It’s been a long while since my last post here, I didn’t intend to leave it quite as long as I have to post an update, but as many here are aware life does have a habit of getting in the way of things sometimes!
After the residency at AirSpace Gallery I decided to take some “down time”, a month long break from creating work, and instead started to think about where I want my work to go next. The residency opened up so many different possibilities that I realised I needed to take the time to consider what exactly I want from my work now. I tried to jump straight back into creating work after the residency, but I noticed quite quickly that I felt as if I was creating for the sake of creating, with no clear direction or purpose.
Since then I have also acquired a new studio space! I am happy to say that it is still within AirSpace Gallery, as I’ve gotten to know all of the studio artists and directors so I felt it would be a great place to have my first studio space outside of the residency/university setting, a space that I can really call my own. Now that I am fully moved into the space, I have started to slowly get back into the process of making work. I started creating collages from existing materials, from photocopies of plates from Ernst Haeckel’s book “Art Forms of Nature”, and other books in my library such as “Biophilia”, and Karl Blossfeldt’s photographs of natural forms. I began simply cutting and pasting thee existing image sources together to create more hybrid creatures, as it may lead to more ideas and forms I wouldn’t have thought of myself if I started drawing from my own mind; since I started drawing the hybrids I have a lot of different forms ‘stored’ in my mind, but it is always essential that I keep expanding my ideas.
Since I moved into a new studio, I also decided to celebrate by buying a new studio mug! It’s rather fitting since I decided to stay within Stoke-on-Trent to continue my practice, as the mug was also created right here in Stoke by Emma Bailey Ceramics, sporting The Art Dept. Stoke logo!
