Trudge

I have not felt like painting this week, when really it is in difficult times like this that I need more than anything to create something other, something that hopefully stands apart from all the shit, a beacon of truth amidst the confusion and a personal symbol of worth.

I was quite up for the idea of being positive. The plan was to get back to my art after the school holidays and not to moan for at least 24 hours, not even silently in my own head. To not even groan about having an aching, old person's tired body for as long as I can remember. Maybe if I could trick myself into behaving as if everything was great and fair, I could also trick the world and my body into giving me a break.

Alas, this is not the way life is, things are not as they are "supposed" to be, my ideals are just my ideals, not necessarily everyone elses. Imagining I have Snow White's birds fluttering above me whilst squirrels help me to wash the dishes is not going to change the reality that life is often a struggle. A nice cup of tea can help to distract you but it does not take away a  reality that needs attending. We have had a week of nostalgia brought about by Thatcher's death and all the bitterness that her memory stirs up for many people and the legacy she gave us, combined with atrocities and disasters in America. Ultimately, the events of this week and the discrepancies in the news coverage of the Boston bombings and subsequent manhunt have left me unable to believe anything I am told by the media. The exposing of familiar and trusted celebrities as pedophiles just adds to the fact that nothing is ever as it seems. Looking back to the nineties, I decided to re-watch the drama, Our Friends in the North, which brilliantly depicts our paths through time. It also highlights the sham of our society, whatever the government. On a lighter note it is worth watching to see the actors who will become the future Doctor Who and James Bond.

At the same time as these world events I found out that the nerve in my daughter's eye is pale and this could mean that her left eye will never be much use to her. They don't know for sure. With doctors it is always a case of wait and come back and tell us what happens. She is nearly 6, and has had regular eye tests since the age of 2, but they have only just noticed this. I now have to cover her good eye with a patch rendering her almost blind, combined with her hearing and balance problems. The hope is that her bad eye will improve. There is no guarantee due to the discovery of the pale nerve, but we have to try for her however difficult it may be in the short term. This news was quickly followed by a letter arriving saying I owe over £2000 due to an overpayment in child tax credit made by the government in 2009. This has been passed onto a debt company. This is a complete shock, and I don't think there is anything I can do to dispute it. 2009 seems so long ago to me it has become part of the Blur/Blair years. By that I mean I can no longer remember any details. I have had to work my way through repaying a lot of debts after the break up with an alcoholic partner and I believed I had got my family onto safe ground and the Tsunami of shit had passed. As I said, life is not as it is supposed to be. Our whole idea of what life is can be ripped apart at any moment and it is not easy to pick ourselves up again and again. I have fault lines caused by the trauma of life's events that reopen all too easily.

Should I be writing this? I don't know, but I have written it for two reasons. One is that hiding away in denial does not help and revealing all this helps me to break through the isolation of carrying these burdens alone. For example, it helps me to say out loud to you that I have been changing my daughter's nappies for nearly six years now and I am fed up of shit. This is not going to change anytime soon as she is still not able to adequately communicate. It's acceptable for me to feel this way. Most parents are fed up after two years of changing nappies. This is my lot, but speaking out enables me to look at my life with some perspective. Ideally I would climb to the top of a hill and scream at the landscape "I AM FED UP OF SHIT!" Ideally as a society we would shout out together. The second reason is in reaction to the coverups in our society and I would like my troubles to count for something. We are all walking through mud and plagued by varying degrees of shit. I hope my words help someone to trudge on.

As I am writing this my 4 year old son came to me with a flower. A dandelion he had found in the garden. Such a beautiful act, it brought tears to my eyes. My boyfriend has been in the kitchen and made an apple pie for us. Shall we put the kettle on then? I don't want to face things but tomorrow I will go to the Citizen's Advice Bureau and try to tackle this debt we can not afford, and begin the treatment with my daughter's patches. If I get chance I am going to begin working on a painting I have been wanting to do for some time entitled "Modern Bacchus". Again it is a testament to what can happen in life that is often hidden. Our circumstance is seldom chosen and never certain and there is often no justice for what happens. Shit happens. Art can be a way to document and make sense of things. A billboard of distress. A flower in the dirt.

