Is it really 20 months?

Interior scroll

Scroll

Sundays are a good day for reviewing where one is up to and it is such a long time since I blogged here.  Do I start a new blog or resurrect this one?  I am quite fond of this old thing and it has been with me for a few years now, so maybe it just needs a little housekeeping and tinkering around the edges.

Having finished the first OCA Textile course (which required a separate blog - wordpress) and received feedback from my lovely tutor, it is time to take stock and decide what to do with the vast amount of information I have gathered over the last 20 months.  I certainly wanted a new direction but had no idea that textile art encompassed so many areas.  I took my printmaking knowledge with me and used it to produce the little piece of work above but added to it new details in stitch and a woven the backing.  There are so many areas that I now want to explore before I begin another course, even the little scroll has so many ideas attached to it for future work.

It has been a fascinating journey and I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I am not sure it has taken me to a medium that I want to focus on to the exclusion of everything else but rather opened up other possibilities.  I like being a maker and picking up whatever works for me in expressing an idea and the course has given me so many more tools to play with and a lot more confidence.

Textile Art

It's been a while since I posted but that doesn't mean I haven't been making art. I have been both painting and printmaking.

However, during the summer I decided that I needed a change of direction and scanned the horizon for something that would give me a new way of thinking.  It's difficult to maintain focus after you leave an academic/artistic environment and that has been the case increasingly for me since I left the city and moved to a rural environment.  I don't think it's lack of inspiration but rather finding a focus and a reason for producing work that is the problem.  I am constantly inspired and full of ideas just lack the impetus at times.

It's the oddest thing but several art friends seem to have reached this stage at the same time, so perhaps every ten years or so it is time to spin the wheel. 

So, I decided start a Textile Art course with the OCA so you will be able to catch me over at the associated blog heaveninrags.wordpress.com

What happened here?

I turn my back for a few months and everything on the blogger interface has changed.  I am sure I'll get used to it...

I have been working away this year with a determination towards exhibiting. Today I was about to enter some work for a printmakers exhibition and was so put off by the commission charge of 52% + entry fee that I gave up.  Even if you want to sell work at a reasonable price by the time you add this it becomes prohibitive.  I really don't want to be adding that kind of fee.  It makes it expensive for buyers and not worth the effort for the artist.

Still developing a working practice for gelatin prints.  It's such an interesting medium that I keep returning to. This little image is called 'bye bye birdy'.  It's about children leaving home.

From The Little Shed at Foggy Bottom

Talking with a friend today about exhibiting work and marketing opportunities and trying to come up with a suitable name for my little space, we came up with The Little Shed at Foggy Bottom.   Before I moved to the Shire I worked from the Little Gallery on Main Street, which really did not fit at all well living up a dirt track, under the woodland.


This is a pretty rotten image of a gelatin print I have been working up as a series.  I have been test driving a new digital camera to see how it stacks up against my DSLR - not good. Being lazy!

Funny Old Life

It has been such a long time since I touched this blog or anything else to do with my art practice.  I was given a diagnosis of MS after having severe sight problems for months.  This seemed particularly cruel for anyone creative.


However, now that the dust has settled and I can see once more (a bit dodgy round the edges maybe), I am ready to pick up where I left off with a greater respect for myself, my health and going with the flow.  It certainly gives you a new perspective on life.


I am currently in Australia and picked up a sketch book and some crayons the other day to 'play' with whilst I am here and have gained inspiration from gallery visits and the beautiful landscape and colours.  For the first time in ages, I am looking forward to getting back into the studio and working.

Quiet Sunday

 

A quiet day in the studio after a leisurely start, coffee and a walk in the sunshine.   Played around with trying to transfer images using wundaweb and gave up after a frustrating couple of hours getting nowhere.  Will have to rethink that one.

The image here is one of a series using collaged material, acrylic paint and oil pastels - it's quite a long canvas and I have cropped the centre for the blog.  Enjoyable experimental stuff really.

in the absence of feeling

 

Unbelievably, here we are wending our way through March.  Despite the fact that I have been largely absent from blogging, I am busy painting which was my main focus for 2011.  A week away with the laptop for company and I have been catching up with digital imagery,  playing with Photoshop and trying to gather a photo collection to use in my artwork.  This little image came from gazing out of a window and not being able to recall feelings that I'd had about a situation.

I notice that many of the blogs I follow are having a quiet time, so hopefully we are all enjoying a period of high productivity or complete relaxation.

Most Useful

The Telegraph Saturday Review had a really useful list today of online archives - here are a few of them and a bit of blurb taken from the article. 

www.moma.org/collection  - for the most comprehensive modern archive by a single institution to date.

www.vggallery.com/letters - Van Gogh's 902 letters - £450 for the new Thames & Hudson book - or free to view at this site.


www.books.google.com - 15 million publications - I just checked out the complete collection of Life magazine - worth a look at the front covers dating back to the 1950's.

www.europeana.eu - By 2016 all public domain masterpieces in Europe  should be accessible through this site.  It currently has 15 million to view.

http://threadsoffeeling.com/ - Tokens; mainly a tiny piece of fabric, left by mothers to identify babies left at the Foundling Hospital between 1741 and 1760.  Heart-rending.