see more at nottingham contemporary

The title/theme for our end of course art share is SEE MORE. I have really broken through a lot of personal barriers on this course, perhaps not in the way I expected, but in ways that matter deeply for how I will approach presenting my art to others, particularly art world gatekeepers. I realised that I get wound up by jumping through the hoops of gallery and exhibition proposals because I bend myself out of shape to fit into art speak, to prove I may be an outsider, but I can speak your language…No more!! Because I have such a bad taste in my mouth while I’m doing it that all the joy is lost. Bit hard to be a singing bird while I’m sucking lemons…

So I have rewritten my artist statement to be more directly from my true/heartfelt process, I have kept some terms like inflection of surface, because to be honest, there is no other way to describe what I do, the mixture of texture, colour and dimension that make a single plane multi-faceted or many surfaces one colour field is something painters care about, and not many others, like Flemish bond is a bricklayers’ term because they really care about sticking bricks together…but I have shared more of how I want to catalyse others to reclaim their creativity, which always felt taboo, as direct appeal to the viewer veers dangerously close to beauty/hobby painting/ elvis on velvet 😉 I’ve always felt art theory is a bit like psychology, there’s a defensiveness, trying to prove it’s a respectable discipline by being unnecessarily wordy and impenetrable… when really they both involve the the ineffable, the use of what looks like magic to bring people to a better appreciation of how to live…at their best, anyway.

So my art will be seeing more of me, sharing more of what matters to me, being more playful and taking risks with being pleasing on a more superficial level…less abstract, but informed by my love of interesting surfaces, allowing more decoration even (eek, eeeek, such a taboo in fine art) and fusing art/craft elements more…and so this end piece is more elaborate than Chris asks of us. The minimum requirement is to spend 3 hours on our end piece and obviously people with family and work commitments will be very relieved at that, but me, I have more time and…more stash!! So I have dug out lots of leftovers from City & Guilds and elsewhere, brusho and quote albums and new techniques like the stippling…and am making a book. I am using a lot of found objects, they just happen to be my own leftovers 😉 and I have let myself work in a very decorative way, I’m enjoying it and I will be pleased with it, it will be worth the spoons…

So, eye candy time:

regaining momentum

mahatma gandhi: almost everything you do will seem insignificant but it is important that you do it

So compared to getting the British Raj out of India, I am on a downhill run, glissading with ease through fresh snow in bright sunshine, under azure blue skies 😉

I have been processing stuff in my head and not my hands though…so now to regain some momentum, by finding a project I have already thought through, but need some inspiration for, to dream about. And then a mechanical task to work through in small stages with small wins; avoiding people whose situation is too difficult for me – I had a random phone call from a woman who liked some of my work in an exhibition 2 years ago, who is now on a manic high and wants to “help” me by telling Iain Duncan Smith  how valuable artists like me are to the community (eek!); a non random call from someone  in a horrible situation, exacerbated by a history of mood swings who also happens to be very manipulative in ways she won’t recognise…it was very hard to not “rise to the occasion” again, but the occasion has been lasting over 20 years now, and the challenge fibromyalgia is setting me is to be self-ish and choose what works for me… and then not letting myself dwell on the ESA form and benefit changes, just working steadily through the necessary on it, heading for therapy to sort out the art world/family rejection links and

letting all that go!

by

making small things:

counting pages

It was a lively session at Nottingham Contemporary yesterday, and deserves a full post, so for now you have a progress report on pages building up for the mixed paper journals I’m making as pledge rewards. The idea came out of making the handmade books and the enormous fun I had. Why not share that fun, be a possibilitarian for others wanting to art journal, perhaps on a holiday or for the first time? I am making headway in reducing my massive stash of materials, and while too much stash is a really limiting problem, too little can be too.

So these A5 books are going to have a variety of pages/surfaces to work on/with, that are easy for me to pull from my overstocked shelves but would require a stupid amount of money to make from scratch. I’m not going to put too much of my art in, but I have prepared pages specially too, because having been taught so many lovely techniques on City and Guilds Machine Embroidery and been a craft tutor and craft therapist, I know a lot (really a lot!!) of ways to make paper interesting 😉 One thing I’ve suffered myself, and have seen countless times with others, is how hard it can be to start on a ‘perfect’ white surface…perfectly terrifying! So lots of the texturising and splash techniques are great for ‘breaking’ the surface when you don’t want to collage or draw directly into a journal. They give you a visual prompt, a non-threatening place to start patterning/doodling/playing, and before you know it, a theme is emerging and you are freewheeling with lots of lovely momentum…oh, yessy! Happiness happening!

