Stumbling and Flailing

I actually signed up for a Squarespace website nearly year ago and i have been tinkering with it at intermittent intervals since then. This space is by no means finished. It feels like inviting people people in to your home when you only have a cheap Ikea table and a beanbag. But, as a recovering perfectionist, sending an unfinished, very simple website live is good practice. It’s the content that counts right? Over the next few months I will be adding more images of my work and more blog posts about my creative journey over the past few years. But i'm not promising anything! There is more major surgery to come in July because this endometriosis thing is just never ending and I will be putting rest and recovery first.

One if the hardest aspects of this process has little to do with action and doing but the question of which of my old posts to leave live. It’s very obvious that I became caught up in the Creative White Woman blogging surge in mid-noughties. There is a lot of over-sharing here, both about physical and mental illness and, as I will be primarily using this as a site to showcase my work, I spent a lot of time wondering if I should remove those posts. But the thing is, it’s all intrinsically linked. I can’t separate my creativity from who I am and I wouldn’t want to. Beneath all of the posts here on this website is the story of a woman finding her feet as a painter and learning to embody her life, even if it was messy and uncomfortable at the time. And if you decide to scroll through the old posts you will also find a lot of Awkward Art. Artists do not emerge fully formed wearing perfectly ripped skinny jeans and knackered converse trainers, portfolio and personal narrative firmly established. We usually spend years flailing about in a sea of failed paintings and grandiose ideas (BTW, i’m still there). I think it’s important that if you are new at the creativity thing and you’ve landed here on this page, that you see the stumbling process behind the Good Stuff. I hope you’ll join me for the next leg of the journey!

The Jam Factory- Oxford

 

 

 

 

 

 

After most of last year was spent either ill or healing I decided that the end of 2014 was going to be spectacular. I had a big exhibition of my work and then threw myself a birthday party in December- something I have not done since the age of 7. As I've probably said before, I'm a classic introvert so the thought of having a party in my honour and inviting lots of people initially caused me to break out in hives. And then I remembered promising that I would try and inch my way out of my comfort zone and that I do actually like my friends and family. Of course I then had to spend a week alone not talking to anyone, listening to Radiohead and reading quietly, by myself. 

 

One of the amazing things that came out of the show at The Mill was that I got offered a chance to exhibit at The Jam Factory in Oxford, a venue I like enormously for it's wonderful food, homemade cakes, Blood Orange San Pellegrino and diverse exhibition programme. It's up until the 6th of April so if you're in the area pop in! I'm exhibiting with another wonderful local artist, Tina Burnett. I wish I had some images of her work but it seems I was too self obsessed to take any on the day. It's lovely though, I promise.

 

 

There's so much I want to tell you all about the last two months, so much about the last year in fact, which has been hard in ways I could never have imagined but also revealing and celebratory and cleansing. I don't feel like a new person but I do feel like a pared down and distilled version of the old me. More potent, more heady. Less watered down communion wine, more garden shed, throat stripping homebrew.

 

 

The free-range artist

Christmas is over and I'm finally working on a few paintings. Today I finished one that has been languishing for well over six months. I also started another. That felt good. I did all this fuelled by double chocolate and raspberry brownies. I decided a couple of days ago that January would be the month I cut down on sugar. That lasted then.

I don't think I ever really liked the idea of having a pristine white studio space, shared with other hipsterish artists, seriously working away whilst we talked about gallery representation and listened to Autechre. I think I do much better working out of my living room, on my own, glass of cava just out of shot, Boromir getting shot by orcs on the TV in the background (and then dying beautifully) for what seems like the fifth time this Christmas. (Note to self, must find new box sets to watch whilst painting).

Across these two tables (one on loan from my brother, one from Ikea £14) are the collection of random and useful objects helping me work at the moment.

Candles, always.
Pile of Moleskine notebooks for journalling, notes, poetry etc
Pile of handmade paper.
Yellow A5 Finsbury Filofax (Xmas prezzie from mum and dad)
Nourishing reading matter.
Crime novel (January is all about crime fiction)
Brushes, paints etc
Feathers
Bright pink poster paint
Karma bubble bath bar from Lush (it smells amazing and every now and then I catch a whiff of it and just think mmmmm)
Knitted owl gloves made by mum. Slightly too small. They limit my hand movements somewhat but i am determined to break them in.
A little stuffed and stitched handmade mouse. Gifted to me by one of the tutors at work late last year when I was in the middle of a stress related meltdown.
Sharpie markers
Washi tape (a growing addiction)
Dirty paint water
Earphones
Course file for my classes
Pile of magazines inc County Living (even though I live in the middle of a large town) and The Simple Things. Both are essential for decent vision boarding and daydreaming about cosy fires, woodland walks, suppers that include all manner of rare and lovely foodstuffs and rugged yet sensitive blokes in fairisle jumpers.
Broken glass lampshade (cracked side facing the wall)

There. You can keep your sparsely furnished converted warehouses. This is all I need.