Sketch for Modern Bacchus

Photoshop effects

 Above is a sketch working out colours and composition done in felt tip pen and then altered with Photoshop. I am interested in experimenting with this image using simple printmaking techniques. Now I had better go and wash the school uniforms which I should have done earlier.

Think outside the white box.

It can be very hard to manage the whole process of being an artist. To navigate your way towards success, to enable you the self-sufficiency to continue your artistic passion. Firstly there is ordinary life to contend with: family, bills, food shopping, illness, laundry, tidy up and repeat. Then there is finding a space to work, buying materials and making canvasses followed by varnishing and framing/presentation. These two things are hurdles that on there own could stop you in your tracks. Ideas and actually painting can be the least of an artists challenges. I never thought I would say that.

The next hill to climb is towards exposure, powered by dreams, determination and social media to reach the pot of gold: A sale! There is already a bottleneck of talented artists seeking to exhibit in white-box style galleries, with as much as 50% commission lining the galleries pockets. Further, the artist needs to fund and arrange the safe transportation of their work to and from the location plus insurance costs.

Last night I had a crazy dream of a gallery in my garden. A garden gallery for one day only. Maybe this is not such a mad idea, weather permitting. It has led my thinking towards alternatives to exhibiting in galleries and ways to cut the middlemen out of the selling equation. I quite like the idea of a backdrop of a flower border to my paintings and a birdsong soundtrack. With luck I could even have my own Damien Hirst butterflies. So rather than contemplating all the hurdles, maybe it's time to work with my limitations and stretch the boundaries of how an artist can exhibit their work.

My house may need some TLC, but I have the prettiest cherry tree at the end of the garden.

 Last week I bit the bullet and started a Facebook artist page A had been stalling on this, because I was waiting for the day when I eventually had the money to purchase a decent camera and take quality photographs of my artwork. This day is not likely to come any day soon. There will always be something else that funds need to be spent on, however a hand held camera phone is not going to give a professional impression. I have always struggled to photograph large reflective oil paintings. My new plan involved a tripod found in the local charity shop, a budget camera left here and forgotten for a while by a relative, that I might as well "borrow" and my new white photographic studio (the garden on a grey day covered in unseasonable snow). Follow the link above to see my results.

Using the snow as a white photographic studio.

 I posted about my garden gallery dream, on my new Facebook page and got a helpful and positive response. Thanks Ruth ! My favourite way to spend free time is looking at art, being in a garden, drinking tea and eating cake. The actualisation of this is a way off yet. Time will always be scarce, I have children to look after and a house to clean but I believe it is something to work towards. Through my Facebook post I discovered Reminiscence Vintage a local business who supply beautiful vintage china, linen , bunting and artefacts and cater for afternoon tea events who are interested in working with artists. It seems that lots of peoples favourite things include art, cake and flowers. The pipe dream of an "On The Fence" exhibition could become a reality.

Just a thought, if anyone has a spare lorry, what about this for an idea. Instead of a mobile library, have a mobile gallery featuring a number of artists work inside with the sides of the truck advertising the idea. Take the art to the people, to the city, the village fete or just pull up outside a national gallery. You could even have a visitor's book and tea and cake! I'm sure it would get some publicity. Unfortunately I can't afford a lorry or have a HGV license. This one will probably have to remain a pipe dream.

Art is Art !

 "Making something out of nothing, or precisely, luring something from the unconscious and giving it material form is the closest thing to real magic there is in this world." - art critic Michael Bonesteel

It seems to me that there is only one thing that matters about art and that is "The Art". It is irrelevant who you are, who you know, what you know, what is relevant is the artwork whatever the medium. I am angered again by the distinction, and I would go as far as to say discrimination, from the established art world towards "outsiders". Whatever your sex, ethnicity or religion, art is art. This is pretty much established, but the significance of the work of self-taught and disabled artists is still largely overlooked as inferior or seen as mere accident. Are not all humans part of the cultural experience and the school of life?

American outsider artist, Felipe Jesus Consalvos. Mixed media collage.

How can the raw, unadulterated creation of these artists be dismissed. They are often closer to the source that educated artists are searching for, unencumbered by the market, technique, style or influence. This is truth, this is art, this is a connection to the first impulse of our ancestors to depict their experience in cave paintings and carvings. Before the distraction of ego and intellectualism took centre stage.

