Kate is one of three artists that have been asked to pop in before the official opening for an interview with Summerhall TV. As is Katy Christopher, whose work is a moving projection onto the wall in front of Kate's chair (which looks tiny in the vast gallery). Nevertheless, I can imagine sitting on the seat, staring straight in front of me and being transported back to 1974 when Gaga was nearing her end but trying to communicate with her granddaughter who was about to give birth to the next generation. Ah, the present, the past and the projected future - what a strange bundle they make!
Kate, perhaps also thinking that the chair looks toy-like in the gallery, tells me she feels that at any moment it's going to get sucked into the vortex, and, like the TARDIS, move through time and space right to the centre of things. Ah, Doctor Who, who can resist it?
Kate's distracted by the imminence of the TV interview. She's just met Heather Fulton whose work is the pole with a bucket on the end of a hook, Salt. Actually, Kate recalls making a similar contraption when she was a child. She calls it a 'shaduf', but the word doesn't ring a bell with Heather, whose work is grounded, literally and meta-wise, in the salt pans of Bo'ness, her home town. She does respond positively to the name Joseph Beuys though, so maybe I was right to invoke it. Kate tells me she is going to try and manoeuvre the shaduf, shaman-style, until the bucket is as close as she can get it to the Beuysesque Plan B / Presence, the meticulously designed cabinet that her friend and colleague on the MFA course, Lada Wilson, has secured against the wall. A fitting tribute? I'd like to think so.
Ben Grieve from Summerhall has arrived. He interviews Heather, which I'm sure goes well, and then starts to set things up with Joseph, I mean Kate. Ben seems calm, painstaking and professional, putting his interviewee at her ease even if she wasn't already.
I keep my distance. I can't overhear what's being said but will find out soon enough, when the edited piece is uploaded onto the Summerhall TV site. (A good promotional device is that 'TV' tag.) No doubt Kate is talking about Mo(u)rning Chair being both a piece of memorial furniture and a celebration of new life. I realise I'm a bit distracted though. Not by the noose end of Heather's piece looming above Ben's head, but by the image of the red telephone that the pole passes across. It's Surprised, a print by Duncan Campbell, another of Kate's fellow students on the MFA. Kate's talked to me a certain amount about the people on her course, an eclectic bunch of strong individuals. So I feel I know Duncan a little, even though we've only met briefly and in a social context. Do I know him well enough to phone him up for a chat about the show? Well, no, but I do know one other person called Duncan who is au fait with the art scene in Scotland, and I would like to speak to him right now:
"Hi Duncan, this is Duncan. Kate and I are at Generator."
"Hi Duncan. I can't be there tonight, I'm sorry to say. How's the show looking?"
"The show looks great. A piece by our namesake Duncan Campbell is up there with the rest."
"Happy show for happy people?"
"The punters haven't arrived yet. But when they do, I don't think their tails will drop. Although there is an image of a camel hanging from the end of a noose."
"What?"
"Only joking. the show is unrelentingly upbeat."
"As it should be."
"What I would really like to do is move an as yet unidentified object from its present location in the gallery to the top of the shelf on Kate's Mo(u)rning Chair."
"Why would you want to do that?"
"Kate had a bunch of roses standing there when the piece was in her studio. But this time she's left the shelf empty. It seems a bit sparse to my eye."
"Why don't you just move a suitable sculpture to Kate's seat then?"
"I'm not sure Kate would be pleased. You see, she's in the middle of an interview just now and no doubt has a mental image of how her work looks. And I could hardly move another artist's work without first getting his or her permission."
"Not true, Duncan. My own students will be putting together a degree show later in the year, and the idea of them all settling for curating their own individual work is not something that fills me, their tutor, with excitement."
"You think things should be mixed up a bit."
"I think things should be mIxed up a lot."
"Perhaps one of Duncan Campbell''s telephone prints could be placed in each artist's space?"
"That would bring me joy. I think it would bring many people joy. By the way, Duncan, have you been drinking?"
"Kate thought she could do with a glass of wine before her interview so I opened a bottle of red for her."
"And you've been knocking it back since?"
"And I've been knocking it back since."
"You're going to have to come back to look at the show again in the morning, aren't you, Duncan?"
"I think you're right, I'm going to have to come back in the morning, Duncan."