Seed heads workshop

 

A happy day spent painting with a group of enthusiastic students. When I'm teaching I do tend to sit there sometimes and think "I can't believe I get paid to do this".

This kind of painting, the kind that pays tribute to the change in seasons, that asks you to respond the world around you, puts me right back in to the moment. After three months of drifting in and out of my life I have slipped quietly into autumn and, as the natural world winds down and prepares to sleep, I feel awake at last.

I had planned to spend the evening tidying the flat, exercising and making food in preparation for a colleague's leaving do tomorrow. However, I've paid a visit to my mum instead. She has wine. And homemade chicken soup.



The long road back from nowhere

I'm not really sure where I have been the last few months. I feel like I've been asleep for the majority of the summer; I drifted off somewhere around the end of June and woke up in late September. I have spent the last few weeks pulling myself together and trying to work out exactly what caused me to suddenly beat a retreat from the world. Things had been bad at work and I remember suddenly waking up in July feeling wretched and exhausted. And then it's all a bit of a blank. I took a lot of baths. Finished a few paintings. Grew some tomatoes. And finally came to the conclusion that I had put myself through a bit of a battle this past year.

My plan for 2012 was this: keep exercising (at least four times a week), carry on with writing the book, keep eating healthily, take on a bit more teaching to help with the bills, find true love, paint my living room, be more sociable, be prettier, be better at everything, sell lots of work etc etc. Add to this meditating regularly, visualising regularly and taming my relentless negative inner monologue and suddenly the sensible part of my brain (the one synapse not exercised and self-helped into a state of inertia) went

"Er, 'scuse me? This isn't a lot of fun. Is this how you wanted 2012 to go?"

And the rest of me (particularly my knackered shins) went "No, not especially". And so I took to my bed like a Victorian invalid. Only not really because I still had a full time job. Needless to say it turns out I had Some Issues To Process which I have been doing just like a healthy, modern, balanced woman should do. I'm sure it's all been very useful. The only thing with all this navel gazing is that you forget to pay attention to anything else. I can't remember when the first autumn leaf fell. I don't remember what I was doing during that late summer heat wave we had. I vaguely remember sketching Mevagissey harbour (see images). I'm pretty sure it rained in August but the rest...well. Who knows? And then I was reading through last summer's blog posts and everything about that time came back in a rush and I thought "this is why I do this! This is why I blog- it's my way of paying attention". So I have a new plan for the rest of 2012. Stay awake. Look. Smile. Write it down.

The Forest Floor

If you took out the past its best food from my fridge, all that would be left is parsley and soya milk. This is one of the things I feel most guilty about; the throwing away of food that I didn't get around to eating before it went bad. I'm not sure if it's as bad as giving in to the nagging voice that says "you better eat those brownies/that homemade bread/that stew, as you don't want to waste it". At least with the former you stay the right side of healthily curvaceous. And there is always Lea and Perrins. That never goes out of date. There could be a nuclear holocaust and Lea and Perrins would be the only thing to survive. Lea and Perrins and cockroaches.

These are new paintings completed this week. The top image is the slightly smaller sketch for the one underneath. The technique is called negative painting by most people. You paint around the shapes rather than painting the shapes themselves, and then build up layers. There is always a stage when you think "this is all going wrong" and the it suddenly comes together. I use it quite a lot in my work.

A little recap

These are some of the paintings I did in November. I did quite a few other things as well. I took on a lot of extra teaching which seemed like a good idea a few months ago, when the job situation was looking particularly bleak. I also broke both my phone and my Ipod. There was a depressing evening in late November where I found myself slumped on the sofa feeling stressed and tearful and couldn't even listen to music to sooth myself. I also couldn't phone my mum.

It's all good now though. Work is winding down, we had our Christmas meal today and I'm blogging after ten vodka and tonics. By the end of the week I'll be feeling a bit bored.

