I am buzzing with ideas, it is a task to know where to start/ stop/ take breath and conclude a piece of work.
I will
free flow through the wades of colour and line and describe to you a random mass of creative electrical charges.
(A Glass of Perry Aids a Merry Brain)
An idea came to me on the night of
20th June around about 8.50pm, which is about one hour and five minutes before I knew that I was free. It was an idea for a painting. I was sipping Perry from a plastic glass, listening to a folk festival band singing about long ago battles in a wet muddy field; when the answer arrived as to how to approach a sequel to
‘Want Wish Waste Wane’.
‘Want Wish Waste Wane’ is to become the first installment of a
trypditch. While trying to enjoy my drink I realized I wanted the trypditch to relate an intense emotional journey that I have been on this last year. A story about how we can feel trapped within ourselves, how we feel that our value is being wasted; balancing existences, running from one life away to another; and then finally languishing in the freedom of acceptance and mutual respect.
The idea for the third part of the story came with the wish to experience it, but then an hour and 5 minutes later, fate fulfilled that wish and I can now paint from reality rather than hope.
So, now, I am all set to go: but I must be patient and understand that these sequels will take a good year to do. I
want them to be my grand statement. I must not rush them.
‘Similar but Different’ (The story of Commission No 2a and 2b)
I sit here under the
Barrel Oak with sore knees and a rumbly tummy. I have been sketching this tree from under the ‘last tree on the right’. The nettles have grown higher since I was last here and it was perhaps the effect of their stings that has made my knees somewhat sore.
I am finding it hard to ‘fit in’ the tree as it is so vast. To fully appreciate its majestic quality one needs to walk quite near. However this renders it quite a challenge to fit it into the picture frame – with the inclusion of the sky.
I have been asked to paint two watercolours
‘similar but different’ of this tree that is so important to all that know it. There are touching reasons as to the nature of the commission and so it is paramount that these reasons are respected and translated fully in the finished piece.
An Adapting SpiritAs I sit here at the dining room table I am trying to picture the painting shelf on the other side of this wall. It is cluttered with drawings and unfinished paintings. My life has changed quite rapidly over the last few months, particularly these last 10 days and my
creative spirit is trying to adapt.
I need a repetitive rhythm of life in order to have a mind that can easily retract from the day to day and focus into a Zen like manner into and onto my work. But what with busy weeks, broken cameras and a new found soul my work has become rather disparate.
(Disparate is a rather negative word, but my mental thesaurus isn’t really on full alert today)
So – let me try and explain why the ‘disparate’ state of the painting shelf is in reality full of life and buzzing with ideas.
I had organized in a very business like fashion a painting schedule in my diary for the forthcoming months. However, a dropped camera put paid to these plans for a while. Not knowing when the situation would resolve, I embarked on a series of drawings.
Quick, half hour drawings.
Quick does not describe the drawing style – the lines are not frenetic nor a tangled mass; but are controlled, considered and calm. The narrative being described by these calm lines was perhaps a prediction of a kind of calmness I would soon feel.
The content however told a different story. My
head had been throbbing for a few days, the resulting effect from a combination of thundery weather and an angered heart. So, the drawings describe my physicality – how I physically felt rather than looked. I closed my eyes and centered my mind onto the throb of my temples, the weight of my palm against my brow, the furrowed lines on my forehead.
The images are not anatomically correct, but are homage to an artist called
Maria Lassnig (born Austria in 1919).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/apr/24/marialassnig?picture=333704538“… and found that the body I inhabit to be by far the most real of all realities” (Maria Lassnig)
Maria is a very recent discovery and one that has had a profound effect. The discovery was made – or given to me in the loveliest of ways. I had received a package one day from my dear artist friend
BM. That was a joy in itself, but what was inside was to send shockwaves of delight, awe, realization and an intense connection with an artist 50 years my senior, whom I have never met.
BM had been on holiday and had visited this exhibition. He collected the associated leaflets and sent them to me.
Certain things happen in your life that will prove to be monumental in deciding the direction in which your life will take.
As an artist, these moments are just as crucial, these meetings of minds, these enlightened discoveries, all impact greatly on your artistic identity; your ‘raison detre’ and the route that that your work will take.
Maria Lassnig was one of these moments. In the
1940’s she developed a style of painting called
‘Body Awareness’. Here is an extract from the exhibition leaflet:
‘For Maria Lassnig, every painting springs from the conviction that the only thing she knows for sure, are the feelings that evolve inside the shell of her body……. “Once I wearied of depicting nature analytically, I began looking for a reality which would quintessentially be mine than was the outside world, and found the body I inhabit to be by far the most real of all realities; I had only to become aware of it to be able to project its’ impression in fixed centers of gravity onto the image plane”.This was precisely what I was trying to do with ‘Want Wish’, six months previously; to portray what I was feeling emotionally and physically rather than a portrait based on the
anatomical cloak.
‘There is Nothing Left to be Said, we are Spent’Some may say that there is no originality in art. But we creatives; musicians, artists, actors, writers, refuse to believe this sentiment. For how would life be without art in it, if we all downed tools and cried unanimously ‘There is nothing left to be said, we are spent’.
There would be no new music in the
John Peel Tent, no ‘
Mr. Hopkinsons’ Computer’ http://www.myspace.com/computersings no
Schindlers List or
Slumdog Millionaire (thank you
MB), no
Angel of the North. Therefore I refuse to down my tools in protest that an artist has beaten me to it nearly 70 years ago.
