Creative Studio, blog 4: Dale Holmes Talk, Part 1

Dale Holmes is one of the senior lectures at the University of Huddersfield that teachers Fine Art and is also one of the main tutor on the Creative Studio module for the Masters. Each week we start the lecture with a guest speaker, these are lectures who teach in the Art and Humanities building. The speech given by Dale was on ‘site-studio, studio-site’, his personal projects and what he classes as a ‘studio’. Dale discussed his East Street Arts studio based in Huddersfield, East Street Arts are a Leeds based organisation that started in 1993 by two artists who could not find the studio space to do their work. In 1998 they became a charity run business and made it their missions to help struggling artists have a space to call their own. East Street Arts use spaces that are unoccupied, mainly shops and put artists in these spaces untill they are rented out or sold; this means Dale is in many different places and have to move when the spaces unavailable.

Dale then went on to talk about the difference between home and location studios:

Studio

See things different which helps with creative ideas.
Gives you a different way of thinking.
Push the narrative in the studio.

Site

Studio-site, bleed into one another ( they become one).
Make his own painting on site, he always has, they always fit in that site. They are made for multi purpose, they can not be fitted anywhere else.
Set up an unofficial residency, i.e. Dale did this at a local green house/shed at Greenhead Park, near tennis courts.
The surroundings - feed in and give different ideas.

Site-studio

Greenhead Park project, Dale spent a month-and-a-half working on pieces for this space.
Dale then messaged the committee and told them “you may not know this but I am your artist in residency.” The project was art work link to tennis, to be put on display at their tennis club.
They took his idea to the next committee meeting.
They loved the idea.
Dale’s paintings were 10 images on the top 10 injuries you can get from playing tennis.
Bring these into the right space of practice.
Some images were finished in this space (grass)
Members of the club described his paintings as daft and Dale felt these comments gave his paintings purpose.
Even after Dale finished his images they had a new meaning after looking at them again through video.