What really annoys me is if you are an "insider" artist it is acceptable to look to primitive art for inspiration. Picasso being the most obvious example of this. His African period saw the creation of one of the most seminal paintings of modern art. The fusion of these supposedly disparate arts in Picasso, gave us a creative revelation that helped rebuild the Western art world. We do well to remember that many artists revered today, were initially dismissed by the establishment. We only need to look at the history of the Impressionists or even the Pre-raphealites to realise this. Let's not forget Van Gogh, if he was painting today would he be dismissed for his mental health problems? Great art is great art, some great artists can at times produce inferior art, although their reputation and monetary value will render it great regardless.

Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. 1907.

My favourite depiction of hands is by the Expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka. Is it only okay to paint hands expressionistically if previously you have proved you can depict them accurately ? If the art world now tolerates the rejection of Western art teaching why not simply bypass it? A natural distillation of the seemingly dreaded "craft".

Oskar Kokoschka, Self Portrait

 This is a dilemma I struggle to make sense of. Look at Chagall's painted hands and use of distortion and perspective. What is the difference between this great art and great art that can be produced by outsiders? Is it a curriculum vitae? And if so, do they even teach drawing and painting at renowned art schools today? It is not so much the term that troubles me. I would argue that with the advent of the internet few artists remain untutored or without influence. It is that if you are labelled by the term your art is not deemed equal. You are an artist or you are not, whether or not you enter or even before you walk through the universities doors. It is the resistance to inclusion. The assumption that an African was ever more primitive in their version of living than us, that disabilities that limit our means of communication and education also result in the exclusion of the creative voice that shines through. It is the art world that needs to open, not the artists.

Chagall, Bride with blue face

The work of Georg Baselitz, now accepted by the mainstream, often comes perilously close to the work of outsider artists, rejecting all the rules and typical "finish" to get to the passion of our existence. He says "Art is visceral and vulgar - it's an eruption" What better way than figurative expressionism, to capture the fluids and emotions of our real lives. To me this seems a more effective way to communicate through paint than a polished, purely representational show of ability.

Georg Baselitz, [The Brücke Chorus] 1983 Oil on canvas 280 x 450 cm

Ben Nicholson, like many artists of his time, looked to naive art, such as Alfred Wallis, in his search for authenticity. It seems to me that much of today's contemporary painters are either knowingly influenced or unconsciously close to emulating the art produced by outsiders. I would love to witness the critique of paintings by the art elite if they had to judge them anonymously.

Two events have led me to this post, the first was the upcoming L S Lowry exhibition at the Tate. I happened upon a documentary by Gandalf, (I mean, Sir Ian Mckellen), highlighting the lack of recognition the artist has received in the art world, although his work is much loved by the "common" people. I was excited to discover his landscapes,seascapes and portraits which I had not previously been aware of and also the collection of ballet drawings discovered after his death.

The second, was the discovery of the art of Judith Scott an "outsider" artist who was profoundly deaf and had Down's Syndrome who may now be starting to be accepted as an "artist" without the denigrative term "outsider". Her work poses a real conundrum for the art world. If her work is accepted as art could this set a precedent for the term to be banished and become obsolete. I do hope this contradiction the established art world is faced with in the art of Judith Scott, tears down some of the limitations to which art the wider public are exposed too.

Judith Scott

 Discrimination in the art world, in Britain particularly, also extends to the medium used. A painter's worth can be diminished if they venture into sculpture or pieces that could be considered craft, such as ceramics. I love the quandary that Grayson Perry's art inflicted by creating contemporary art with the mediums of pottery and tapestry. The painters Gauguin and Picasso successfully ventured into sculpture and the sculptors Giacometti  and William Turnbull were equally important as painters. Is Gauguin's self portrait below a jug or art and is this proof that it can be both? Further, if a painter of abstracts ventures into figurative work it can diminish the validity of their abstracts and vice versa.

Gauguin, Self portrait, Jug in the form of a head.

Isn't it time for the barriers of established opinions to take a backseat and let the artists take their correct place of holding the reins. Theory can define the past, but artists are the champions of our creative future and their art should be unfettered. As my Facebook friend the artist Hannah Reim told me yesterday "Not all art is art and not all craft is craft. Some art is craft and some craft is art." Ultimately, art is art.

