A Portrait of an Artist as a Very Late Starter

Wow! It seems ages since I wrote anything on here. My life has been very very busy with builders at home, which has prevented me from getting into the studio. I am not fretting too much, rather, I am quietly planning my return for the new year.

Lots has happened with Ryedale ArtWorks (RAW). Our creative commissioning programme has kicked off with a bang when Anamaria Wills of Cidaco came over and delivered training to our member mentors. I was anxious; I arranged the whole day and I knew Anamaria was the right person for the job having been on a course run by her before, but no one else from RAW knew her apart from one other artist who admitted to it afterwards. I cannot tell you how immenseley relieved I was when everyone let me know how inspirational they found the day. All we have to do now is work out which subjects can be delivered as workshops with 3 or more participants and who needs one to one sessions with their chosen mentor.

Meanwhile, we are cracking on with other plans for RAW, we are meeting William Tillyer at Mima in January and he is going to tour us round his retrospective show there. We are planning other exciting meetings and inviting interesting people to deliver these. A small but perfectly formed gallery in York, Priestleys at No. 36, Bootham have invited us to collaborate with them on an exhibition featuring two of our artists for their Christmas exhibition with further bi-monthly shows during 2014. This covers our remit to feature artists from RAW in exhibitions outside our region and we have some other tentative plans in other venues up our sleeves too.

New initiatives are being planned in readiness for our new bid for the Creative Commissioning Process for 2014 that I cannot divulge at the moment. Needless to say, all this is taking up lots of time.

Some members of RAW have huge difficulty with understanding how important and useful social media can be for their practice; I can only say that it is short sighted of them because I have had an opportunity offered me through the Artists Talking community no less, and I have not been blogging here for very long! Thank you to Jayne Lloyd for contacting me recently to invite me to participate in a show in Manchester next year. I had commented on Jayne’s blog after reading it and realising there were some similar threads running through our work. Jayne mentioned a couple of books written by Tim Ingold, Lines, a brief history and Being Alive, essays on movement, knowledge and description. I have almost finished Alive, and during the reading of it have constantly been sqealing out loud with recognition as the ideas Tim Ingold expresses are things I have been contemplating within my work and I had not even known about the book. It has given me a wonderful sense of affirmation, that my ideas belong to a serious train of thought and art practice. I need to find the time over Christmas to finish the book and begin the other one. I also need to do more research, but most of all, I need to get back into the studio! I am thrilled that Jayne wants one of my large canvases for the show.

I have been accepted onto the Art Connections web site and I have decided to enter the North Yorkshire Open Studios for the first time. Both these events are run by Chrysalis Arts. NYOS happens during 2 weekends in June, so it gives me time to develop the prints and artists books I have been planning. I’d like to get the other two large paintings of my seasons quartet made during the first half of next year too. I can’t wait to get back to more drawing.

I attended the Art Party Conference in Scarborough at the weekend; it was a fantastic day and has been written about really well by Jack Hutchinson among others, so I needn’t dwell on it other than to say that we artists need to agitate for arts education and artists; who else will if we don’t?

Ticking Over

Builders are back on site at home and cracking on. This means I need to be around a lot to answer queries and discuss best approach to problems that arise. They are brilliant and make me smile as they sing along to Minster fm – one of them sang along, word perfect to a Pink number the other day!

Meanwhile work for RAW http://www.ryedaleartworks.com/ has picked up pace: the mentor training with Annamaria Wills of CIDA has been booked, the venue sorted and lunches arranged.

http://cidaco.org/

The RAW group visit to MIMA has been rearranged for January; William Tillyer has very kindly agreed to give us a tour of this important show and talk to us about it. I am very excited about this and very grateful to MIMA for helping me to sort this out after the initial problems.

http://www.visitmima.com/index.php

We are also working hard on finding a space for our pop up flagship exhibition next year but nothing has been finalised for that.

My own work is not progressing much, but I am still scribbling away in my sketch book when the mood takes me. I have written a review of fellow artist Jennifer Tetlow’s solo show and this is unexpectedly going to be published in the December issue of a small local magazine called Valley News. I have also put the review on my blog: http://suegough.blogspot.co.uk/

Other committments will prevent me from making any work in the studio until after Christmas now, and I have decided not to get too stressed about this but to be realistic about how much work I can get done. I am in the process of filling in the application form for entry in North Yorkshire Open Studios for next June (my first time, if successful) and I was successful in my application to have a presence on the Art Connections data base. I am looking forward to seeing it once it goes live. There have also been some interesting workshops done in response to my activity on the Access Art web site.

http://www.art-connections.org.uk/

http://www.accessart.org.uk/

All being well, I’ll manage serious studio time after the Christmas and new year celebrations are out the way.

I managed four hours in my studio last Friday, playing with print making and my mangle, working out some processes and the best order with which to layer up different print making techniques for developing future pieces. These sessions, especially after a lengthy absence from the studio are important for re-establishing a working routine.

Routine? That’s a bit of a joke this year, because since my solo show at Easter, I have hardly made any work! I try to remind myself that that’s the way it goes sometimes, and that since I started on my journey back to being “an artist” just over eighteen months ago, I have made pretty good progress. Do other artists have to constantly give themselves this pep talk? I expect so.

I heard Alex Katz on the radio the other morning saying that if you want to be a painter you should be painting at least 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Fat chance. I found myself feeling quite edgy and insecure for a while after hearing those words. And then I imagined that he probably had someone to cook his meals, clean his house, etc. etc. Am I letting my domestic life come before my artistic one? At the moment, yes and two more people close to me are going to need my support in the coming months. People are more important than paintings, frustrating as that is when trying to develop art works.