So far, each journal is planned to have (yes, remember it may yet change 😉 ) some very plain pages, that everyone gets:

then there are themes, upcycled calendars mainly, from which each of the dozen journals gets a single spread:

Hopefully, these found images can stand alone, be worked on or over and if they really don’t work for someone, they can be gessoed or collaged over, as long as a buffer sheet is inserted to not warp the sheet behind (unless that’s what you like!!)

So then there are spreads that I have prepared, with simple techniques and child friendly paints (I’m getting very aware of how many people are now allergic to acrylic paints) but which add colour and or texture and sheen (mmm metallics, mmm glitter paint 😉 ) and again one per journal adds interest without dictating a colour scheme or theme.

So, I have a very satisfying basket of stacked pages and a list of what to do next, I haven’t even got the branding iron/ pyrographer out yet or the pretty punches, and then there are the food dyes to try marbling with, and the other pressprint roller stamps… 😉 It’s snowing again so I have a very cosy warm flat to dry papers in quickly and few distractions… which is just as well as I seem to have lost the ability to count to 12 or to cut an A4 off a roll…the first task is more bubblewrap printing, as what I thought was enough, wasn’t and I can’t even figure out where the fibro fog came in ??? But this way I get to try different colours, I chose red, black and gold on brown packing paper because I have lots of red cellophane and red and gold sweet wrapping film to upcycle, but the effect isn’t my favourite…reminds self : these are NOT for me…;)

marching papers

I have been amassing papers, so far: brusho in purple and green, also blue and brown

Then bubblewrap pressprint in red, gold and black glitter paint with red stamps on top, I wasn’t at all happy with how blah the hearts turned out, so I kept at it and was pleased when adding spirals made for a much better effect

Then I played with wax resist, using latch hook rugging canvas and lego base board

again in blue  wax and brown paint and then purple  wax with maroon paint with glittery gold leftovers mixed in…

the wax is quite subtle, but will affect what gets through to the reverse…

I also played with folding effects, pouring paint onto a sheet, pressing a second sheet on top, then cross folding each to get patterns…mmm 😉

Not everyone was happy with three days of paper play…

mixed media process tutorial part 1

I thought I’d write a walk through of how I make mixed media pieces, so anyone who wants to be can be looking over my shoulder while I think out loud (the rest, of course go and do something that suits you better 😉 ) as at exhibitions and in groups I’m often asked about how to relax into the process. There are lots of approaches, mine is much more intuitive/less designed than discussed in most of the books, and relies quite a lot on having previously prepared elements and collected treasure to draw on (aka upcycling my mistakes and other people’s trash 😉 ), so is a lot more maximalist/SABLE (stash acquired beyond life expectancy) than my yarn tagging and garden pieces. It may help you relax about all those lovely materials sitting on shelves in your studio, which in turn will bring them off the shelves and onto the table to be played with 😉

This is paste paper, paper I’ve spread with a mixture of flour and water paste dyed with acrylic paint and brusho, then combed it and drawn lines with the end of a paint brush. One day I had the itch to make, and an idea to try out..which failed…it happens… so coming across this, I took it to the sewing machine and stitched on it (if you haven’t tried this, start with the needle down in the paper and just go very slowly at first with a smallish piece of paper, A5 at most, using an old needle (remember how paper ruins your scissors? same for needles) and use strong thread.) Then I felt like playing with fire! Out with the woodburning tool, following the lines of the paste…change marks, more play…pause for fibro break…

and picked up again another day when the painkillers finally kicked in…giving me a creativity window. So what next? Mmmm, some leaves  I collected walking along the road one day…gathering as many looks from passers-by as leaves!

Once I’d stitched the disintegrating leaf down, I had a name for the piece, killing the thing that flew, and after that I added the feathers…I think when a piece names itself like that it’s really helpful to keep repeating it as more layers build up, so that the original energy remains..