The organization above called Creative Growth, is giving developmentally disabled artists the chance to express themselves.

Artists Beware! Could Juried Art Contests Be Glittering Scams?

 I entered a juried art competition recently, it was the first one I've entered and it was only £12, no big deal. I was enticed, it seemed better odds than buying a lottery ticket, but was it? I started to get suspicious, and the more I've looked into it, the more these competitions, however prestigious, seem obscene. I didn't get accepted, so maybe you can right me off as bitter, after all I had fully expected to be the next newly discovered "Master" of the 21st century and now I'm not, and I wont be able to spend, spend, spend the thousands of pounds I could have won. Ultimately, I lost £12. Bah humbug!

At first, it is only natural to feel rejected by rejection. What if my art is crap ? Well what if it really is, even if you are crap and don't know it, even if your work is laughable, like the hapless tone-deaf participants on the X-Factor auditions, is it right that they are funding their institutions on wannabes broken dreams? Never mind the struggling emerging artists that genuinely need financial help and critical encouragement. And they know you want that, they promise EXPOSURE, PRESTIGE and TONS OF CASH! How can you resist? and if you were not successful this time, try again, there will be other jurors next time, and if you believe in your work because you know you aren't crap, then you may be tempted to try and try and pay and pay again. Just one more fix.

And so my anger began to build up to a blog post. It's no longer about my £12 (some of these competitions charge far more and you are encouraged to submit more than one entry) it's about all the other thousands of artists who paid the fees and where and who does it go to ? Does it do anything for the arts? Even the lottery puts something back into the community. Are they supporting artists, or are they really supporting their institution.  Even if you are one of the chosen ones, will you have anything "real" to show for it apart from a line of text to add to your CV. Do the institutions give information regarding previous sales that took place at the exhibition. After the costs of transporting your work, insurance and high commissions is it still a profitable venture? Will the artist's work get lost among hundreds of other pieces and who will be attending the private view?

A little search on Google, appeared to back up my suspicions, which I hope are unfounded, but I think all artists should be aware and consider the following which paints a sinister story:

"Juried shows with an entry fee are almost always a total scam. Normally it's a foregone conclusion who's going to be selected for the show, and the people who pay the fee and get rejected are just chumps, pure and simple. Those who don't belong to the clique need not apply. Art is an insider's game; it's all about who you know. If you don't know Jessica, James, Steven, or any of their friends, don't waste your $25"

"The, supposedly prestigious show I was accepted in, this past year, appeared to be focused on the reception which was attended almost exclusively by the participating artists. And they were a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds whose work was not accepted. I did not get the idea that many buyers were in attendance, or that the gallery was even concerned about sales. It was a show for artists, and basically paid for by the throng of artists that did not get accepted. The lucky few that won awards made money but for the rest, it's all expenses"

I also discovered an interesting blog post by Swarez Art, the comments afterwards were also worth a read.

I really do hope this is not the case and I could enter again and be discovered (just one more time, it's only £12!)  I could depict the text of a standard rejection email in paint and enter it next year in a floating frame, but I won't. This experience has reinforced my desire to get on with what really matters, my art. To create my paintings regardless, and hope that my integrity is held within them. Artists should not have to pay for someone to scan over a JPEG of their art or to have their work shown. In the same way, may I never succumb to the pretentious art-speak or prostitute myself, by sucking up to the art cliques to be accepted.

If the winners are already chosen from a select bottleneck of favourites, and the rest of us are the fodder to feed them then this is beyond hideous. All art competitions need to be transparent with anonymous submissions, of which the John Moore's Painting Prize is a leading example. Art is business, and as artists we forget this at our peril.

Imagination is a jeweled cave.

This is one of my favourite nursery rhymes, I have started to think that's me with the broom:

There was an old woman
Tossed up in a basket
Seventeen times as high as the moon.
Where she was going
I just had to ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom.

"Old woman, old woman,
Old woman," said I,
"Please tell me, please tell me,
Why you're up so high?"
"I'm sweeping the cobwebs
Down from the sky,
And I'll be with you
By and by."

 There are many things I would like to do that circumstance does not yet allow. Did I tell you I want to go to Venice? I have a big wish list of wants, but I have begrudgingly learned to honour the ordinary. I live in the Midlands, the centre of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, (wow, doesn't that sound like a magical place !) I can assure you the reality is often not. Or is it ? After all, was it not out of the run-down and polluted Black Country, that arose the gloomy mountains of Mordor in Tolkien's mind.

