Threads

Large scale drawing is somewhat of an endurance task.

And I’m not Match Fit for it. 

I’m back in the studio as full time as I can be now. I’ve done some explorations and exploratory drawings on smaller paper – about A3. I tried out some different materials and made different marks, and got obsessed with greens. The favourite currently is the one you get mixing my two old favourites, Payne’s grey and yellow ochre. Especially because sometimes they don’t mix, and if left in a jar for a couple of days you get a lovely sediment that sits beautifully on the paper. Anyway, after visiting Ian Andrews in his studio in Aston… he’s another drawer of large abstracts… I came away full of inspiration and a recommendation for a different sort of paper. Which of course I ordered as soon as I got home. It’s called giant size, because it’s 4’x5’ approx, and 400gsm, so is very heavy and robust and is taking whatever I throw at it, including leaving a large puddle sat on it over a couple of days. 

I have been trying to decide whether to use ink or graphite on this delicious ground. I am full of indecision about work lately, but in the end, came down to ink because that’s what I wanted to feel, sliding my old nibs over this glorious paper. I may well decide to use graphite too, but it does make me twitchy as I am a bit of a purist. I am not mixed media. I hummed and hawed over whether I should allow myself to use masking fluid, but then eventually did, because it becomes an absence, not a presence of something different.

I am not Match Fit… I said… the concentration required for a drawing this size is lacking, as is the physical strength to be at it for too long at a time. I’m coming away from it every 20 minutes or so. Which is good for my eyes and joints I’m sure, but I feel I need to immerse myself in it for longer periods to get the best from it. Also, I am full of doubts. From all sorts of directions. 

But I shall persevere… after lunch…

Nothing in one’s art practice is ever really separate is it?

As a sort of detour/tangent I find myself working with Bill and Helen again. Last time the project was called Radio Public, this time Radio Public Library, and with a heritage focus on the library of Brierley Hill in all its guises across a hundred years or so of history. We look at the nearly derelict Carnegie Library and Institute, ripe for redevelopment. We also look at the “modern” 1970s building on the high street currently undergoing refurbishment as part of the programme of investment in the town. While this library is closed, the staff and a few of the most popular shelves and resources have decamped to St Michael’s church on the top of the hill. A strange building to house a library, out of the way of the usual footfall, and burdened with an extra layer of respectful hush. And we work in a room with glass walls, witnessing, but so far not participating until we know the way forward.

In the last project I did find that bits of my practice leaked in, materially, and theoretically, and methodologically… and then it was unexpected. I had thought it would sit separately. This recent iteration, finds me thinking (maybe more appropriately this time?) About words and books and stories. About half way through the session I find myself, slightly tearfully, telling my father’s story/stories. We spoke about the maps of our families’ journeys. I told of how my knowledge of my family tree was  short and stubby, and that I couldn’t go back any further than my own grandparents on either side. Both of my parents were immigrants, my mother from Ireland and my father from Serbia. They had very different lives, but were brought together by circumstance, geography and love in post-war Worcestershire. In the group we talked about a sense of home and belonging. In recent times, after decades of feeling of myself as British, deeply English even… I find that the political attitude towards immigrants recently has made me feel vulnerable, and that my roots don’t go nearly deep enough to combat that feeling, even though I am “safe” here. I am white, I have a hybrid midlands accent, I only speak English, and I have a common culture with many of my peers. If I feel unsettled, how awful must those with darker skin, stranger accents, and a more recent traumatic journey feel? I am a generation removed from that, but still feel it. I wonder do my children feel any of that?

The library, as well as being a repository of stories, fulfils a social function that is difficult to quantify. There are shelves here containing books written in Romanian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian… feel at home… feel a little bit more that you belong…

As I wandered around the church yard, looking again at fallen twigs and trees that are hundreds of years old, and family graves of several generations, I think again of the roots and the rootless. This initially “separate” tangent of collaborative work has once again attached itself to me and my wider practice. 

Suddenly I can start to see the drawing on the scarily large paper… something rooted, or something rootless? A disembodied twig, crunched underfoot? Or one that is still pliable, attached to its tree, in bud, leaf, flower…?

I’ve been thinking this week about my “being” an artist. By which I mean how I do it, how I exist as an artist.