On a more optimistic note, I have filled another sketchbook and prepared a new one for working in with a variety of media on a gessoed base. I love the chalky texture of gesso or even ordinary decorator’s emulsion paint for working on with a variety of media. So, while I am distracted by builders at home, friends and family who need me and my duties as chair of Ryedale ArtWorks, I shall cling to the odd hours that come my way and make work in my books.

I am sticking to my guns about where to show my work; I am not prepared to compromise the work by placing it in tiny cluttered gallery come shop come cafe spaces. I think it deserves to be shown in a good space, so I need to get on with my research and start contacting some. I am not feeling too pressured about this though because I think my main priority is to make more work in the coming twelve months so that I have a larger number of pieces to select from.

I submitted a proposal for a really interesting local residency some months ago but my sources tell me that the whole project has ground to a halt due to lack of funding. It took me quite a long time to write the proposal, so I was expecting to be informed by the party leading the project about progress but this has not been the case. This seems to me to be rather disrespectful but I am beginning to realise that it is not unusual. I am quite discriminating about what I apply for and yet still get caught up in the unprofessionalism of others. I resent the time it takes to fill in all these applications, especially when the leaders of the projects don’t bother to reply. This reinforces my resolve to concentrate on making work in the coming months and not to be distracted by what else is going on outside my studio.

One way I could find more time to concentrate wholly on my work is to do an artists’ residency; the idea of being given a space a fair distance away from home or studio in which to experiment and develop some further work is very, very appealing.

I went back down to Marlborough over last weekend, for the SKETCH 2013 seminar. It was very interesting to hear the four artists talking about how they use sketch books (or not) and how important the acts of drawing, collating, pasting, writing and collecting imagery and other sources of inspiration are to their practice – in all cases, very.

The question and answer session was quite interesting at the time, too, although, because I have been so busy since I got back, I can remember little about it. I am sure that once I settle down into a calmer routine, things will come flooding back; they usually do. There is information on the Rabley Drawing Centre web site and blog:

http://rabley.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/sketch-2013…

http://www.rableydrawingcentre.com

Once back in North Yorkshire I hit the ground running as they say, with builders back on site at home. Monday afternoons for ten weeks are now dedicated to a fabulous course that I am attending on Ten Twentieth Century Poets at Woodend Creative in Scarborough, facilitated by Jonathan Brown; a wonderful teacher.

On Tuesday: a meeting with East Street Arts, Leeds, on behalf of Ryedale ArtWorks along with Andrew Dalton, our treasurer. We are looking for a good venue that is outside the Ryedale region in which to exhibit work by the group. It will be a flag ship event, showcasing the best of what the group does. Up until ESA replied to our email, we were beginning to despair that we would find a venue. It seems ironic that even with funding in the bank, only one of the many organisations we contacted actually got back to us.

However, it was a very productive meeting. Andy and I were shown round their central building (they have many buildings at their disposal, including one in Warren Street, London). We were drooling with envy at their facilities – it was like my dream for RAW had materialised!

Minds firmly on the job in hand we had some useful and vigorous discussion about what our plans are and both Andy and I are excited that ESA are interested in helping us to find a venue and we are really looking forward to collaborating with them.

The next RAW meeting is looming and we are using it to announce the mentoring project. I must remember to book a venue this week!

William Tillyer has kindly agreed to show the group around his exhibition at MIMA, “Against Nature”, in early November and we will use the upcoming RAW meeting as an opportunity to encourage members to sign up for the mini-bus. Which I must also remember to book. . . .

Speaking of Tillyer; I went to the North York Moors National Parks visitor center at Danby today to see his exhibition of watercolours there. Entitled “Haven”, it is a fabulous showcase of William’s virtuosity with watercolour. Stunning. There was also one of his acrylic pieces worked on 3 rectangular sections of industrial mesh. I like these a lot although I am pondering on the reasons for having a support you can see through if you are going to place it on a wall, and the reflections off the metal were a bit distracting. The paint on them was great though.

Tomorrow, I am off to The Gallery, Ryedale Folk Museum, to make some notes on the Jennifer Tetlow exhibition, “The Museum as Muse”, which Jennifer has asked me to review.

Studio work? Nah. No chance at the moment, but my sketch book is nearly full.

I went to the Rabley Drawing Centre on Saturday afternoon for the opening of SKETCH 13 for which I have been selected to exhibit a book. I have never been before; it is a lovely spot, nestled deep in a green valley and the work shops and gallery space are really great. The books are displayed beautifully, it is wonderful to be able to handle them (cotton gloves are provided) and to look through a whole book. It made a refreshing change to the usual peering through glass at just two pages inside a cabinet. The work included is diverse and fascinating. I chatted to many of the other exhibitors including Ray Richardson, who comes from the same part of S.E London as me. For 45 minutes, no one else could get a word in! I was embarassed that it didn’t dawn on me for a while exactly who Ray was but he was charming, funny and outrageous: my kind of person in fact. I was relieved to be able to say that I did know his work and actually admired his gutsy painting! Sally Taylor arrived and completed the Stonegrave studio contingent from deepest rural North Yorkshire. My friend from uni Susan Preston was there; it has been lovely to meet up again after such a long time and we spent the evening and next morning discussing art, ideas and practice non stop. It was a real treat. Meryl Ainslie, artist and director of the Rabley Drawing Centre is to be commended for doing such a good job of curating the show and for her work at Rabley, it is impressive.

www.rableydrawingcentre.com

Today, I am really pleased to say that the I Am Access Art page featuring me goes live officially. I had not realised that I am their first artist of this initiative and am really pleased and humbled to be part of this fantastic resource that is available to anyone involved in art and design, whether they be teaching it or looking to find new and exciting ways to improve their own work.

http://www.accessart.org.uk/i-am-accessart-sue-gough/

Thank you to Paula Briggs for making the process so easy; your editing skills and support are really appreciated.