other artists

 Went up to London yesterday to catch the last day of the 62 group exhibition, it was small but perfectly formed showing work by some of my favourite artists.

 The last picture is of a large scale piece [the 62 group's were all smallish really] by Roanna Wells, and was on show at the Jerwood [i always want to say Jedwood] at their Makers Open exhibition. She has developed her seed stitching mark making to the point where this taken from an aerial view of a religious festival at Allahabad.  It is held every 12 years and attracts over 100 million pilgrims.

She says of the fact that she was present when the image was taken "It has given it more meaning for me, ......it has given the piece a lot more gravitas.  It has made it more personal"  I wonder if that is what is missing from some textile work, the underlying meaning, rather than a main concern with texture and technique.

still dancing

Worked with the palette knife on a variation on Matisse's theme. Stopped me getting too fussy but don't know now whether to do any more.

too hot to paint indoors

more agony than ecstasy

I have been fiddling about with some stitchings;  once ArtSkool starts I won't have time and I have hit a bit of a wall with the painting work.
Too long till October! No sense of panic. 
By chopping and joining have constructed this seasidey thingummy but it will need a deal more stitching before it surrenders.  Colours are nice but everything is somewhat crude and lumpy.
certainly looks better reduced size on the screen. 

The Ascot people have possibly reached the end, but have sketchy false starts on the linen, so not sure what to do about them.

I am limping around having stood on a large needle yesterday.  I was working on my rust cloth when I was distracted, when I returned to pick it up from the floor, the needle must have been stood up vertically in a fold, threaded with black wool, and I stepped full weight on it.

It went into the ball of my foot, eye and thread first, and I got that lurchey feeling in my groin of anguish.  [reminiscent of when the kids were doing something dicey]

Nothing to be done but to pull it out scrape out the woolly bits left behind and apply TCP.

Hopefully my foot won't fall off in time, now just Lurching around feeling sorry for myself.

A fine day

Took down the exhibition today at Snape Maltings [nr Aldeburgh] after two weeks exposing our work to the populace pootling by.  Quite a lot of peeps were potentially around as it is Benni Britten's centenary, so concerts and stuff.  And the weather of course is amazing.
No excuses really.
Obviously people feel a little more wary of shelling out for Art, and I expect the concert tickets were a priority, but we definitely didn't sell as much as usual.

Fortunately the "shop" [where we sell smaller things, cards and inspiration packs etc.]took over two thousand pounds so we covered our expenses. Hire of the Gallery etc.
Double fortunately I was one of the two that sold from the exhibition, three pieces, the Queue, a Rust pic and Woman looking in Mirror so I now have a bit more space in my work room.
Also there is some interest in me showing some work in a Textile Art exhibition in Colchester.
I really should shove my work out more often, but the ego is a delicate flower and needs nurture not refusals.  I need an Agent, ...........and a Secretary, and a Psychiatrist, and a Cleaner, and a Cook and a Bottle washer, tho maybe I could do without the latter.
Could be thought that what I need is a Wife, but HimIndoors is really ace at most of the above. 
We had delicious fish and chips on the beach at Aldeburgh for lunch and a lovely long walk across the marshes at Snape, then home to strawberries from the garden.
All this good stuff definitely makes one uneasy. 

another painting

painting

When we were down in my lovely Hastings in June we went to the newish Art Gallery to see a retrospective of William Scott, British painter [1950/60s, St Ives etc] and I was really taken with his monumental and slightly threatening nudes,
so I have started one of my own.

I really like the abstraction of the figure, it's what I need to make a break for freedom...........the board was already mucked up with lots of sticky evidences of past errors so I gessoed over the top in white [texture!]then went for it with the palette knife.

putting on a show

TAGS exhibition starts tomorrow

Poster says the 4th but that is wrong!  Spent the 4th putting it up, looks OK. 
Twenty artists.  Took 3 solid hours for 4 of us to put up, staggered home exhausted but triumphant, only to get a call to say one of mine fell off the wall! 
Fingers crossed it stays up after first aid.

Turn that frown

Have been noodling for a while with the thought of messing with Matisse's "Dance" as a sculpture, plus stitching a figure is a relaxing occupation for some reason.

I tried to make this one bigger than previous other figures I have made, but realise now she is about the same size as usual.

