Take risks. Having a sense of curiosity and a willingness to experiment helps creative practitioners uncover ‘happy accidents’ and serendipitous outcomes. It can be tempting to stay safe if feeling the pressure of a major project. Allow yourself space to have fun, play, experiment and challenge yourself to take risks (whatever this means for you) to ensure you continue evolving your ways of working.

I have tended to swing one of two ways with risk taking; either I focus on expanding what I know or I keep trying new things while never drilling down to fully explore amy one idea to its full potential. I have been experimenting with glitches and the accidental image which relates to death for most of us. Outwith our control. Here example of some tests where I was looking at the liminal gateway itself and wondering what this might look like. I show these images as this idea relates to a bigger risk.

The bigger creative risk which I have been thinking of uses a see-saw. My exhibition would become a series of images displayed around a central sculptural piece. That central piece would be a see-saw which I make from a scaffold board. These are readily available up to 4.0m in length. The reason for see-saw is to represent the balance between life and death and at the fulcrum, the threshold of life. It is an object we associate with children so fits with root of my project and, as long as I get the balance finely tuned, this becomes a moving object at heart of my display. On each end of plank I am thinking if fitting a basket into which I would encourage my audience to write on small slips of paper and to place into the baskets on either end. These messages could be as simple as a name or whatever the audience member wants.

Technically there is no problem with making the see-saw. But what then? Do I decorate one end with images about death and memory such as the gravestone I show below which I photographed on a recent trip up north?

Could I create a slide to use for a cyanotype for this to transfer the image onto the board? I have a huge number of doubts about how this might look and feel. Do I look for a grafitti artist to decorate one half of board for me using the symbolism of death and thoughts of memory? And what then of other end of board? Do I leave it blank? Finally what of the threshold itself? A huge number of doubts and questions for one, one of biggest is does such a piece ask questions of the audience or is it obvious?