photo: recent sketchbook pages - in my largest sketchbook
I hope you are well. This week of mild days and glimpses of sunshine has felt just a little spring-like. Experiencing spring in the middle of town is a new way of seeing things - suddenly there are bluebells flowering by the old brick walls close to the door to our flat. There is blossom on trees and soon enough I will find time to walk back to the old woods and see the bluebells there.
**
I admit I am quite nervous about sharing the following section with you - but have spent time and energy on writing this and want to have the courage to share.
As recently suggested - I am going to offer here a (re)introduction to myself as an artist. The question I get asked the most is: How did you get to where you are now? Despite being a very private, introverted person, I want to say more than the usual: I am a writer/artist because I am. So, I am going to attempt to answer this with some depth. It will be a three-parter.
Creativity and Survival
Reinvention
Never a Dull Moment
BUT - please note: these notes do talk of trauma and if you would rather not read just skip ahead.
Creativity and Bravado
Like many children, I loved to create alternate worlds: making stories and inventing plays, drawing, singing, reading, making things. I realise how important my creativity has been to me, as a way to survive and navigate through difficult as well as happier times.
As a young child my mother left my father and her two small girls. She went to the USA and did not stay in touch with us. The Mother Wound* has been a dark shadow following me from one chapter of my life to the next.
As a young person and into my teens I focused on writing and entered story writing competitions. It was not all about the process: I craved acknowledgement. I wanted to be a writer but was full of self-doubt. Despite overcoming periods of depression and getting to university, I still felt very much like an outsider in my own life.
Years on, in my mid-thirties, after a lifetime of ideas and yearning, never really feeling acknowledged despite some successes, I found myself in a state of peril. I had two small children and no home. A frail marriage finally disintegrated, like a dried up moth: gone. My children and I were literally locked out of our home and a new way forward had to be found.
I decided I had to find a way to make an income that allowed me to also take care of my children. Spending a year writing a novel that might never get published was too much of a risk but I had always enjoyed working with visual art ideas and decided, as foolhardy as it might seem to me now, to pursue an art/craft career of some kind. A few good friends, with practical minds, set about helping me out with materials and ideas on how I might sell my work. They gave me moral support and friendship when I was at my lowest.
photo: here’s a cheery chap I made in 2009 - pictured with pretty auriculas. Sadly, I don’t seem to have many older photos of my earliest dolls.
I began to make textile dolls and collages, then explored drawing and how I might combine my poetry writing with drawing. I made artist books and began to experiment with drawing with my sewing machine. It was all very this-and-that ish - not at all focused! I was learning at a fast pace, developing skills and finding my visual voice. I did not have art college training nor did I attend workshops. I have relied very much on looking, encountering work in galleries and books. I discovered sketchbooks as the ultimate space to grow and develop my ideas.
Early on in my ‘professional career’ I really had to adopt a good deal of bravado. My self-worth had taken a severe knock but I could not let that affect my work. I had to believe in myself, despite any doubts. There were plenty of ups and downs. I have made plenty of mistakes in life, and art. I try to learn from my mistakes and not regret too heavily. There have been missteps and divergences. I will write more about these in the next ‘chapter’.
Of all the ideas though - let’s become a professional artist to support my family! Oh but somehow it has worked. It has worked because I worked and grew, as a person, over many years of ups and downs. It has worked because supportive people have a habit of turning up in my life to take an interest. This is so very appreciated. I was featured in popular US magazines, for example. My evolution as a visual artist has been a public one, with some of you following my journey for many years now - thank you.
It is no surprise to me now that my visual art often features safe domestic spaces, mother figures, women at home, in thought, at work, spiritual women uplifted in their worlds, playful mothers and children. Healing worlds. Landscapes of hope and beauty. The worlds I create are real to me. I have chosen love and joy in my imaginative world, as well as many quiet moments of reflection, some tinged with grief.
**
If any of the issues mentioned above resonate with you, then know you are not alone.
*Mother Wound - is a term used by some holistic psychologists to identify how important our relationship with our mother is and how neglect can be passed along through generations - there is, of course, a lot more to this and I encourage you to explore the topic, if it is of interest.
**
March Poetry Challenge
I set myself a challenge to write poem notes each day in March. It started well but by the last week I was guilty of neglecting my bedside notebook. I will leave alone my notes and scruffy stanzas, let them sleep a while and then I will look again.
