ARTISTS TALKING

# 11 [29 March 2010]

Manchester Art Gallery’s 'Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism' (2009) was a fascinating show. I’ve just been looking again at the catalogue this morning. I'd seen very few of the pieces before, except in books, so it was really worth going to.

The paintings in the show were certainly interesting, but for me, more on a conceptual and historical level rather than as paintings. The 'stuff' of the paint, and the formal qualities of the surrealist paintings I saw didn't speak to me in the way I seem to need at the moment.

I was most struck by some stunning photographic work, particularly by Lee Miller, Francesca Woodman and my favourite, Claude Cahun (1894 - 1954).

# 12 [1 April 2010]

The fact that we artist-bloggers don’t just moan on and on endlessly about time and money is pretty incredible really. I know most of us (me included) have an ongoing battle with allowing ourselves any decent time in the studio to reflect and be really creative... I take my hat off to those artists who are the main wage-earner in the household, but there are also massive, complicated pressures on the rest of us (like me). This week I’ve actually managed very little time on what I think of as ‘my work’, though at least I’ve been in the studio a reasonable amount (working on a portrait commission, mainly - I’ve realised I’m going to have to start doing some portraits to make ends meet, until I have another show). Other than that there’s always the family to be looked-after (they’re cute and lovely but need time and care), the dog to be walked (ditto) and the house to be somehow managed (none of us are tidy and it all gets out of hand quite regularly). And the schools break up today for the Easter holidays...

Stop whingeing, Emma, and get into the studio! (At least I’ve got one...)

# 13 [1 April 2010]

Silly really, but I feel compelled to add to my blog now, so that the portrait of my son won’t be the first work of mine that someone sees when they look at the Project Blogs page... This uneasiness about portraiture, I know a lot of artists and other arts professionals share it... I think for me it began the moment I first stepped through Central St Martins’ doors, aged 18. Thoughts, anyone? I’d love your comments. Now I’ll put up a different work to go with this post and probably feel more comfortable...

# 14 [6 April 2010]

Loads of artists live here in Wivenhoe. I walk the dog along the estuary most days, often with an artist friend, and generally bump into another one or two. One friend maintains that ‘when artists get together, all they talk about is money (or lack of it)’. Which has a grain of truth, but thankfully we do often talk about other stuff as well. I do appreciate this; it’s good to share thoughts, successes and moans with other people in a similar situation.

The other day I was told that Wivenhoe features in ‘Country Living’ magazine this month, as one of the ‘Top 10 best Artists’ Colonies’. I had a little look at the article in a shop yesterday and it’s true. No artists’ names mentioned, no photos of studios or work, just talk of the village being ‘attractive’ and arty and an easy commute into London, and ideas of house prices. (Yet again someone’s trying to make money out of artists, arguably with no benefit at all to us..!)

I’m getting into the studio a bit more than I expected to (given that it’s the school holidays). Hooray!

# 15 [9 April 2010]

I’ve been offered a solo show for February 2012. I’m pleased by the timing because it gives a good length of time to gradually amass work for it. I work on some of my paintings, on and off, for years. It’s one of the deep joys and luxuries of not being a student!

Meanwhile I need to think about a show that’s coming up in June. I’d always planned this one as a chance to give some older work another airing. The trouble is that whenever I say that, I generally end up being unable to bear to show old work, because the new work is always what excites me most.  What should I do with the old work? It gets stacked up, taking up space. Of course some can be painted over, some ripped up, but... what about the paintings that lots of people say they really like, and that I think are good. No-one has yet bought them, but they may well sell one day. Oh to be Marlene Dumas or Shani Rhys-James, wistfully I imagine that they probably have someone scuttling around removing finished work and either selling it straight away or putting it safe storage somewhere.. Perhaps I’m wrong though...

Space pressures in my little studio are more intense than ever at the moment, because I’m doing so many different things concurrently... Paintings (several at once) plus all the oil-painting equipment; large drawings, with a broad selection of pots of acrylic, ink, pastels, pencils, charcoal, etc; and then there’s the new portrait painting side of things, with a chair for the sitter etc (incidentally I did a really good one the other day, which gives me hope income-wise!).