Yet because I live here, I feel land-locked, and often long for the sea. What is this condition in us that always longs for the other?. This is were my current painting sprang from. I don't live in a pretty town but it is on the edge of rolling hills. Between the dreary rows of terraced houses you can glimpse the countryside in the distance. I was walking back from the chip shop in the drizzling rain when the image for this painting came into my imagination.

Marking out.

In progress. Working title: Fabrication. Oil on canvas, 145 x 166 cm.

Detail.

Necessity is the mother of invention and there are infinite resources to be found when we make do and mend. How many of us as children, have sat in a laundry basket like a coracle and sailed away on a swirling seventies carpet. I loved the idea of magic carpets and remember sitting cross legged on a rug. Disappointed it wasn't working I began to construct daydreams instead. Imagination uses constraints to climb up. So I will see a landscape in a pile of laundry and go to Venice on a magic carpet for now

I have started painting this image above, because of Louise, my lecturer that died last year. She really wanted me to create it after she saw my sketchbook version, so I will give it a go. It is a landscape made out of patterns. The pattern of a landscape created from what I had around the house: scraps of fabric, dishcloths, kitchen roll.

The beginning of a Vuillard inspired landscape.

Patterns are great for suggestion. Whether the flickering flames of a fire, the lumps in ugly woodchip wallpaper, garish curtains or fading light or eyesight, you have to work with what you have. I particularly like the painted fabrics in paintings by Vuillard and Bonnard, and this is what inspired me to try and paint fabrics. It looks like fun.

Pierre Bonnard, The Red-Checkered Tablecloth

 Matisse painted the same room and window again and again, with various props, even though he had the paradise of the French Riviera just outside. When I have a feeling of overwhelming constriction, or sense an imagined lack of freedom, it helps to get lost in films and literature or play music loud to replenish myself. Bathe in poetry and find yourself in it's depths. We always have ourselves and that is everything you need, even if it does not always seem like it. Most of us are lucky enough to have others to share life with also. On a bad day, instead of imagination there is always Google, and for travel, Google Earth.

 “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” ― Albert Einstein

 What if money didn't matter? ... Alan Watts.

News for the New Year.

I am hoping to get a proper website together soon to show my finished work. Just in need of a decent camera and a break in the wintry weather, to be able to take quality pictures of large reflective oil paintings. I have always found this challenging.

 In the meantime you can find a more informal selection of work in progress and photography on Flickr. Art I like and inspiration can be seen on Pinterest and Tumblr and if you are crazy enough to want an insight into my mind, I can usually be found on Twitter.

Here is one of my current works in progress:

 

Begin and you will find out.

So it's been a year since my last post and where am I now ? Firstly, I left my art course. This is good and bad, there are parts I miss but it is mainly a positive leap forward. I could not justify the indulgence of wasting so much time and printer ink. Even if it was often enjoyable.

The catalyst was a combination of my course tutor Louise, quite suddenly relapsing and dying of cancer, aged just 48 and her numerous replacements beginning to initiate the students into the land of "artspeak" (shudder). I have already lived over forty years mooching about and I need to be busy painting. I have taken too long to realise a simple truth. To be a painter you need to pick up a brush and paint, and endeavor to put the education of life's experience out and through it's tip.

Ultimately, the course has served a valuable purpose. I am now painting almost daily, as family life allows, and feel like I have gone through a major personal breakthrough that enables me to get on with my work. I have numerous canvasses prepared so that when I get stuck on one, or need to wait for the paint to dry to a more workable consistency, I can be working on another.  I have no more time to waste.


"There are beautiful wild forces within us.
Let them turn the mills inside
and fill
sacks
that feed even heaven."
– St. Francis of Assisi

Mausoleum of Motherhood.

I have not worked out yet whether I should explain my paintings or leave them for others to interpret on their own. As it is early days for me as a painter, I don't suppose it matters much either way. If it does, look away now.

  This painting happened suddenly and was my response to a bad day. I just got all the swirling images in my mind that were gathering and put them out of my head and onto the paper. Here I could see them clearly, writhing undefended for me to examine. That same day was turned around as I transferred my sketch onto canvas and began filling in.