Tulips and lilies

Since October last year I have managed to break two cameras. This may be why my posting has been slightly sparodic. I did something strange to the Samsung which caused it to take streaky photographs so I borrowed Mum's Cybershot. Last week I stood on it and the screen cracked. What followed was a week of berating myself for being clumsy and not being able to look after anything properly. If I spend money on a much coveted white shirt you can guarantee that within 24 hours I will have spilt something indelible down it.

Not sure about the above paintings. They seem a little wishy washy. I like my work more when it has a little depth and drama. I might have to do something drastic to them tomorrow.

I'm still waiting for my spring surge which everyone else seems to be getting at the moment. The last few months have certainly been fallow. Actually desolate and drought stricken might be a more accurate description. Though it is very nice to be sat here with a glass of wine at 7.30pm with the sky still light and the birds singing.

Getting my mojo back

I have a few new ideas and some projects waiting to get started but for now I'm just happy painting hydrangeas.

The show is up!

Below is a photograph of the fabulous work done by members of the Cherwell Valley Embroiderer's Guild at a workshop I taught on Saturday. Despite having a show to organise, mount, frame and put up, I was more frightened by teaching a workshop out of my normal surroundings than of finishing my exhibition! I need not have worried though, it was a great day and thankfully the weather was good for drying pieces of printed fabric and paper.



Here are some images taken of the gallery space at the Mill with my work on the wall. Just over a year ago when I planned the show and booked the slot it felt like a really big deal. Today, however, I just feel a bit deflated. I think this might be tiredness talking though. Tomorrow is the private view so just a little bit more to do and then I can really relax and take it all in. On Friday I plan to take myself off window shopping somewhere nice for things for the flat; I have been too busy painting and prepping work to even think about nesting. I came home on Monday night and it felt so empty with all my paintings gone! It's really a bit too big for just one person to be honest, I need to make it feel a bit cosier some how.

Love in the Mist

This is a work in progress, I'm using a new type of paper and, though it is lovely and allows the paint to granulate and create wonderful effects, I'm not sure it's getting on very well with the masking fluid. Every time I try and peel it off, some of the paper comes away too.


This is my painting corner. I still think I need to have a bit of a move around of furniture but last night, sat here with the candles burning, felt good. The flat has been well and truly man-proofed with flowers, fairy lights and bits of fabric draped everywhere.

Yesterday afternoon was spent at another family do, this time saying goodbye to Jenny and Ben who are off to Hong Kong to live for two years. It's going to feel very strange without them. There was too much food as per usual but where we really excelled ourselves was with the puddings; Boozy Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Mousse Pie, Eton Mess, Carrot Cake, Apple Pie, Red Velvet Cupcakes and, best off all, cupcakes made to look like panda bears. Consequently I spent most of last night slumped on the sofa in a sugar and Prosecco induced coma. I even dozed off during Sherlock.

A busy little bee

Last Thursday my cousin Jenny got married. Three weeks ago we had the most relentless, scoffothon of a hen do i have ever been on (i have resisted the urge to publish the photo of the naked play doh man) complete with the required amount of silly games. One silly game involved every hen bringing along a pair of her knickers; these were strung up on a line and we had to guess whose pants where whose. Every body got mine right. Even people i don't know very well guessed mine. Apparently they were "my kind of colour", all sort of muted and pale, which is generally how i dress. If you look at the inside of my wardrobe, one of the first things you notice (apart from my obsessive tidiness) is that everything is greyish (greyish pink, greyish blue) or beige.

I love that my paintings are completely different. This must be where all my colour goes.

Small landscape studies

A whole week has gone by without access to the Internet. I had a week booked off work to get on with the painting and planning for my show and, of course, I have been relying on Mum and Dad's laptop for the last year. It's astonishing how much time can be frittered away just by dithering around on the Internet. I have spent the week painting, reading, making bread, planting foxgloves, lavender and chocolate cosmos, snacking almost constantly, having a sofa delivered, sending it back because it didn't fit through the door, feeling embarrassed, making the stressful pilgrimage to Ikea to buy a smaller sofa, realising that over the course of 7 years I have accumulated many, many throws, buying another one from M&S anyway and, of course, watching daytime TV.

As predicted in my last post, there is a small fly in this particularly girly pot of ointment. Turns out my upstairs neighbours keep strange hours and like to watch their TV with the volume up. So the above list has all been undertaken with the low level hum of exhaustion in the background.