Lucy Vardy sat down with Orla Sprosen in Blend, on the gallery’s doorstep, to talk more about her artwork’s link to communal and personal ecologies. As an artist interested in intimate observation and gathering practices, Lucy shares her effort to weave lace histories and materials into her work during the EM25 residency.

Talk to me about the fabric you currently have taped onto the floor of the Project Space. What is the purpose of this? Do you want to get it messed up?

Yes. What I’m mainly focusing on is ecologies — how we look at and relate to our surroundings, and the ground we walk on every day. I’m taking the patterns from Nottingham lace and transferring them into a pixelated design, and then capturing the ecologies of the studio directly from people’s footprints and getting the fabric dirty. It’s masking tape, so eventually I’ll peel it off at the end. I chop up the masking tape and then I transfer the design.

I guess that’s an imprint of your time here and everyone’s time in the space…

What does your process look like when starting a new project?

I usually have a research phase at the start, where I generate a backbone for myself to work from. For this project, I’ve been to the castle and the lace archives, like the one at Wollaton. That’s me collecting data to then apply to my work.

In terms of the lace aspect, which I find really intriguing in your art and in Nottingham’s own heritage, is that a new inspiration for you or a continuous thread going through your work?

Most of the work I made at uni looked at the home and how the home impacts me. It was very focused on my surroundings and very personal. I now feel like I want to look at these surroundings because I’m here in the residency, so I’m especially looking at the city centre. Then, with the lace — my grandma used to be a lingerie designer in Nottingham, so she worked a lot with lace, and she has a lot of Nottingham lace I’ve looked at. That, within itself, is a backbone of Nottingham; it’s part of its industry, so I thought it was important to look at that — and also female labour and its impact.

It seems like you’re working in a really interesting cross-section: your heritage and history, Nottingham’s histories, and how materials — your family’s materials and the city’s materials — all blend in.

Yeah, exactly. And that, within itself, I see as an ecology too. I’m relating myself and my background to a wider aspect, which can also be related to by other people, so it’s not intrinsically unique to me. People can understand my artwork through their own lens.

“One of the main things I learnt from uni was that process is practice. In my head, the process doesn’t start when I sit in the studio and make work — the process is happening all the time.”

Can all your artworks be grouped together as if they’re telling the same story, or are there different tones in them?

I’ve got the piece on the floor and a larger piece, and for me they speak the same language. [They are] what I’ve been calling the ‘tapestries’.

How do they connect, contrast, and be in dialogue with the other residents’ artworks?

When we had the talk with Yelena (Popova), that really connected us all. I think we are all looking at a reflection: we are reflecting on our time in the residency. Some people are looking at memory, a few of us are looking at observation, too. So I think we all go with each other quite well. I’ve been designing the flyer, and that was quite easy because we were all speaking a similar language.

It’s interesting you say that, because going into the Project Space without the context, you all seem so different. Being able to get your viewpoint as someone who’s in that space, who can see all the connections in that space, is so valuable. You said that observation is a theme that keeps coming up for the residents — what do you think you mean by ‘observation’, and what do you think others mean by it?

I think we are all taking it in different ways, but we are all looking at things that are currently going on around us, things which have gone on around us, and future things, all from an observational aspect. We all have very visually different work– which I think is really nice– but I think when you inspect the work, you do find some similarities.

I would love to know about your process. What does your art practice look like day-to-day?

One of the main things I learnt from uni was that process is practice. In my head, the process doesn’t start when I sit in the studio and make work — the process is happening all the time. That, for me, is really important because I’m trying to observe things 24/7. I document a lot of things via photo, and I use a tiny digital camera that takes really bad-quality photos.

I have the same! I use it as an archive for all the inspiration I have. It’s almost like the crappiness of the photo makes it.

I archive a lot of my work in photo. When I say ‘my work’, though, that can mean a cigarette box on the floor — like, that’s my work. I think it doesn’t really have a start or end; it’s happening all the time. So even in times where I feel really lost in my work, I always bring myself back to that by telling myself, ‘My work is happening all the time. Even if I’m in a slump right now, it’s always moving, it’s always changing.’ Especially coming here to an experience I haven’t done before, it’s about understanding that things will move and things will change, and I didn’t come into this thinking I was going to be making these tapestries! Movement, change, and process is practice.

Almost 24/7 you’re on — you’re in that headspace, and you’re always in that data-collecting mode. And then, I guess, it’s about the brewing process… pardon the pun with our teas on the table…

Interview by Orla Sprosen.

You can find out more about Lucy Vardy’s work on Instagram (@lucyvardy.art) and on her website.

For more insights on the EM25 Graduate Project and to hear more about the latest news at Surface Gallery, head over to our Instagram.