Someone wrote to me recently: ‘I have been following your work for years and years! I love to see what you are making.’
These words are very welcome and encouraging. I am humbled by messages like this.
‘I am glad you are still doing what you are doing’. Is possibly the most encouraging phrase I can read. It has taken me many years to be able to trust in myself, to know my ebbs and flows and so on. To have confidence in my making and not rely too much on bravado. I am not the biggest name, the most successful or sensational, but I never set out to be those things. I am just doing what I am doing. I keep at it because I have an intense need to, both creatively and otherwise but more than anything creatively.
So thank you. If I am congratulating myself on longevity - of just doing what I do, and keeping on - then yes, I suppose, I can!
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I thought I would share here notes on past sketchbook pages. This may be the beginning of a series. Hope you find the following notes interesting.
The pages above are from September 2017. The pages are quite small, made in a A6 size eco Seawhite sketchbook (a basic book of plain paper with a brown cover, stapled). So not a handmade book but an inexpensive book that I turn to often to work in.
Over centuries painters have had a certain luxury, if you like, in that they can find prompts from the past. They can dip their oily hand into a hat and pick out a theme - from a dead fish on a plate to a reclining nude. There are perhaps occasions when the two collide (Picasso?) or the artist starts with one and then decides to shift gears toward the other. What is coming through here: my lover or a fish, my lover or a fish?
I remember as a child getting very stern with my brushes when a horse refused to be itself but became a house. Maybe I just needed that horse, at that moment, but it was part of my journey to discover a greater affinity with houses than horses.
This sketchbook page is an attempt at a reclining nude, of sorts. I don’t feel an easy affinity with nudes in painting. It’s not a prudishness, more that I am more interested in clothed figures. I like costumes, the repetitive details in fashion. I have attempted to draw and paint sensual figures, every so often I will try, but it seems my default setting is prim and proper, or more esoteric than sensual.
So what happened here? I don’t remember each brushstroke of course. But I think these pages were made quite quickly and as soon as I found her, I made sure to stop at the hint of her, rather than try to work further. This was enough for me. She is a dark-haired figure and might be a self portrait or more likely a memory from the past, seeing myself in a mirror (no glasses!). It seems the figure is both on a bed but in a landscape or her own making. I like the colours, the cool violet with the dark lines. But why that green? In a moment of just making, I will dab at the colours on hand and it might have been I was using up end-of-day paint.
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These pages are from 2019. They are in a sketchbook (the same kind of sketchbook as I used above) - the book is devoted to ideas in blues and greens. I was going through a colour theme phase! Here are pages more fully formed and thought through. I am still inspired by other artists but my subject matter is more personal. Here is my son, standing in my studio space. It’s not a bad likeness of my son and I am so glad I painted him then. I don’t often paint portraits of actual people alive to me today - but I did here. The studio space he stands within is familiar but not exactly how it is - I have moved furniture about. The bottles on the window sill are true. The book of Keith Vaughan paintings (on the desk) is also something I have lying around often. I like these pages and see them as worked as much as I might work a separate painting, with the same attention to detail. Like I said, I am glad I have it, as a colour study but more than anything a record of a moment.
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I recently listened to a podcast produced by the London Review of Books Bookshop - Alys Fowler discusses her book The Woman Who Buried Herself with Bee Wilson. This is a fascinating listen if you are at all interested in women’s writing, gardening, ideas of Eden, ecology, ecofeminism.
I now have the book on my want to read list and was thinking of suggesting a small group read-a-long starting in April (to give time for people to get a copy of the book, either from a bookseller or library). If you are interested in reading this book and discussing, perhaps in a weekly shared email or some other set up, then please let me know. The book is published by Hazel Press. I am not sure how easy it may be to obtain a copy if you are outside the UK but I hope it is possible. If you have a problem getting a copy but would like to read please let me know and I will see if I can help out.
I hope there may be a small group of us who could read and enjoy this book together. You are welcome to email me or leave a comment here. I will follow up with further info.
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February has been a month of postcard sized works and themed work - I have enjoyed this focus and will continue on with making the postcard size work into March and beyond. Thank you for your interest. March is to be a mix of things with mixed media! What is mixed media? I think perhaps I will write about that.
Thanks for reading. At this time all subscribers are getting every post for free - If you would like to buy me a coffee that would be so appreciated. Thank you for all shares, comments and support.
Your art inspires me. They are like an artist from the past, and tells stories with the pictures.
love your work, have been following a while now, you inspire me!