The crucial thing here is the fact that I don’t do it like anyone else does. And that’s not just OK, it’s absolutely the right thing. The problem happens when some people think that artists are all the same, and have to have a perfect linear trajectory that ends up somewhere “important” in order to be valid. The bigger problem happens when artists think this. I am lucky that I have only met one or two of these… they exist but are thankfully rare.

I have come to it slowly, this “being”. I started, faltered, had a big sidestep, returned after decades, then had a big rush. There is no way that I can catch up on those years in terms of my art education, or experience, in the time I have left. But I do have time left to just get on with it from this point. Consequently I have gaps in my knowledge, knowledge that some people think I should have. Sorry… not sorry… but I don’t. If I come across something that interests me, then I will seek it out and try to learn more. But quite often I don’t, because, after writing a note in my sketchbook, I get distracted from the reading and researching and I just want to make. I spent a long time out of the studio doing wonderful things like living my life, having glorious children who are now glorious adults. I only want to get on with what I want to now, and I don’t want to feel I have to do anything, certainly not because of someone else’s expectations! I have a life full of experiences that are only mine, and my art is worked out of that life, it is valid, authentic and true and all mine. Consequently I enjoy meeting other live, working artists that I can converse with. I am less interested in the dead ones.

I have recently had the absolute pleasure and privilege of selecting a group of graduate artists for the exhibition at RBSA. Fifteen artists, all with completely different histories and stories and lives and experiences. Together they are rich and wonderful. Together they are strong because of this diversity.

Along the way one does get rejections, uncomfortable, or even hurtful criticisms, even cruel comments at times, from people who are just unaware, or sadly, aware of the upset their words can cause. The trick is, I have realised at my mature 62 years is to develop a thick skin, to gather around me people who are generous spirits and energy creators, not consumers (Thank you Charles Weston)… and just get on with it. By surrounding myself with the good stuff, I can shake off the less good more easily. I can also see things and people more clearly for what they are, and ignore them, not take it personally… even if the person doing it is doing so deliberately, I can see it as more about them than me.

While I spend the rest of this year recharging myself, I intend to put myself out and actually visit these wonderful people I know…starting with the UK, but I am also saving up to go further.  The trip to America has emboldened me. I shall talk to the live artists while we are all alive… so be warned folks… I’m coming!

I do feel quite sad.

I was really pleased with the work, pleased that the RBSA had approved my proposal and supported me so well in the run up and installation, and enthused about it on social media.

I met some lovely people, some of whom I hope to continue the conversation with.

I’ve had the most amazing six months, but of course that doesn’t mean that there will be instant or even any follow up. So while I am optimistic, I am also a realist. This might be the best six months I ever get, so I have to soak it up, and be thankful that it all happened, just in case it never does again.

So I think I will leave it there for now… with thanks for all those who have helped me to get to America and back, and to Birmingham and back. You’ve made my life amazing lately!

Here are some wonderful photos of Five, Six, Pick Up Sticks by Kathryn Sawbridge, fellow ARBSA colleague and friend…

Last day…

Today is the last day of Five Six Pick Up Sticks. Tomorrow I set out the tissue paper and bubble wrap and put it away somewhere. God knows where… why do I work on such a grand scale? I should investigate working in miniature perhaps…

Anyway… that’s my problem. I’ll find somewhere. 

The process of conceiving, making, curating, hanging and then reviewing and assessing this work hasn’t really taken very long in the grand scheme of things. I started in January 2022 when the ACE funded Drawing Songs project came to a close (blog post The Slow Start).

 I sent the proposal in to the RBSA about a year later, and it was accepted with enthusiasm. I finished the main bulk of the work before I went to America, and then came back to the logistics and the curating and organising. Tomorrow I reassemble my team in order to disassemble the installation. I wish now I had booked the space for another week or two, but hey ho. Actually I am ready to take it down. I’m ready for the rest. Since I started applying for the funding for Drawing Songs in 2018/19 I’ve not stopped. 

Now I need to stop. The last few months have been physically tough. The combination of arthritis, menopause, moving house and pandemic have taken their toll. This project was an unexpected bonus, but the beginnings of it lay in a need for rest, that I never actually got!

I intend to go back to the drawing. Sink myself into it… Bathe in ink and graphite… Wallow in watercolour…

And I might spend some time in my garden, catching up with some veg planting…