So by now I knew this was an art piece, rather than craft, because the process was now emotional/philosophical as well as technical/formal (yes, I know art can be purely formal, but I’m not making  that kind) and I was starting to see how I might be extending the work beyond the paper, so a stronger support would be needed. Lots of options available, but for now I reached for a favourite of mine, hessian, which just like on blue peter children’s tv, I had prepared earlier, back in Hucknall I think, so MUCH earlier 😉

The hessian was stained with watered down acrylic and dabbed with gold acrylic paint, the children’s kind (less toxic) and the sparkly bits are brusho metallics. I was making a set of fabrics for xmas crafts, so lots of red, gold and green or solstice blue, purple and gold dust were wafting down from papers and fabrics. The multicoloured lace is upcyled from a failed piece made from industrial remnants of lingerie lace fabric (stretch lace for bodies etc). Again, start with the needle down, take it slowly and all will be well:

Remember the machine cords I love making? I have some in these colours… also sequins, beads,    the loose threads I’ve pulled out from the hessian edges, cassia bark, more papers in similar colours   that I can stamp words on, using the alphabet letters and inkpads Cherise gave me for my birthday.

What words…mmmm…

killing the thing that flew

 the wordleaf that was dancing for joy in tumbling winds

 caught in the wrong current;

 swallowed by mud thick apologies,

 too heavy to fly again, sank, heartheavy…

-when I was stitching the big leaf down, what rose to mind was a muddle I’ve made, that I hope will be sorted out, but has that stickiness to it, that takes down butterflies in spider webs…

I haven’t the patience/spoons to concentrate intently against brain fog to stamp all that letter by letter, and this isn’t an illustrated poem, so thank goodness I don’t need to!

Sooo, perhaps :

killing the thing that flew

and

dancing for joy        tumbling winds

I will add indelible ink/cd writer pen to the lettering to make it more readable, but I really like type/letraset fonts, as my handwriting is italic script at best and spidercrawl at worst 😉  And adding pigment ink means the script will last longer if the eventual recipient hangs it in full sunlight.

I know things will change as placing the stamped letters will set off sparks of connection between what’s already on there and spaces will demand new elements…I’m starting to think about what will be supporting this too, a ready stretched canvas is the easiest and a background of torn images of vegetation appeals..by then it will be almost impossible for me to get a needle through that many layers, so things like sequins and beads need to be worked in soon.

So the next steps will be getting out more possible elements and playing around with placement. A great tip Chris Standen, our tutor on City and Guilds Machine Embroidery gave us was to record layouts with a digital camera so we could compare things side by side, and if you keep a sketchbook,  print them out to refer back to, at a later date you may want to take the other path!

A busy few days ahead,  therapist, home help, chiropractor, lunch with my mother-in-law, coffee with friends, so part 2 will probably follow in a week, but no promises!
😉

piling up the papers

Leonard Cohen: if I knew where the songs came from, I’d go there more often

one of the positives about making components, not 5st*r pieces of work, is that i can shuffle along on a less than optimal day and still do something. i do miss the ‘rapture’ of being totally engaged in oil painting, and would happily be immersed everyday, but lots of small pleasures are not to be sniffed at.  ironing paper dry is something that always makes me smile as i never iron clothes. it also makes me very tired! but the smoothness of the paper and the slight sealing effect on the brusho metallics are worth it. btw brusho is a pigment powder, just loooovely to play with…

i have 3 kinds of paper with brusho on, and now —- with wax crayon and acrylic.

any thin water based paint will do by the way, just doodle, scrawl or purposefully pattern if you must with a wax crayon, then paint as desired, the water can’t stick and soon you will discover new colour combinations that set you off in new directions. i use this as a layering technique when i’m building up a variety of papers before starting a new collage project, but sometimes a piece made at random can stand alone…

this piece reminds me of winter dusk on the salt marshes, the kind you see those huge starlings swirls on…

playtime!

brusho is quite intoxicating to work with, the simplicity of dropping pigment onto wet papers and watching it craze/marble/ fox/spatter…mmmm….

i have been trying a new-to-me technique of collaging images and then scumbling over with gold or glitter paint, playing with felt tips to enhance the resolution of the page. i still have to take a deep breath before i “deface” a beautiful photograph, particularly as my photos are rarely as good as the ones i’m working over, wry smile… but this is part of making found object assemblage, upcycling a garment into a bag or pages doesn’t bother me, but book bothering! oh my!

luckily, i’m getting pleasing results, so i’m gaining confidence and feel on a roll. i’ve  assembled pages much more quickly this way, and had fun while stretching myself. lots more where these came from, then. it was lovely to spend most of the weekend working on layers of collage, paper or fabric, and though i ache horribly today, seeing my sections awaiting their final embellishment before becoming an album helps.

this album is for dr todd niehaus, the lovely chiropractor – he popped my clavicle back in on tuesday again and though i felt like i’d been beaten up the next day, i was so grateful. some pigs, some proverbs, some stitching…