 I was trying to come to terms with and integrate the gaping void between domestic imagery fed to us from the television and magazines, and the cold blooded reality of hard work and raw emotion as you fall into the role of motherhood.
 The only true advice I wish I had received before becoming a mother is "Expect the unexpected, nothing is ever as it seems.". We have little experience to prepare us before embarking on our personal journey into motherhood. Of course this is true of fatherhood as well. Our dislocated society separates the births and deaths from our sanitised and independent lives. Few of our new generation have memories of the birth of siblings at home, or the final preparing of the body of a deceased loved one, as an opportunity to say goodbye. These are not easy things to face but they do not go away by hiding them. When the time comes we are unprepared and have to face these experiences with little support, and it soon has to be hushed up again. We have lost the support and guidance of women in our community. Community is a rare treasure not many of us have known.

  So armed with our mothering magazines of perfect images we take our fragile selves into the labour wards like lambs to the slaughter. This may sound harsh, reality may be kind and often is, but babies are born prematurely everyday, many women don't have chance to consult their perfect birth plans as they are rushed into emergency caesareans. New mothers sink into the ambivalence of post natal depression and not everyone is fortunate enough to experience the spontaneous miracle of bonding with their child. Some parents replace their broken rose tinted glasses with an alcoholic haze.

The perfect ideal of a house in the country, in which we can be a domestic goddess is passed off to us through the media as "real", leaving the majority of us lacking. I love to watch these programmes and dream and have my fill of their virtual, vicarious pleasure. Equally it can lead to torment and dismay.
 There is a phrase, "Follow me home to know me.". The fake kitchens bursting with le crueset; flowery china and copper bottomed pans are purpose built fabrications and often not the celebrities actual homes. In real celebrity homes adultery and temptations can be prevalent.

 A cat curled up on a rug in front of an open fire turns into finding flea bites on your children's skin. The new cute kitten has defecated on your new comforting cushions, and left a dead bird behind the settee. Small mercy that the toddler didn't find it first. The open fire covers everything in dust and brings the extra job of cleaning up the ash and soot. We all have our dreams and then their are the practicalities never far away.
 The baby in the painting is copied from a real photo of my poorly daughter, born three months early. When tragedies occur, someone still has to wash the dishes that are mounting up, put the Christmas tree up, do the festivities and put the Christmas tree back. The beautiful flowers in a vase fade and die and have to be thrown away, the bacteria filled water in the vase poured away. These simple yet heroic acts that keep a family going are often the responsibility of mothers. The little things, the disgusting things, the boring, relentless, unnoticed and essential things.

 As I have got older I have learnt with great difficulty to let go of my Catherine Cookson ideals of how life should be, and to love the reality of what life actually is as it comes. A technicolour, 3D, scratch n sniff miracle. To turn chores into opportunities for contemplation and listening. We will all still have bad days but I try to face life clearly and openly and enjoy the miracles of having children and being alive.

 In my painting there is a butterfly that can momentarily break you out of an inward cage of depression as you turn to look at it's beauty. A Georgian shop window, full of the promise of wonderful things reflects the storm beyond. A cottage with roses around the door, leads on to a pretty chintz cup and saucer, or is it clouds gathering. Will the oncoming storm be only a storm in a teacup. Have a cup of tea and gain some perspective, you never know what your future might hold. The gladioli symbolises strength and preparedness, and moral integrity. Exactly what a mother needs for consistency and to be a guide by good example. They are also a symbol for love at first sight, how it should be when a mother first holds her child.

Mausoleum. Oil on canvas. 32"x24". 2012.

 I was brought up to care about what the neighbours think, to try to be nice and to please. These are good qualities in certain ways, to be conscientious and aware of your affect on others. It also leaves you particularly suggestible. I am learning to stand up for myself and believe in whatever I am, even if it does displease. This painting is not quite finished, I am going to work some more on the details, these are not good quality photos, but what does it matter. Until further notice I have put my cherished but sentimental notions in a mausoleum.

Self portrait as revelation.

