On Wednesday I fly to Stockholm.

It seems weird really, that this thing is actually happening. 

I have known Stuart Mayes for about ten years, since starting my blog on a-n.co.uk. We started out by commenting on each others blog posts, and talking about each others work. There seemed to be a correlation in the way we work, and the materials we use. Then a few years ago we met in real life when I went to Sweden with the group of artists that had been involved with the Colonize group exhibition in New York. We spent a wonderful afternoon together and didn’t stop talking, we drank tea and coffee and ate cinnamon buns… as is required when in Stockholm. After that, the correspondence continued, friendship sealed by the real world contact. Then recently, probably over covid and since, the correspondence has become more specifically about how we could do a joint show, or collaborate in some way. I sent Stuart some shirt collars and cuffs and he made a beautiful piece of work from them. When it comes to garments, and using them to stand as signifiers, I think we are on the same page. It seemed to us that the way forward was to spend some real time together in the same place. 

Last year I decided I needed to release a small pension. It really isn’t much, but it adds a little to my monthly income, and I set up an Art Travel Fund with a lump sum. Once that was done, the obvious place to go was Sweden.

So here we are now, my suitcase is almost packed and I’ve even learned a little bit of Swedish. 

The plan is that we will work together in a project space that Stuart has booked for our residency, with whatever materials we can find to express this feeling of connection, this Correspondence. We don’t know what this will look like, but I am sure that we will come up with something that neither of us would make on our own. A good collaborative relationship shows you the world through someone else’s eyes, using the tools in someone else’s toolbox maybe?

We will also do an evening event of conversation with each other and to other artists. 

I have had other artists ask me how I “managed” to go to America, and over the last week or so, how did I “manage” to get myself invited to Sweden. They ask as if this is some sort of magic. It Isn’t. Neither is it some sort of Grand Networking Scheme. What it is, in both cases, is years of Correspondence. Connecting with people, not out of a desire for global travel and status, but out of interest in each others work, I talk to people, to artists, whose work I am fascinated by, we talk about what we are reading, making, seeing…

In my experience, artists can be insular, exclusive. Take a leaf out of the musicians’ handbook. Musicians are more curious about what other musicians are up to, and musical collaboration comes more naturally, it is the nature of the beast to be in a band. So this is what I am, I’m in a band. A band of artists. It just so happens that we aren’t all living in the same country.