Frieda Frowhawk is the name of a Fictional Character. The name of my childhood alter-ego. The name I give to my remembered self. She has a strong sense that she knows what she’s talking about.

The usefulness of Frieda will become apparent.

Meanwhile, I was trained as a Painter, then as a Visual Communications Designer at postgraduate level. I have enjoyed a varied career in Print and Screen Design, as well as Teaching on a Foundation course, yet I depend on the fabulousness of Frieda to demand more time + space for investigative work.

The Plan Unfolding

In periods of economic difficulty, (and cuts in support for the Arts), Frieda was interested to know how individual artists progressed, as an indicator of the times, and as a way to develop her own professional practice. She proposed many years ago a Project of Hogarthian Proportions, (the best example of his serially-planned story cycles), to weave together the Themes that bubbled around her; producing work, interviewing other practitioners in a series of ‘conversations’, creating a database, (a repository), of stories, reflections, discoveries and memories and curating Exhibitions of Her Findings.

She proposed walks of the Liminal Landscape, studio-visits, work critiques, interviews – each interaction documented, recorded and published. She was aware that having previously enjoyed the social and creative interactivity of a freelance and art school/educational environment, she felt certain difficulties arose from working in the near-isolation of a semi-rural studio. Her ‘other’ self had fallen out-of-the-loop, pining for intellectual interaction, for honest critique and feedback with other practitioners. Without feedback or a peer review opportunity, her ‘other’ self found that she increasingly sought validation. An opportunity to display her findings and for critical and informed discussion – especially with artists juggling similar responsibilities and anxieties – had become crucial.

Frieda has been conducting a series of investigations: documenting intellectual, geographical and creative wanderings, and interviewing selected people (not that they’d know about it), with audio/visual and written accounts of work. She hopes to achieve a fluid, on-going series of imagery, recordings, documents and interviews, transcribed, synthesised, and published, probably disguised as creative output.

Indicative questions in her investigation:

What working processes have become established and how are they varied by events and beliefs?
What impact does new media and global systems of communication play on producing work?
What role does research play?
To what extent is that research autobiographical?
To what extent is work intuitive?
What mental and physical factors impinge upon the experience as an artist?
How does an artist make ambitious work in the present economic conditions (having modest income and without funding)?