Stuff I've thought about

So far I think I am seeing a piece of work in a non-theatre venue that gives the audience the chance to go on a journey.
Literally move around and also an emotional/ thinking journey
Somewhere like The Leopard Hotel, with different spaces.
It's important to have a rhythm or a really strong structure to the spaces.
It could be an office block- I guess because what I am seeing us do will be dense and complex and the space will inform or structure it but shouldn't dominate.

I'd like the work to use all sorts of media and forms of making performance- it's very much a theatre experience in my mind at the moment - rather than visual arts/ installation work.
In reality it'll probably sits in some strange in between/ cross over world.

I'm as interested in the process as I am in the outcomes I think.

Can we, WE, THIS group of women artists, can make something really stunning, something that does shift our aesthetic, emotional and intellectual landscape.
It needs to be beautiful, upsetting, generous, engaging and thought provoking.
No pressure there then.

So far I've invited Hilary Hughes, Lisa Wetton, Cath Ralph, Peta Murphy Burke, Anne Kinnaird, Mary Keith and The Cultural Sisters (I didn't specify...so they can self select). We are not very diverse- we need a different cultural perspective in there I think.

I'm interested to see if they invite more people and who! I have ideas who else I'd like to pull in but I want to see who they suggest. What will happen when someone suggests a woman I or someone else couldn't work with? No idea.

At some point we'll have to work out how we pay for it....what we pay for....money and the harsh realities. They will bring their own opportunities.

Of course if we're scheduling this for early next year perhaps it should coincide with International Women's Day....maybe that's a construct we may not want to engage with? How perverse. Not really.

Just because we are badging this project a women artists project it doesn't mean that we all automatically click/ get on/ can work together/ want to be associated with one another- or should feel obliged to work in a particular way or in a pre-determined set of external reference points or indeed deal only with "women's issues".

So why are we women artists coming together? Because I look round and one way of grouping the artists I want to work with is "women". Another grouping might be called "visual artists", or "non professional artists". I started work properly in theatre in groupings based on women being in control of their work and this has always nourished me, helped me grow, and produced work I felt at home in. I need some structures, some rules, so "women" is a rule I feel good about.

It has to work from the group though. Whoever is in the group will shove and direct the outcomes and how we do it. So I'll stop now and we'll see what happens after 11th June.

Maria's Story

My email said

I want to explore with a group of women artists who work in North
Staffordshire the possibility of us creating a site specific performance
piece together to take place in early 2009 in North Staffs.
This might be a series of linked pieces
It might be in a place that offers the possibility of working in "modules", but in new collaborations with one another
I'd like it to work to a theme and at the moment in my head it's called
Maria's Story, and the (very open) theme from that is women's stories.

Beyond this I'd like to hear what other women have to bring to the table (!) and if a group of women artists would be interested in taking this project further and how we'd do that.
There is no funding in place, so everything to play for!
At this stage I am offering up the idea and seeing what happens.
On the day we may need to introduce ourselves to each other, as not everyone will know everyone, so if you need pictures or access to equipment to do
that please let me know!

If you'd like to contribute in some way to the planning of this evening or you would like to suggest another woman practitioner you'd like to invite or you just want to quiz me further about this, then call me or email or
facebook me.

In any case please let me know if you can make it or not sometime before the day itself and the least that will happen is we'll have a lovely meal

We started

After that weird process of wondering, talking to other people, reading about other people's projects and looking at other work we have taken the first steps on this journey

I have invited a number of women artists to a meal- at the Barracks, B arts base, to find out if we have a group of women who would like to make work together, who like the idea of making a different sort of performance piece in North Staffordshire- where we live/ work.

I know so many good women artists based and working here and who need opportunities to do what they do, experiment, try stuff out and could get more support and enrichment from working with each other.

I am inspired by The Magdalena Project- an international network of women theatre artists and seen first hand (if only briefly) the power of the work that can be made in that environment.

And I don't know what will happen
It's exciting, terrifying even, but I feel impelled to try.