ARTISTS TALKING

# 24 [3 December 2008]

Today was a day I could concentrate solely on painting, pure heaven!

It was a bit of a breakthrough day, it happens now and again, I stumbled upon something so obvious that I can't believe that I was stupid enough not to get it initially. I spent time experimenting with the way I was applying the oil paint and found it worked really well.

I should be going to a meeting tomorrow to discuss a possible solo show in 2010, so fingers crossed.

I can't wait until Friday so I can continue with the paintings

# 23 [1 December 2008]

My exhibiton has at the Dome in Buxton has been running since last Monday at it seems to be going really well.

I have received some fantastic feedback and praise from people in the arts and total strangers who have just seen the work and felt that they had to respond to the work and feed back to me. It is really nice when someone takes the time and effort to contact you to let you know how much they love your work and what it means to them.

I have had some great news recently, I have been asked by Derby Museum and Art Gallery to put a few pieces of work in their curated landscape exhibition in April next year. The work will be exhibited alongside landscape from their collection and also alongside work from established and successful artists who deal with landscape such as Michael Porter, David Ainley and Nick Hedderley.

I have also been asked to put in a proposal for exhibition to Buxton Museum and Art Gallery.

On top of all that I have managed to get into the studios a couple of times last week and have started 3 more paintings. Hopefuly I should be able to get in and work on them on Wednesday and Friday.

I am doing some shadowing of art workshop in schools next week. As part of the residency I will be running some workshops in the spring so I thought it would be a good idea to see how it is sone. I have no experience of runnin workshops for Children so it will be really interesting to observe and hopefully learn something to help me when I do my own.

# 22 [23 November 2008]

Hooray my exhibition at the Dome in Buxton is up and running.

We put most of the work up on THursday after a slow start. The previous artist had left the board in a sorry state with a load of velcro pads to be peeled and scraped off. This took a while and brought a lot of the paint off. we decided to re-paint the boards and bought some paint from focus and without thinking started to applyit liberally, unfortunately  it didn't seem to be the colour it promised on the tin. Instead of a brilliant white it resembled a mushroom colour. So off to the shop again for a replacement. We finally got the boards into a hanging shape but we had taken almost 3 hours getting there.

The work went up quite easily though and we were really pleased with the way the two different works seem to complement each other. Marc's work is fine art photography of the inside of a historically important building in Buxton and my paintings are of a sense of place within the landscape of derbyshire. When we put up the exhibition it was the first time we had seen each others actual work. I think that both the collections of work marry together perfectly to make a very coherent and strong exhibition.

I met up with the lady that is running the commission from the Cavendish group and she was ecstatic about the exhibition, which is fantastic news. we all get together on Tuesday for a private view with the members of the Cavendish group and guests.

It has been a really enjoyable commission. Marc is a great guy to be working with and the people from the Cavendish and the University of Derby are all lovely people. We take the exhibition to the University of Derby in Derby in April 2009. I still have more work to make for that exhibition as there is around 5 times more space to fill at that venue. 

# 21 [18 November 2008]

It seems like such a long time since winning the commissioned exhibition though only a few months in reality. time has moved on fairly slowly, thankfully, as I've only just managed to get the work done on time, and some of that is still not dry.

But the last 2 weeks have gone by witha blur and little to show for it in the cold light of day. I planned to do some of the administrative elements over this last weekend but unfortunately my son was ill and all thoughts of anything else ceased to matter.

Today was catch up day, I've collected the paintings from the studio, written my artist statement, cards, etc, etc, etc.

It was great to hear of the success of some of my fellow artists at Harrington Mill studios who have been shortlisted for and won prizes in open competitions recently. Well Done!

I'm in a bit of a predicament at the moment. I have totally run out of acrylic paint and oil paint but really don't have any available cash at the moment so I am still waiting for my materials bdget to come in, hopefully, fingers crossed that will be soon and I can get on with some more art.

# 20 [17 November 2008]

I managed to get into the studio on Friday, eager to get on with my latest work only to find that they were still extremely wet. In a way this was a good thing as it forced me to finish off some unfinished work that had been around for a while.

I install my first exhibition as part of the Cavendish commission this week. I pu the work up in the Dome at Buxton on Thursday and Friday and the exhibition runs from Monday the 24th November through until the 8th December. All the work I need is finished and and I am ready for the installation. I just need to print some labels and Artist statements and that should be it.

# 19 [12 November 2008]

To be honest I wasn't very enthused about creating some work today, I had very little sleep last night as a result of my little boy who had a rough night. The prospect of being creative was just a little too tiring to think about. But time is precious at the moment and I need to get in the studio at every available chance.

At first I avoided being creative, I chose the mundane jobs that needed to be done, cleaning, putting things away and paperwork until I could no longer put off the inevitable, I had to make a start on those blank canvases. I have been preparing them for the last week and researching my influences and ideas. I always have a small element of fear about making those first tentative marks that are crucial to the direction of the painting but today was quicker and less fearful than usual, maybe it's a result of tiredness or perhaps I am becoming more confident in the methodologies I am using.

Today's outcome was very pleasing, it is early days with these new paintings and I am sure they will be a whole lot different when the paint is dry and they lose that lustrous gloss of freshly applied paint, but I felt a warm glow, a feeling of satisfaction when I flicked of the light and left them in the studio to dry.