 It is perhaps a "prototype" - maybe at ArtSkool I can make a group of very big and very angry? women stamping about, or just having fun - but that might not be Arty enough......but as I often am "angry" it may bleed thru whatever I intend. 

Fate is taking a bashing at the mo about my kids and their kid living so far away............But working with what I have got, a room of my own, a mind of my own etc.  I must motor on and enjoy the scenery while I can.

 Splashed a bit more on mother's portrait which make sit look a bit more inhabited, if not by my actual mother.  A friend of ours died this week so we have adopted that 1000 mile stare of persons reminded of their mortality perhaps.

 Playing with the Altered Books concept has been good therapy.  This page of Hints and Wrinkles is discussing the 1930s thoughts for Home Rule which led me to think about the compartments of a mind.....not in a chirpy way, obviously.  I had a little stick per letter printing set which helped echo the official style of instruction.

Tomorrow I Hope I will actually get to attend one of the Textile Art groups I belong to without ArtSkool intervening, so hopefully I will be cheered by the creativity and friendship, hopefully without dousing them in my current dour outlook.

Poor Me

Lots to do but too tired and miserable at the moment.

gonna say goodbye tomorrow

Change to Move

So I have started "Altering" the books.  It is an odd activity, although I haven't ever been very careful of my books, I do respect them in my way.  Can't bear to throw them away, at the very most donate to Charity.  But now here I go taking a book and drawing, scribbling on it even.

 In my case I see it as a loosening activity.  I have chosen 3 books that appealed to my imagination and am hoping that I will be stimulated within their pages to transform them into "my" sketch books.
Thus the Mother book will look at what it means to be a woman and a mother.....
The little red book is household hints which i think is going to lead me down the path of examining expectations, cliches, assertions, about how we should behave, that kind of thing. 
And Rothko's notebook will help me develop arty farty thoughts, tho the following second pages mentioned "father" and I had to record 2 phrases I remember my father saying.............
It is all meant to be informal and to knock out my self -censor "is that good enough, worth saying, rubbish?" 
It doesn't matter, I shall just doodle hopefully, but with a focus that comes from outside and not feel I am wasting time or trying too hard.......

 I did this acrylic painting this morning.  A person jumps off our local bridge rather regularly.  Recently Him Indoors/Retired Person was driving home only to find the police shutting the road to protect the body in the road.  

Later I went back to take photos of the sad bunches of flowers left for his memory and have wanted to do a painting ever since.  This is the first draft, but i suspect it won't change much as it was already in my mind exactly like this.

the journey is the destination

Have been having a bit of a go at this oil painting [in between daughter and g'son cavorting around]
Also have started three [count them!] Altered Books. 
One is a kiddies book Are You My Mother [lots of undercurrants there]  next is a 1930s advice little hardback called Hints and Wrinkles [ housework and dog defleaing] and the last is a facsimile of A Notebook  by Rothko - The Artist's Reality, Philosophies of Art [lots of opportunities for iconoclasm and pontificating as the mood takes me.
So far all I have achieved is to Gesso out some pages so I can doodle .................still it's a start.

Thinking is easier than Doing

 ArtSkool has set us a summer project which i think I may explore thru the medium of dance.......as they say.  The above pic [dunno where it comes from which will not please the tutors] is very satisfying and I hope to paint something like, if I can choose an approach...........guess it is based on old Matisse' painting

 I would like to introduce some of the whimsy of Eileen Cooper to some of the work

 These figures that I have made recently will dance round a ruined tower I think.........

 Magdalena Abromovitch [I think I may have missed an itch or two] does these monumental figures, but the sculpture room at ArtSkool has a very laddish hard edged atmosphere which I think may be intimidating, making figures at home is possible but transportation is a problem.

 Kiki Smith has many and various explorations of the female

 Munch is not too hopeful in his Dance of Death...............

 Picasso says just get on with it!!

arrivals

Only thing that hasn't arrived is the sun.

sitting ducks

atrium

The sun is shining but I have got a bit dull.  End of term I suppose, glad it is finishing, sad it is finishing. No more ArtSkool till October!  Stupid.
We are putting up our first years exhibition in the Atrium, 3 floors of light filled tower, work gets a bit lost in the brightness to be honest.

 Fortunately mine is quite large and insistently black and white.....but between two toilets.

Tutor suggested I give Big Nuddey some hair, which was annoying, but I think maybe he was right.  I have named her End of Days. Other tutor suggested I left the chair there as part of the installation, tutors are like that.