# 16 [18 April 2010]

I’ve been in the Lake District all week, out walking in the hills every day, letting the richness of the landscape wash through me. The colours, the drama of ‘the Sublime’, the light (sun every single day!), but most of all it’s the textures that feed me. Mosses and lichens and rocks and glittering water. And never once do I feel that I want to ‘paint it’, or make any other kind of artwork around it. I often wonder why it is that for me, the urge to make art is so very particular in its focus. Am I unconsciously restricting myself, damming up some of the channels of creativity in favour of the one that primarily addresses the human form, and does so primarily in paint?

# 17 [20 April 2010]

BBC Radio 4, the artist’s friend... What I love about Radio 4 is – well, lots of things. Most of all, it’s the way I can hear other creative people speak, particularly writers, but also visual artists, dancers, choreographers, musicians, etc, etc. It opens up fresh ways of looking at things, which after all is what creativity is.  I know several artists who listen while they’re working (though of course everyone runs into the ‘You and Yours’ problem – the time of day when the most dispiriting and anti-creative programme comes on air).

However - unless I’m doing something routine such as stretching canvases or something, I don’t have the radio on when I’m actually in the studio, because it takes me into a different space. I need music whilst I work, but it needs to be somewhat familiar to me, and reasonably predictable (i.e. an album, not ‘shuffled’) so that I can be present and responsive with my work in a particular way. Having said all that, in doing these portraits recently, I’ve found that it’s okay to have my sitter watching a DVD or listening to a comedy CD [What I’ve Learned About Portrait Painting Lately, Part Umpteen – make sure it’s comedy, in an attempt to stop the sitter looking too mournful...].

Top choices for studio CD’s vary, I go through phases, but probably the most enduring is the Cocteau Twins.

Time to stop blogging and get in the studio, Cameron...

# 18 [26 April 2010]

Metaphor. Someone said yesterday that if you can find a metaphor for a problem, and look at the situation from that point of view, you’re half-way to solving it. I like that.

Another friend has a theory that good art is metaphor, bad art is simile. He reckons it’s very straightforward. Personally I don’t think I can define art in blanket terms like that. I think art can be so much in the eye of the beholder. (An example: I was in someone's studio a while ago and was transfixed by the paint splashes on a small patch of floor. It seemed to me to be so much more lyrical and successful as a painting than any of the works on canvas... except that, of course, it wasn’t an artwork at all, it was neither consciously created nor held up as a piece of art.)

Anyway, right now the main metaphor in my life is that of an axe crashing through my head – I’ve been suffering for three days with an awful migraine. I want to get in the studio but there’s no point trying to make art in this state: with a migraine, my way of looking, thinking and acting gets narrow and tedious. Idea: maybe I should work with the axe metaphor somehow, and imagine the positive aspects of what an axe can do – opening up, loosening, freeing, and releasing pent-up energy...

# 19 [28 April 2010]

Someone from firstsite (a contemporary visual arts organisation, based here in the East of England) came to the studio today and we discussed ways to take my ‘Alice’ project forward. It’s so great that they want to be supportive. I make the work; they’ll help me get it into venues as a touring show. She’s gone off to research and identify galleries to approach; I now need to come up with a good title and also crack on with making the pieces. The aim is to get 20 large works on paper. I’ve already done six, some of which have been seen on this blog, but I’ve decided I want to eliminate colour and just work with monochrome, so none of the six will form part of the package. The only precedent for this (monochrome) is the short residency I did at firstsite a few months ago. I have the appropriate anxiety about this (what if I can’t pull it off?) which should make for continuing boundary-breaking as I’m sure to keep coming up against the ‘sod it, it’s hideous, I’ll have to do something drastic to it’ which occasionally leads to breakthroughs... (And also, sadly, often leads to crumpled messes in the bin!)

Migraine's gone now, so I'm full of energy. Just got to make sure I spend that energy in the studio now, and not on the hoovering...

# 20 [29 April 2010]

Fifteen stretched canvases arrived today! I want to spread them around me and glory in the sense of promise they hold (if I was a dog I’d be rolling in them like fox poo). I want to sluice oil paint around and twist the brushes and rags across it and immerse myself in slicks of colour. And what did I tell myself yesterday: must do more monochrome on paper....! What to do... I think a bit of both, if I can get away with it before the school day ends.

Also: I feel so excited and flattered – one of my art heroes has read my blog, and he likes it! (And he said nice things about my work too). James Elkins is the author of my favourite book on painting: ‘What Painting Is’. It’s really worth a read if you’re a painter, or if you want to understand painters.

http://www.jameselkins.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=227:what-painting-is&catid=2:trade-books&Itemid=9