"'Night then, thanks for phoning."
"Goodnight, sweet prince."
We do come back in the morning. First, Kate and I stop and pay tribute to Claire Briegel's piece. The film is called The light stays the same all the way through. It seems to follow the activities of a group of people who are involved in some kind of amateur production. There is a warmth between the participants (who include Gerry O'Brien, who also has work in the show, as he did last year, though this time it's photographs he took when he was visiting Australia recently) that is enhanced by the seeming informality of the filming. Kate smiles as she talks about her friend, Claire. But she is sad too because dear Claire is leaving the course for a year. Claire feels she needs the time off though it's been a tough decision for her. 'Love for Ever' reads the badge on Kate's coat, which is from Tracy Mackenna and Edwin Janssen who run the course.
Tara Chaloner is invigilating the show today. She was also involved in the hang so we get some insight into how Generator deals with the task of curating every single piece of work that the membership submit for the annual show. Basically, the members hand over their art to the committee and the committee hang that art with as much sensitivity as possible.
Kate (who is not smoking, though she will be as soon as she gets outside) hands Tara her coffee so that she can have a sip. Tara has a piece of work in the show, All my eggs in one basket. Fifty golden eggs in one woven basket. It almost sounds romantic. However, she's located her basket in the toilet, and I must admit I didn't notice the piece last night, even though I did make use of the facility. I suspect that by the time Tara had helped the various works of other artists to find a suitable home, there may have been no room left in the gallery itself for her own piece, and so a hidey-hole below a plug-hole had to be found for it.
I ask if I can remove one of the golden eggs from its nest and place it elsewhere in the exhibition. Generously, Tara gives me the go-ahead to do this. When Kate sees what I have in mind she takes charge of the egg. Which is fair enough, I suppose.
Perhaps this is overkill - the golden egg that hatched and grew feet that weren't webbed at all!
In wandering around the gallery we come across what might be another golden egg. The untitled piece is by James Lee. How abject an object!
Kate loves this next piece. She can't believe that another artist (LIly Morris) has worked with a pair of a child's red shoes. Tara says that they too at Generator were astounded by the coincidence.
Moreover, it's also the tale of a grandmother and her granddaughter, the doily being the former's and the shoes being Lily's, I surmise. The meticulously crafted ceramic shoes get Kate talking about the shoes that she's used in Mo(u)rning Chair. They were the very first pair that she bought for her daughter as a one-year-old.
While Kate and Tara continue with their tour of the gallery, still sharing a coffee, I go back to Mo(u)rning Chair.
I can't seem to leave the shelf empty. I also feel that it's up to the viewer to address the issue of NAMES that Gaga's notelet leaves unresolved.
After further fiddling, I give my friend another call.
"What do you think of this, Duncan?"
"I can't quite see what you've added. Is it something from the Generator show? Can you put your phone closer to it by any chance?"
"Is that any better?" I ask. "It's not as positive an image as it might be, but it's the best I could come up with from the charity shops on the Perth Road."
"Clipping your poodle! Great title for a book or a work of art. Who is Margaret Rothery Sheldon, by the way?"
"She was a shit-hot artist. Used to go around New York with Andy Warhol and that mad guy who dripped paint onto canvas."
"Jackson Pollock."
"That's the man. The three of them would walk through Central Park, Warhol and JP on either side of Margaret Rothery Sheldon, the statuesque woman, sometimes called Lady Gaga, intimidating to the nth degree, wearing a print dress and brandishing a pair of electric clippers."
"And Barbara Lockwood, Duncan.?"
"That's the name of the poodle, Duncan."
"Cool!"
"Margaret Rothery Sheldon didn't think so. She thought that poodle needed a good clipping. You can tell by the body language."
"Are there pictures inside, of Babs before and after the clipping?"
"Yes."
"I must get that book out from the library."
"Do you think it might come in handy when your own students come to curate their show in the summer, Duncan?"
"I think that's dead right, Duncan."
"Duncan, what the Donald Duck do you think you're doing?" asks Kate.
"It's all right, Duncan. It's me she means, not you. But I'd better ring off. I hope we can talk again on another occasion."
"If you like, I can move the book off the shelf, Kate, and leave it blank for the next visitor."
"I like."