Studio Notes no. 176

book page paintings, future thoughts & small stories

Hello Everyone

I hope you have had a good week. Sunshine and welcome showers here.

This Sunday I have four new book page paintings going into my shop (despite having a unique combination of papers,they all measure the same: 25cm x 21cm) - here is one:

photo: a collection of bottles and wild stems - I appreciate the wild plants that grow around town, in the church yard, by the river… My son saw this painting and said: yes, you were inspired by the plants growing by the river. That made me happy because I know that he sees things too.

Thank you to everyone for your kind comments here and for emails in response to last week’s notes. Whenever I share personal thoughts, I always feel quite human about it: vulnerable. Yes, I am a real life person who makes mistakes, often struggles and changes her mind! So I am grateful to you for taking the time to say how you enjoyed reading my notes on twenty years of making - there was so much more I might have said. But there will be other notes, and I hope other opportunities for me to be open about how life is just how it is.

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Shop News

Thank you to everyone who purchased a tiny painting from my shop this past Wednesday. My plan for this summer is to add a small collection most Wednesdays, so please do take a look then.

Today I am updating my shop with four new book paintings - you can see them all now and they will be available at 7pm this evening (UK time)

Future updates:

Wednesday 28th May - new tiny paintings preview from 3pm - available at 7pm

Sunday 1st June - new works on paper

There is a link to my shop at the end of these notes

photo: Pelargonium and blue cup - I like the conversation going on here. I let the blue be the lead singer. Of course I needed a feather. These paintings are made on a collage of papers from old books - I use vintage penguin paperbacks, making use of the covers and pages.

photo: jug with wild stems on an indigo cloth - I love indigo in the summer. I am still hoping the indigo seeds a kind friend gave me will germinate, but so far they are reluctant. I love samplers too - especially painting them, which is a bit quicker than stitching them, though I love to stitch too.

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Future Thoughts

Last week was about looking back over the years. This week I am looking ahead, with just a few notes on what I might want to do over the rest of this year. I am not promising myself to do all of these things - though things like rest are a priority right now. It is with gratitude that I am able to think of these things as possibilities. They might or might not happen - but putting them into words might help shape them into actual events.

I would love to write more over the months ahead. Perhaps a zine is overdue. A zine of small stories that I might not otherwise share here. I have made a variety of zines over the years and each time I tell myself: this will be the last one for a bit. But maybe I know there will always be that itch to simply print and sew pages together.

Dolls. I look into my cupboard and see half-completed doll shapes, bits of fabric, and collected ideas that are not yet dolls. I would like to make more but I am not sure if they want to be very different or just as silly as ever. So for now they are still ideas that come and go. I must confess, looking at Pinterest, I get nostalgic for so many things I made in the past (some more than others). We shall see. For now, they are still little whispers.

Painting - yes the tiny paintings feel just right for me, with my mind flitting from one idea to the next. But also I like the challenge of larger work and am enjoying making the book page paintings. Keeping steady, not overwhelmed by numbers or ideas.

Exhibition work - I have a future online exhibition happening in the autumn. I will be painting for this too. Larger paintings, different paintings. I have ideas and will trust myself to go with the flow.

Trust - yes to trust myself is always part of the creative process. No matter what I find myself making, I will trust that I know what I am doing even if in that moment my mind is letting go and I cannot explain everything that is happening. Some days I do not need to explain anything much to myself - I feel immensely glad to be putting together things I might call things, and that is enough. Other days I struggle because I want everything to take shape quickly, reassuringly. But those days tell me something else: you need to take a break.

Rest - I need to pace myself and rediscover the gentle art of the summer nap, along with the summer reading, summer walks and visiting new places. I know that if I do not rest I become more easily depressed, and I don’t wish that upon myself.

Personal projects - I will spend more time on personal projects and have recently picked up on several creative projects I abandoned earlier this year because it just felt too much. These are things with no deadline, very process-focused. I love to spin wool using my spindles - this is my daily meditation - just sitting has never been my thing.

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Sketchbooks

Last week I mentioned my need - it really does feel like a need - to just play experimentally in my sketchbooks. So the pages I share here should be looked upon with this in mind.

photos: recent sketchbook pages

Small stories

Here are a group of small stories I have been working on over the past few weeks. I am grateful to you for reading these as small fictions inspired by my day-to-day creative life.

Fetch

Down by the river, there’s an older woman and her brown dog and the dog is having the best time. The dog leaps into the river, hides in the reeds and waits for the woman to throw a stick into the water. The stick is retrieved so quickly, the dog offers the stick to the woman so carefully, never getting her wet; the whole system the woman and the dog have together is immaculate and joyful. Yes, it really is a joy to watch the dog and he knows not to go near the ducks, or is reminded with just one wagged finger. The dog leaps, hides, fetches with such energy and a smiling tongue hangs from its mouth.

The woman walks up and down the riverbank but is not smiling. She sees this as an exercise, not a chore exactly, but something she must do, just as a person might dust a shelf knowing it will be dusty again tomorrow. Her mind could be completely focused on the dog, river, stick - or she could be elsewhere being a different version of herself: glamorous, transcendent, giddy.

I know almost nothing about dogs and nearly nothing about rivers but I do believe the dog will need a bath later; perhaps that will be the greater chore. If she does not bathe the dog, the smell of dog and river, dried together, might linger in the woman’s house. As I am watching the woman now, her stoical look, sturdy denim skirt, the flick of her wrist as she throws yet another stick - I do believe she might use a garden hose on that dog, and the dog will acquiesce, for it is a happy sort. I can believe the dog and the woman love each other very much, and for this and the sheer energy of their morning, I am thankful.

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Opening Times

Waiting for the department store to open, there are a few of us gathered, all accurately aware it is now one minute, two minutes past the time the doors should slide apart. A woman greets a man and hands him a small wrapped gift and card. Before I forget, put this in your bag, the woman says, smiling. Thank you, the man says. It’s just the usual, the woman says. Thank you, the man says again. There’s an awkwardness between them now as we all stand in silence. Brother and sister, I think to myself. Are they going into the store to have a coffee together? We wait, piecing together a story for them.

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Red

Three women sat outside a coffee shop. Years ago, one woman says, years ago I wore red but now I wear a deep red. The other women look politely perplexed. What are we talking about? One of them asks. The first woman tips her head back and laughs. Dancing shoes, she says, what do you think I was talking about? Is this a side to herself she has just revealed for the first time? Her friends’ baffled expressions are not giving much away.

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Blue Bird

The jackdaw sits on a window ledge and looks, admiring its own reflection. Now it gets closer and realises there are other things here: jug, bowl - tiny bird? What is that tiny bird? It is perched on a box, looking out from within, a small blue fabric bird, stitched by the woman who lives in the attic, the jackdaw tells himself. He looks up and there she is! That strange woman who lives in the attic and never flies away.

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photo: roses in a cottage jug with a cup of herbs - Seems to be a good year for early roses. I am seeing them in cottage gardens around town. The warm weather has coaxed the blooms out a little early, perhaps. I enjoy the challenge of painting roses - no two the same.

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