Louise H Todd: Town Hall Drawing Project 'Territory & Home'

A handful of us, as predicted, met up at the Town Hall Galleries for Recreate project. Sarah introduced us to Lala (Angela Wright), a practicing Fine Artist, who spoke about Recreate and her background, including a powerpoint of her work. I was glad the lights were down, as I found it really moving. She talked of how she'd used art to help express her life, marriage break-up, disability etc. She is an incredibly brave woman and I don't think 'people' realise that artists are laying themselves bare when they produce work. To produce work fearlessly is probably the bravest thing you can ever do as a person.

I talk with Sarah about ideas, where to go with my work this semester and then with Lala, but I almost can't talk to her, I'm so moved by her bravery and that I want to be as brave as her!

We had a tour of the Town Hall and Corn Exchange buildings, seeing 'behind the scenes'. It was really exciting to do this, you could hear the sounds, see the sights and imagine all sorts of dramas and traumas involved around back stage crew and the performers in the changing rooms. A heel breaks, torn outfit, forgotten or wrong outfit, someone late held-up in traffic, a falling out, the flu, dodgy stomach, affairs. The excitement and adrenalin, then over for the night, all to start again the next day, magical.

We look as we view, ideas pop-up and start to evolve, where, what, how?

We are to look for a space to call our own and make work around it, these are some photos I took on the tour: