ARTISTS TALKING

# 39 [15 December 2010]

Did a day Graphic Recording yesterday. A day of listening intently and drawing out the story in public is always very tiring. But I did managed to get three collagraph plates started today and am looking forward to proofing at least one tomorrow.

I found two quotes which feel appropriate to the place I find myself in:

"There's a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wounds and work materialises without effort"

Mark Matousek

and

"Artists don't get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working".

Stephen DeStaebler.

# 38 [11 December 2010]

Rejection is always hard to deal with especially when it comes with no feedback as it so often does in the art world. Is it me, my work, this particular image or my reason for creating that is being rejected.

Is it all just seen as rubbish. Do they think there is something I need to change? Would I want to change it if I knew.

But the main high comes from creating work that is boosted when others connect with it. To continue creating I have to sell work or sustain myself in other ways so I have to expose the work to the world and possible rejection.

While creating there are always moments of doubt. Rejection feeds the doubt and makes one question the the work and ones reason for creating. So rejection becomes part of the creative process by keeping the the question alive and the work honest. But, rejection still remains painful and hard to deal with.

# 37 [10 December 2010]

Got really excited this morning a big parcel arrived in the post. It's the first posting of the O.U. materials for the MA in Art History that I start in February. Excitement is dampened a bit by apprehension - is this a step too far? 

I need to earn my living. I only have a couple of Graphic Recording gigs in the diary and to be honest I just haven't got my head around trying to find galleries to show my work.

I have had an application in for Axis for about 10 days but haven't even had an acknowledgement that they have received it.

Clearly submitting work to The Mall Galleries Exhibitions requires too big a stake for the odds.

It's been that sort of day.

# 36 [9 December 2010]

Just had the hard copy of Call for Enteries 2011 from Mall Galleries. I Can't find any explanation as to why I should, as an artist over 35, pay twice as much per work  as an artist under 35?

I am also not sure that the finances stack up in any way that I can make sense of. If I decide to put work forward it will cost £72.00 for six works, about £200.00 for framing and£200.00 to get them down to London. With incidental expenses about a £500.00 investment.

Given the numbers of enteries the odds of getting work selected is pretty slim and the possibility of making a sale? Added to this there is a 45% commission + 20% to be added to the price of the work if a sale is made.

The answer seems to be to make a living as an artist you have to be perpetually under 35, live in Lodon and be a very luky gambler.

# 35 [8 December 2010]

I just got an e-mail from the Mall Galleries for the Royal Society of British Artist Exhibition. The fee per work is £6.00 if you are under 35years of age and £12.00 if you are over that age?

Not sure I get the logic. Or is it just pure ageism? 

# 34 [6 December 2010]

Personal images from residency at Cill Rialaig

# 33 [5 December 2010]

It's a year since I added anything to this blog. It's not that I haven't been working although I've certainly been through a fallow patch where it's a real struggle to produce anything that excites me or that I can believe in.

Since my visit to Cill Rialaig I have been working on some of my paintings and prints in PhotoShop. The results have been really pleasing, in that the images appear to come alive and have some depth.

I still enjoy getting down and dirty with traditional media but i feel the direction my work is taking me is a mix of traditional and digital media.

Work can be made more accessible through publishing sites like Blurb.com. 

# 32 [26 November 2009]

Trying to understand what the difference is between an image that is alive and one that is dead. Looking at some of my prints, there are some that are alive, they have a voice and a life of their own. There are others that appear to be dead  and have no voice. I can't see what the difference is between the two except one looks dead and the other looks alive.

# 31 [25 November 2009]

Started reading The Master and his Emissary - the divided brain and the wester world by Iain McGilchrist.

He argues that the two hemispheres of the brain have not merely different skills,but have very different perspectives on the world. He sees the differences lying not, as has been supposed, in the What - which skills each hemisphere possesses - but in the how, the way in which each uses them, and to what end. McGilchrist draws on a vast body of recent brain reasearch and illustrates his thesis with fascinating case studies.

He suggests that the left hemisphere is designed to exploit the world effectively, but is narrow in focus and favours theory rather than experience. It rejects living things in preference for mechanisms ignoring whatever is not explicit, despite evidence to the contrary is absolutely certain of itself  and lacks empathy. In contrast the right hemisphere has a broader and much more subtle understanding of the world but lacks the certainty to counter assertions of the left hemisphere.

The metaphor of the master and the emassary in the title of the book is based on the understanding that the relationship between the hemisphere is not symetrical. The left hemisphere, though unaware of its dependence, could be thought of as an 'emissary' of the right hemisphere, valuable for taking on a role that it - the 'Master' - cannot itself afford to undertake.  However it turns out that the emissary has his own will, and secretly believes himself to be superior to the Master.  And he has the means to betray him.  What he doesn't realise is that in doing so he will also betray himself.

# 30 [24 November 2009]

Most of my recent images have been put together digitaly using images made in "natural" media. It's a great way to work collaboratively as none of the original work is destroyed. Although the digital prints do live they lack the texture and depth of an etching or woodcut. There is a also temptation to build in too many layers of information into an image and it becomes technical, clever and dead. The old rules of simple is best and less is more need to be strctly applied to ensure digital images sing and be more than just an exercise in cleverness. Nobody likes a smart ass.