being rephotographed, it fell into a new configuration -

which shows its double-sided configuration. It measures 25 cm wide and 380 cm long.

The piece used to be called Journey to the Studio, but has now become "The Daily Round", to fit in with the artist's statement I quickly wrote, which talks about quotidional repetitiveness, the ever-extending line incorporating the ephemerality of the daily news. Or could/should have, but at the 11th hour those sorts of thoughts hadn't yet risen and the statement ended up like this:

"The Daily Round" is a meditation, evolving day after day, on matters exterior and interior. The probing stitches laboriously fasten the ephemerality of daily news to the solid base, and the thin line of newspaper strips goes around and around, making the piece sculptural rather than two-dimensional.

Margaret Cooter's cross-media practice (ceramics, drawing, printmaking, books, textiles) is largely focused on the use of time in daily travel (commuting) and the input of labour in domestic maintenance, as part of the larger topic of the concept of home.

Not sure how absolutely "true" this is,  but you sometimes have to reinvent your intentions as circumstances change. "Travel lines" have given way to the Home project.

The point of the exercise was to enter something, somewhere - to keep going creatively, to get impetus for the next part of the project. 

The deadline for this call has been extended to 31 August - my next goal. But this involves making something new, as works have to be about "nature" (in the widest sense) and on an envelope.