photo: recent sketchbook pages. I have not had so much time for sketchbooks this summer. I feel a certain dissatisfaction with myself for not being able to make more time for them just yet. It will come, I am sure and I will find myself lost in them again, happily so.
Hello everyone and I hope you are well. Here we are at the end of August and I am not sure I even saw much at all of summer. That was just how it was this year.
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I’m sometimes asked: how do you feel about sharing your work online?
A good but difficult question to answer. There’s a lot to unpick. Maybe this is a way of answering…. And there is much more to say. But here’s a beginning.
Before I ramble on, I should admit it: if there was a personality test to see if you should be an artist who shares their work online I would not pass that test. I am someone who takes criticism badly, in all aspects of life. Which is tough luck if you are a creative person, but not uncommon.
To answer the above question entirely would take too long so here’s just an example of how I grapple with things. I came across a remark in response to my work - just an observation, a few words written by someone as a comment not on my post but - oh it doesn’t matter where. It was just a comment about a drawing I had made. The person who wrote the comment had probably no previous knowledge or experience of seeing my work, after all, why should they? In this world of thousands upon thousands of images, why should anyone see my work? But somehow they do and that is remarkable to me!
This online comment about a drawing is not exactly bad, nor flattering. It’s just a glib observation tapped into someone’s phone. Nevertheless, I feel an urge to respond - to explain why the people in the drawing look the way they do. I stop myself, of course. Oh dear. It would be completely hopeless, pointless to start explaining my work to anyone, I tell myself, unless they ask. And even then, a written explanation for a creative image should only be provided with an abundance of caution! I smile at myself now. I see the absurdity of it all. I should let this one go. Just as I have let so much else blow over my head - or whatever the phrase should be: scroll on….
I have indeed read far worse, over time. I’ve received a few nasty comments and more. A few derogatory emails now and then. Actually, I’ve been very fortunate in not having experienced worse. In my humble mind, I’ve not suffered too much nastiness and am hoping my writing this answer is not going to jinx things….
But the truth is I am very, very protective of my work. I’m vulnerable and yet a tiny bit of a show-off because you need to be, if you want to be seen - or you want your work to be seen. I can’t help but feel my work is a part of myself. At the same time, the process of making provides a life of its own. Suddenly, in a moment of coming together, it becomes its own thing. A creature with its own personality. Not a child but a thing, a thing with energy and the ability to be transformed by whoever helps it (puts it in a frame).
As much as I might want each piece of my work to be understood and appreciated, I know that is not possible. We all come to look at things with different ideas in mind. We have our own experience of what ‘art’ should be, look like and do for us. I’m not silly enough to presume everyone who sees my work has any understanding of what I have seen and love.
Just hoping, that’s me, just forever hopeful that someone will ‘get’ it - and always so glad and humbled when they do!
Photo: A drawing I am currently working on - in progress. I expect this will take some time to complete as it is a larger one.
I am not a person comfortable in the twenty-first century in the same way as I think I was comfortable in the twentieth. But I can sit here in an eighteenth century attic typing this on a Chromebook. And I am grateful to be able to share my work online.
I am aware of short lives and how I might not be able to keep doing this art thing forever.
So what if not everyone ‘gets it’. That’s rather impossible. It would be too much for everyone to like what I do. Sort of also a little weird….. Like a bad dream, quite honestly. Whilst it is not my job to persuade or educate, I also know it is possible to make someone look twice at something I’ve made. Even if they don’t like it that much. They take a moment to look. They might not like it, entirely or even a tiny bit, but they can see something about it: skill, effort… Hurrah! I win, I win, sort of….
I learn and am grateful to learn. I appreciate not everyone will like what I do.
Thank you for reading. I am not sure I answered the question very well, but I hope I gave some insight!
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We are at no. 97 in this series of studio notes. Oh yes I have plans for a giveaway to mark the 100th. Just keep on reading for a few more weeks and I’ll try to keep on writing….. And if winning a giveaway interests you then please subscribe. I am happy to see new subscribers coming each week. Thank you.
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Shop updates:
Over the last month I have experimented a bit with days and times. I’ve come to understand I like Wednesday evenings and you like Wednesday evenings. So let’s keep to that. With Sunday updates also, from time to time, just so I can offer a broader mix of work and not feel too overwhelmed by the Wednesdays!
Next updates:
Sunday 27th August 7pm UK time - a small group of new tiny portraits + a few new drawings
Wednesday 30th August 8pm UK time - a start to autumn with a selection of tiny paintings + new stitch works
Sunday 3rd Sept 7pm UK time - new drawings
photo: one of the tiny portraits I will be adding to my shop today
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A few small stories
He stands by the corner cafe, rolling a cigarette paper. A pot-bellied man, in military fatigues, sunglasses and a chunky gold-coloured watch. Yes, he reminds me of a South American dictator. Or someone trying to be one. He is not your typical Surrey town gentleman. But who is? I’m learning fast: there’s no such thing as one type here just lots of us all mingling and eyeing each other with interest, possible caution. In the hardware shop, a very different pot-bellied man in tight shorts and a floral shirt talks to his male companion in a grave, gravelly voice: we best not behave like little kings! I wish to know the context to this statement, but the luck of an eavesdropper only goes so far. I can put together different ideas and people in my mind. I can see this man, holding a saucepan like a weapon, as someone who belongs in an eighteenth century painting, complete with silk cravat and a wig. More and more these days I am collecting people and transporting them to elsewhere, whether they like it or not.
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Sitting at a small table, the light at present just enough, my pencil moving as I think of everything and nothing. There’s a roar, a cheer, a wave of sound that comes and goes. It’s like hearing a football match with the spectators making a huge noise and then the whole stadium goes quiet… I realise what I am tuning into is cars, vehicles - the traffic, the close traffic a street away. I’ve not heard it so distinctly before. It’s just this spot I’m sitting in and how it connects. It’s all about getting used to the sound of a place and how it effects the rhythm of my work. The way the table cannot be entirely steady because no floor is even, and the whole place is constantly shaking a little being old and timber-framed, that’s something else. I’m learning to reshape how I perceive the basics. I’m mindful of how my pencils roll on the table.
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Outside a coffee shop, one of so many, but this one gets the best sun. My son and I are sitting having our once-a-week treat of a coffee out. He is not a coffee drinker so is now conducting a survey of the best earl grey tea in town. This week’s is 8/10. Not bad at all… The older woman sat at the table next to us is giving her phone companion a comprehensive story of her illnesses over the past several years. How the doctors have described her as too delicate for her own good. But she’s not been nearly as bad as all that, she says, not as bad as Roger. Poor Roger, I think. Poor Roger, she says. She speaks in a refined, European accent. A glance at her appearance and I am convinced she is a character from an Anita Brookner novel. I could spend all day with her, hopeful of the slight shift in plot that eventually comes. A delicious shift in the light, a nod toward Autumn….
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Thanks always for reading here for all your kind comments and likes. If you enjoy reading and would like to support me then you are welcome to buy me a coffee. Thanks particularly to everyone who supports me regularly - this is much appreciated.
Appreciating your insights and grace around the tricky balance of needing and wanting a community to connect with as a maker and protecting one's spirit in the process. And, as always, delighted by your small stories.
Just going to send you an email in response.