A building full of treasure waiting to be discovered

This week I thought I would continue the thread of last weeks blog on research.

When I showed my sketchbooks (more like work books really) at the “Open Working Studio” at UWE last November, many people asked whether my sketchbooks were research for a course/exam – I was surprised at this question but I think they were equally surprised when I said I do the research for myself and I couldn’t produce a finished piece of art or textiles without it (at least not my best work). To me creativity (in whatever form) is a means of understanding and expressing something and therefore the subject needs to be researched to understand;

• the question (what exactly you want to express),
• the context (how its been expressed before) and
• develop your answer (experimenting with how  to express it)

So, last week I shared some podcasts and whilst the digital age provides us with a wealth of online information, I am still (and always have been), a big fan of libraries. There is something exciting about them, a big room or building full of treasure waiting to be discovered. I remember as a child walking along each week to the mobile library with my mum. A small lorry lined with shelves and boxes of books with a counter at one end where the librarian would write down what book you had borrowed in a buff coloured index card. Another of my Mums trips was to the main library in town, a huge Georgian building with dark, cold, stone rooms, dusty windows and shelf after shelf of books to wander amongst. (if you think of Harry Potter you aren’t far removed). I’m not sure at that age whether I was more interested in the books or just the spaces/places themselves. When I went to university I rekindled (pardon the pun) that love of libraries and it became a joke that if any of my friends needed to find me they’d seek me out on the floor between the shelves or if they rang me I would answer in a guilty whisper “I’m in the library”(we weren’t allowed phones in there).

Once I was working and had disposable income I started to buy my own reference books, but having moved house 3 times in as many years and a lesson learnt in the benefits of streamlining “stuff” I have reinvigorated my exploration of libraries as a source of research. Most materials are free and the staff are usually a wealth of information and only too keen to help plus, with interlibrary loans for 90p..whats not to like? When I mentioned to a friend that I had been to the library, I was shocked to find she didn’t even know our town had a library…..so I urge you all to go find your local library, pull a book off the shelves and start flicking through…..part of the fun is finding new ideas you didn’t even know you were looking for and who knows where that will lead………………………

Lectures at the wheel

Over the last few weeks I have spent a lot of time in the car driving. Normally “dead time” I’ve been trying to utilise this snippet of solitude for research by downloading and listening to some Podcasts which I thought I would share.

I love podcasts, its like having a whole archive of lectures at your fingertips; by using some simple technology (an app, my phone and Bluetooth) I can search for the subjects which are most relevant and bring them to my car or listen whilst I’m painting/making.

I’ve been focussing on the following themes; Women in the outdoors; Memory and how we form them- eg how places, objects trigger memory, Travel and Art, Women in the Arts and Story telling.   These are all themes which continue to float around my mind in relation to my life and art and which want to find a way onto paper and cloth in future, I am just not sure how yet.

Listening, thinking, note taking leads to sparking off new ideas and linking ideas. All the episodes I’ve listened to have in turn led me to find further avenues of information in books, Facebook pages, and artists websites. Eventually, what feels like disparate themes will meld into a more focussed research question.

She Explores  https://she-explores.com/about/  (a podcast for creative outdoors women)

Your Art Sucks  http://yourartsuckspodcast.com/ (a podcast that examines the methods used by famous creatives to push their work)

Savvy Painter https://savvypainter.com/podcast/01-welcome/ (hour long interviews with painters, about their work, processes and juggling art and life)

The Travelling Image Maker  http://www.ttim.photo/about/ (Conversations about travel and photography)

Enjoy!

 

A plastic tideline

What an exquisite punishment it was; to be given possession of a place she loved more than any other in the world but that the past rendered out of bounds.

The Lake House, by Kate Morton.

The Easter weekend marked the start of the caravan season and another six month opportunity to spend time in Cornwall, the place on which most of my work to date has been based. A four-day weekend gave me the chance of a brief visit.

I always have grand plans about how I will work in the landscape painting plein air, but I am beginning to face reality, it’s not how I work; I can’t sit still long enough to paint. when I’m outdoors I like to be moving. I am predominantly a studio painter and it is source material I collect when I’m outdoors – either in the form of found objects, photos or observations.

There is an element of chance with what I find on the beach and cliffs. This weekend, whilst searching for fragments of mussel (no mean feat given the high spring tides and rough seas which turf up the sand; hide the lighter shells and make many coves inaccessible) I also noticed fragments of brightly coloured plastic along the tideline. I noticed this last year too – collecting them for the first time. The colours seem out of place. I know plastic in the seas is topical in the news, and whilst I am not an artist driven by political agendas, I cannot deny what I find around me.

Whilst out running/walking my phone with its camera and note making apps continue to be my greatest tool and this weekend I took lots of photos of surfaces (rocks, dry stone walls, lichen, pathways, sand) which I manipulated on the computer to create paler reference images. They are now pinned on my wall providing inspiration for some painted grounds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although I don’t paint representational sea/landscapes, I have noticed that the energy of my abstract marks/paintings seem to reflect it. The wild seas, rugged rocks, the moodiness of wind, rain and weather. Layered surfaces reflective of the natural erosion of sand, rock and water.

The next visit is planned for June….meanwhile I have painting to be getting on with!