Fortunately, a few other people who decided to join in had better results. Dawn, in Australia, kindly emailed me to let me know how she had put together a small book for her writing. I am grateful to Dawn for allowing me to share this with you here. Thank you.
Photo: Dawn McIntyre’s handmade poetry notebook and below two more photos of the book
Seeing Dawn’s delightful book has inspired me to think about perhaps hosting a book/writing challenge later in the year. I hope this may interest a few people.
**
Shop News
I will be updating my shop today, Sunday 7th April at 7pm UK time. I have a selection of new tiny portraits. I enjoyed painting these very much and am looking forward to sharing more over the coming weeks.
photo: a new tiny portrait - available in my shop update later today
There will be no Wednesday update this week but I do expect to update again next Sunday (14th April).
POSTAGE COSTS - Alas, Royal Mail have increased their prices from the start of April. The increases are quite significant. I have always kept my postage costs very low - never charging for more than the actual cost and often less than. For several years I offered free postage to all UK customers, as a way of saying a special thanks to people who ‘shop local’. However, I have just not been able to do that any more. But I am still only charging £2.50 for first class signed for post (actual cost £3.80). Postage to the USA has gone up to £10.60 for tracked airmail - I am charging £10.50 - so that does not cover the cost or fees for card processing etc.. BUT I have worked out this is the price for now. Thank you for your understanding.
I have also held my prices on actual artwork. For example my tiny lucky dip paintings are still just £32 (plus postage). I am happy to offer this as I understand buying art is a pleasure and I want to offer ‘affordable’ opportunities for people to collect original artwork.
Here are a few recent spring lucky dips:
Photo: above and below - examples of spring lucky dips. These tiny landscapes can be ordered from my shop (a randomly picked painting is sent to you - please read full description in my shop).
**
A few small stories
A fox, a fox on the fire escape. It climbs the metal steps quick-quick with little dark legs, then turns its head as it sees the light coming from my kitchen window. We seem to look at each other. The fox stares, but does it see me? It climbs up to the roof and dashes away. Tell me, have you seen foxes clambering over roofs in the early morning? Is this something I have always missed before now? Imagine foxes using roofs as shortcuts all across town. Now I know, it’s just a matter of making a cup of tea at the right time of the morning. I might see them making their ways across tiles. Making little leaps between ledges and chimneys. Flying foxes.
I wait and am rewarded by the fox appearing again, feet pattering down the metal steps, down it goes then circles in the ground floor yard but then up it goes again. Up and down, as if in a quandary of lost direction. With me here, sipping my tea, he might be forever caught in a loop of going up and down the metal steps, so I leave the kitchen, hoping he will not mind me some other day.
photo: a fox sketch I made way back in 2011
**
At the collectors’ market. The bear sits on top of a vintage trunk, a stack of dusty books. Two older women are staring at it with expressions of doubt. Maybe it’s too old, one says. The other woman shakes her head. It has straw coming out of its foot, she says, but best not to mend it. To be honest Rita, I must admit I find it a little too - too beyond it. The women wrinkle their noses. The one-eyed bear averts his gaze. He is large and bald, with floppy ears and I would rescue him but I don’t think he would get on with my other bears. He is so much bigger and I get the feeling he is rather dignified - and bossy. Poor thing, I think, he has to tolerate the women talking their silly talk. I say aloud: you have so many stories to tell! The women look at me as if I am just the sort of sentimental person they think they can sell him to. Oh yes, one says, isn’t he absolutely adorable! As bad for the bear as I feel, I shake my head and walk away.
**
He is just a really, really …. A woman says to her phone, as we both select tinned tomatoes. Again in the bakery aisle: He is just a really, really, really, yes, he is just a really, really…. And again by biscuits. He is, he is, just a really, really… Of course I want to know what he really is but I am not going to follow like an eavesdropper!
By the coffee. He really is, she says, picking up a pack of those little capsule things I will never understand. He really is.
I am willing the person she is talking to to just let her get a word in beyond the emphasis of really. And eventually, by the tea, a break-through - He really, really is just a really nice person. Yes, yes he is.
I am glad to hear it.
***
Thank you for reading here, for subscribing, your comments and likes. I appreciate your interest very much. If you enjoy and would like to support my writing, please consider buying me a coffee. Thanks to everyone who does support me this way.
And you are also not alone with a Mother Wound. Thank you for sharing your story.
It's been such a great pleasure to follow your art career and watch it develop over many years. Everything you create shouts (quietly) Cathy made me. You have a special voice. Thanks for sharing your personal story.