This has happened to me twice before. During the final year of my fine art degree, I was creating
an installation of photographic works; slides, collages, prints and the written word. I had set up a photographic studio in my bedroom and for three months photographed myself in various positions and outfits; all to create a strong narrative exploring the notion of identity, how we come to be and who we hope to be. Some of the issues explored were body image and self confidence. At the culmination of this project, after all the work had been hung, a tutor mentioned in passing, ‘Emma, were you inspired by
Cindy Sherman?’ ‘No’ was my reply. ‘Who is she?’ ‘You must go and find her work Emma’.
An hour later, stepping out from the university library, I felt a mixture of utter despondency that my work wasn’t entirely ‘original’ and sheer elation that I was not alone in this method of creating.
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/photography/Cindy-Sherman.html
Two years later, I was painting furiously in my studio in
Knighton Lane, Leicester. More self portraits, this time in paint and experimenting with
Body Language and how to communicate particular emotions with the viewer. Once again, many paintings later a dear friend of mine (
TS) said to me ‘Have you been looking at
Paula Rego then?’
‘No, who is she?’ So, once again, I set off on a quest to find out about an artist.
The specific piece of work by Paula that TS was referring to was a portrait commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery of
Germaine Greer, completed in 1995. Although the sentiment behind the work wasn’t necessarily setting out to communicate a particular emotion (in relation to my own work) , the way Paula Rego had placed Germaine's body centrally within the frame and the body language which Germaine was subconsciously exhibiting gives the work a strong and
determined presence.
Germaine was sat on a low leather sofa, with a red dress on, black tights and black lace up shoes. She is leaning forward , her knees up, but spread wide apart, creating a strong triangle down towards her feet, which are together – sole to sole. Germaine’s head is cocked to one side, her eyes distant and her hair languid and free. To achieve this informal result, Paula asked Germaine to recount the story from Wagner’s’ Ring. Germaine was instantly relaxed.
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?locid=56&rNo=1Back to My Drawing
Intermittently on the same pages on my ‘Body Awareness’ drawings, I am sketching my body from life – parts of the body that are the hardest to draw. When I am working on my narratives, which are primarily drawn from memory, I always struggle with hands, feet and noses, or, for example, the foreshortening of an arm as it is outstretched. So it is a mission now to observe,
scrutinize, analyse and then draw, draw and draw again.
In some way, the reasoning for this is to prove myself that I can actually ‘draw’, because the
quality of the line is an essential component in all of my work.
In the 1970’s after a period of abstract works, Maria Lassnig returned to painting using observation as her key motivation. This, in her own admission was a definitive reaction to criticisms voiced in America in response to her Body Awareness paintings. She resorted to realism in an effort to prove her skills as a draughtswoman; that she could actually paint and draw accurately and skillfully.
My observational drawings are in some way there to appease my self criticisms.
Mentor Morag (or Katie Morag: especially for those children’s book lovers)
For the last few months I have been visited by a lovely lady from
Creative Northants. I was so pleased to be accepted on to this mentoring scheme; and what a Godsend it has been.
Morag drove for miles from the south of the county, three times, to sit with me all day; eat cake, drink too much coffee and listen to me. She listened and listened and wrote and wrote. The whole of my artistic career to this point came pouring out in a
stream of consciousness and then, all of my many and often
contradictory dreams and visions for my creative future. She was always there to give advice and emailed back at ridiculous hours in the morning when we were both up late working.
She has helped me so much. I now have specific goals, I have a map of plans; I have the determination, confidence and positivity to follow through with all of my ideas.
I have made a good friend.
Thank you
MV ‘Girls On Film’A few weeks ago I was very brave and accepted an offer that had the potential to go disastrously wrong. Oh Ye of Little Faith.
A dear musician friend of mine, (
SR) had rather naughtily but flatteringly ‘taken’ some lines from my last An Artists Diary entry on my blog and composed a song from it.
After a diva strop, some amusing email exchanges and a tutorial session on copyright and crediting, I came around wholeheartedly to the idea and now publicly say sorry to Mr Rigsby (but don’t forget the credits!)
(Photo Credit: Matthew Hobson)
As a result of this, Stevie then wanted to use this song as a showcase for his wondrous talents (my words, not his) and wanted to make a
video.
He enlisted his good friend Matthew and off we trundled up to
Barrel Oak. This place is becoming quite a centre piece in my life. The plot for the video was hatched behind my self and my daughter as we stepped over puddles and kept watch for fairies.
I was to be filmed drawing the view from sitting in front of this fantastic tree looking down the Brigstock track. Stevie was filmed walking up the track, singing his song. He then sat on the log under the wide boughs and continued singing. I was to then include him in my drawing. He was my long lost love and I missed him. The trouble is, Stevie got bored of singing the same song so decided to cover
Girls Aloud. This didn’t do much for my Mojo.
I loved the whole experience, but unfortunately was not impressed with my artistic efforts. So I have asked very nicely, to have another diva strop, and start from scratch the drawing of my lost love sitting under the Barrel Oak.
It may be that in the next episode of An Artists Diary, I can confirm the completion of both the drawing and the video.
This is diary entry is dedicated to Mr MB.
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