I was asked today to sort out some images of work that I felt best represents me and I am also in the process of producing a digital portfolio of my work. It is such a hard thing to do, I know  that choosing all the images that I prefer is probably not a wise thing to do. I often find that other people have different views to me but how do you go about selecting images that represent your work as an artist? Is it a wise thing to ask other peoples opinions? Any suggestions would be greatly received...

# 18 [7 November 2008]

I had an interesting chat with one of my studio colleagues on Wednesday, we were talking about our art in general and things we are doing at the moment.

My studio friend was telling me how she does teaching part time and how she makes work part time alongside the teacheing, she spoke about how she had to keep the two quite seperate and it took a different way of thinking to mentally switch from one to the other. But the one thing that interested me was how she was able to do so many diverse things at the same time.

 I realised that I am able to work on many paintings at the same time without any difficulty but they are all olong the same theme. I am working on some work for a commission that was a result of my degree show work so I am still continuing along the same ideas e.t.c as I have for the last 3 years at University.

This made me ask myself if I was  capable at the moment of working on different paintings at the same time with different themes/styles/ideas, I've never had to. University gave me a purpose to steer for and I suppose in a way detereds me from experimentatiion in other areas. My aim in the next few months is to start some new work about different things and see If I can continue with these multiple themes/ideas. I think it will be quite interesting to see the results.The first part of my commission work is exhibited in 3 weeks time and then in April. I do have more work to make for the April show but I have plenty of time to have a go at something different, although at the moment I;m not quite sure what different is....I'll keep you posted

# 17 [2 November 2008]

I braved the relentlessly pouring rain today in order to enter this years Derby Open competition. It seems that for the last 3 years I've always had to take work in wrapped in plastic bin liners to protect it from the wonderful weather.

It seemed quite busy with a constant stream of people whilst I was there.

It is always really interesting to see artist scurry in on a submission day, lovingly and protectively carrying their work and putting themselves in a bizarre situation of judgement, rejection or failure. I don't know why we do it really, I don't know why I do it. I don't enjoy the experience. I t certainly isn't for the chance of winning some money, I'd get better odds on the lottery.

 It must be to gain some acceptance, some recognition for the hard work and maybe even justification for the path I have chosen. I know that if my work is rejected, sorry, not accepted then I will be bitterly dissapointed despite the knowledge that there are so many fantastic artists out there and just 3 judges choosing work to fit a criteria that they alone are aware of.

Most people you speak to will say "don't take it to heart if you don't get chosen" , but I wonder if anyone really doesn't take it to heart, is it possible? if so, why would they enter the competition in the first place?

I know that the next rejection letter, be it Derby or another. (and I know there will be many others) I will take it on the chin, be gracious and outwardly positive about the whole situation to the point of nonchalance. But bubbling inside will be a rage and fury about the injustice of it all and as usual I will ask myself, why? why put myself through this. And as I always do, the only answer I will be able to come up with is "Because it's what I do"

# 16 [30 October 2008]

Not only did it look like a grey day today, it very much felt like one. I was in the studio fairly early this morning to find the painting that I had last checked on monday still as wet as I had left it Monday afternoon. It is bitterly cold at the moment so it is understandable. I was hoping that the painting would be touch dry by this weekend in order for me to enter it into the Derby open competition. But sadly there isn't any chance of that happening. I do have other work I can submit but I had set my heart on this piece, I was really excited by it. Never mind, I should have been more organised and started the painting a few weeks earlier, but who knows, maybe without the urgency and spontaneity the painting would have looked totally different.

I then spent the next 4 hours cleaning the edge of paintings and painting them a uniform colour, then affixing mirror plates onto some work and then cleaning up all my brushes that had been soaking in cleaner since the weekend. I had managed to use about 30 brushes over the weekend. We had an open studio on Fri/Sat/Sun and I carried on painting throughout but rather than cleaning the brushes as I went I kept using new ones until I ran out.  I didn't want to be bothered with cleaning whilst people were coming around. I paid the price today as it took me ages.

So in the 4 hours that I was in the studio today I didn't manage to get anything creative done. I suppose we have to have days like this to enable us to have days of making but it is sooo tedious. I wish that I could afford to have someone clean my stuff for me, maybe I could apply to the arts council for funding for a personal brush cleaner, might be worth a try.

# 15 [26 October 2008]

It's been such a hectic and exhausting weekend buit it was well worth the effort.

We had our Open studio event this weekend. The private view was on Friday night and we had an amazing turnout, the studio was packed to the rafters and the work on show was very diverse and exciting.

I don't know how I didn't lose my voice as I did not get the chance to stop talking all night. I got some really positive feedback about my work and spoke about some future possibilities too.

Saturday and Sunday provided a constant stream of visitors who were genuinely interested in and encouraging about my work. I decided to paint throughout the weekend and managed to get a fair bit of painting done, some successful and some not at all.

It was interesting to get different views about my paintings and to listen to other peoples reactions to the work and the techniques that I employ. Thank you to all my friends who came to support me over the weekend, as always it is very much appreciated.

Some feedback from friends who know my work and what it is all about was quite enlightening. It was the first time they had seen my new work and many of them commented on how much darker the new paintings were. It is quite interesting to hear that because I haven't conciously done that. I have been thinking about and researching the early hours and the twighlight so it is probably that what has influenced the latest work.

Over the next few weeks I need to concentrate on creating work for a few open submission competitions and then get back to finishing off the Cavendish commision for the November exhibition.