I am very tired and irritable, don't know if it is old age or justifiable after getting up too early for a whole semester. 

Went in for my last portrait class on Friday and really would have liked to stick my big bad hog hair brush ........somewhere, don't know where, just tired and bad tempered.     Mother sat for 3 weeks, reading her kindle [one of Ann Cleeves crime stories set in the Shetlands] and was very patient, which possibly also wound me up. 

Also some of the other students are very good, so I feel very small..........

Had a long chat with the sculpture tutor, which consoled me briefly, [he is very attractive] till having taken 2 paces down the corridor I realised had solved nothing at all.  He should be a politician.

I can't make up my mind whether to do painting and sculpture next year, or just painting.  The sculpture room is very laddish, and the tutor loves chatting to the chaps, and admiring their welding. I need a regular sit down tutorial and other students to network with, to focus me and gee me up.

I have been isolating myself lately, trying to get work finished, plus watching TV and sleeping when ever poss. so maybe the summer holidays have come just in time.

Have started stitching some pieces for the exhibition in July, soothing running stitches.

end of days

Had a really nasty fluey cold which left me fed up and wondering just why am i bothering. 

Not sure I know the answer, but the sun has come out and my lady tutor noticed I was depressed and gave me a big hug.  Unlike my 2 male tutors who strode over my dead body without breaking stride.  Artists are rarely team players, lady tutor whispered in my ear.

Partly it is because the end of semester is nigh. 

Since I am Part Time/half price I am not featuring in the final assessment exhibition, thus feel left out!  Also male tutor instructs us to clear all our work/rubbish from the building after the exhibition, thus I am forced to accept that my blood letting and head banging to produce "work" will only result in full recycling bins.

Have one more male tutor day, and two more with trainee lady tutor, whom I have learnt to appreciate, even tho she pronounces everyone's work as "awesome" rather than - where's the bin..........she is doing her training year, so produces lesson plans and individual tuition. 

She'll grow out of that in time.  We are doing portraits with her, so this is my first attempt at my mother, whom i persuaded to sit for us.  Ma quite enjoyed meeting new people - finding them quite agreeable was a pleasant surprise to her. Dunno what she expected, more of Me maybe.

Will start a new painting of her tomorrow, this one will perhaps get re-painted - or binned......or both

We have a Summer Project to tide us over, plus a Textile Art exhibition or 2 coming up. Daughter and grandson are due next month.

A person jumped off the bridge last week, he missed the river and hit the road,  I plan a painting of the two decaying bouquets placed at the foot of the bridge stretching it's grey cement to the blue sky.  That'll cheer me up.

more work needed

Back to Art Skool on Monday, with a cold generously donated by Him Indoors. I look somewhat like the lady painted below, but she is just a random pic off the web which I experimented with, in my first go at Oils!  I bought some Oil Bars, very much fun, like big soft crayons but are oil paint and wax, which, it is claimed dry faster.  Watched a UTube video to learn process, as obviously it is below tutors to  indulge in such practises as tutoring.

She looked haunted in the pic as you can see?,  I painted her thinking of a concentration guard standing trial...........looks more like a waitress who has dropped the cakes.

 Callie kept me company.

 I have been thinking of the Ice Age Art exhibition at the BM, so tried to have a go at a rock carving thing by making a plaster mould from clay in a box.  Tutor helped me make the box, being as I am a poor woman with no skill with nails [well that's about true really] but of course he had his pride and made it so meticulously, with so many nails and glue I could hardly break her out.
 She looks a bit jolly, so i added blood....lots of significance and gravitas, but not sure it quietens her down any.

 Big Nuddey went down well with tutor, but still work to do, surprisingly enough.  Also managed to fit plaster man into car and got him to sculpture room , only breaking one arm on the way.  Boo.  Tutor told me ...more work is needed, so had about him with saw and scraper thing [plaster man, not tutor] and bandaged his arm with mud rock.
While we were working some students came down from RSA to crit some of the 3rd years work.
A man sized banana received some very weird esoteric suggestions, mostly referencing penises, maker opined it was just a banana, which received silent applause from moi.
Daisy thought it was all rubbish and concentrated on telling the birds outside what for.  They ignored her as she doesn't go outside.  Some females have mouths bigger than their aspirations.

Thatcher's funeral is on gog at the mo, see above.