Laundrodrama

The Leave No Trace collective are occupying the local launderette in Totnes for October.

Sarah Scaife, Shelley Hodgson and myself.

My intention has been to use the launderette as source material rather than a site for interventions.
I spent a lot of precious time in my first two visits just sitting, watching and taking in the environment. Worrying as usual about grabbing and hurrying some ideas along.  I felt conspicuous because I wasn't washing anything.  I wrote a bit in my sketchbook, mapped out the customers' movements (as surreptitiously as possible) and studied the movement of the drums of the machines.
Yet, if I do manage to translate these movements into images I still feel the need to feed them back in to the place of source so I'm researching the possibility of a newspaper placed towards the end of the residency for the customers to browse.
This satisfies many urges for me. I want to make marks, I can't give up the habit of intervention in public spaces and I am really keen on the intimacy created by providing a small work that can only really be absorbed by one person at a time.

The launderette has always been a place of internal meditation for me - even though your smalls are bouncing around behind you for all to see - it is a very quiet, private space: like a library. The inspiration I find there is very rich.