  Well it has been a while since my last post.  Finishing my first year at university and being freed of deadlines resulted in me doing all things other than art and writing for the last few weeks.  My final piece was a self portrait.  Staring into a mirror for long periods of time, has prompted a new short haircut and a need to focus outwards for a while.
 I have found the process a great vehicle for developing my painting skills and will definitely continue to do more.  As I probably know the subject of my face better than any other thing, it freed me up, allowing me to place my full attention on the act of painting.

Self portrait. Pastel. A3. 2010.

 The versatility of the self portrait through history continues to unfold.  What was first used as an advertisement of an artist's ability, portraying the artist as they wished to be perceived has evolved into an act of therapy, an emotional outpouring.  Focusing intently upon our own image can build an intensity not always found in other subject matter.  Self portraits by female artists can be particularly cathartic and revealing.  Finding the work of Shani Rhys James has been a fantastic discovery.

 Honesty in art and in life is greatly important to me.  I have a tendency to dissociate, which is probably why I am unnerved by others who live their lives under a veil of denial and deception.  There is only limited joy in winning a game through cheating.  We do not have long to live our lives so why cheat ourselves, though I understand the appeal when faced with a joyless reality.  I like to see experience as a process of refinement, revealing our authentic selves, as a pebble is polished by the sea.

Painting outside really helped me to see. The light was incredible.

 Confessional art attempts to disclose an undisguised, autobiographical experience.  It can communicate the pain and violence of life but it is also criticised for being self-indulgent and voyeuristic.  Tracey Emin is renowned in this art form.  Possibly the ultimate extreme of the self portrait, Emin herself has become the art.  This "victim" art is often denounced, as it's pitying effect can short-circuit criticism and it's ability to shock can divert us from the quality of it's artistry.  Regardless of the caliber of artwork, I admire the bravery and honesty of Tracey Emin.  I take from it a moment of undiluted expression.  The intimacy may be illusory, like the familiarity of celebrities, we don't really know, but it can be held up as a mirror to our own experience, as the artist of the self portrait holds a mirror to their face.  There is a danger to avoid of turning ourselves into commodities, but to share the absolute truth of what it means to be human is an admirable pursuit. Any dissolution of the public mask is a worthy cause.

 In my self portrait I tried to show a progression of my identity.  It is based on an old style, photobooth photo.  It isn't finished, I know I will go back to it to work on the lower portrait, but it needed handing in and time to dry, before being hung up for the end of year exhibition.  The first image is "The mask", the outer self protecting the inner unknown self, the eyes are the "tell" revealing unease.  The second image is "Self-conscious", the beginning of self-awareness mixed with shyness and uncertainty. The third image represents "Subconscious", the place of the unknown where inner demons lurk before they are confronted. The morphing of the orange curtain into a tiger was not planned, and was a revelation to me, as the tiger is a symbol of no fear. The final image is "Integration".  The acceptance and serenity that comes with the knowledge of "Here I am, take it or leave it.".   I roll out my soul and let life soften it's edges.

On the wall. Oil. 68"x13". 2011. 

The fool and the eccentric in art.

 In my teens I discovered tarot cards.  Along with all things mystic and spiritual I was ravenous for anything that could inform me of what I was and what life is.  My local library's theology and supernatural section promised answers I have long since discarded.  Mysticism and man-made religion are obsolete in my life as tools for understanding, but I still value the psychological insights and symbolism found within Tarot and of course the illustration.

Tarot box, whittled for me out of the back of an old drawer.

 "The Fool", was supposedly, my card, numerologically speaking.  I cannot claim to understand the reason behind this but for whatever reason, illogical or suggestible, I feel an affinity with this card.  The fool is unconcerned that he is standing on a precipice.  It symbolises a state of wonder and anticipation rather than fear.  A spirit in search of experience, relying on a mystical cleverness, bereft of reason.  Intuition, or tuition from within.  There is a wonderful Russian fairy tale, Vasalissa the beautiful about listening to the inner voice.  On the Thoth pack, the tiger symbolises "no-fear".

Thoth Tarot painted by Lady Frieda Harris.

 When you have children you become more careful about how you choose to live your life.  Less likely to set off on unknown ventures.  Life becomes planned, or at least we try to make it so.  It is about protection and preservation.  Initiative, the daring to "go in", can be eaten away by doubt and a need for certainty can become restrictive.  I remember as a child an occasion when I had to balance fear with knowledge.  A large oak that marked the main entrance to the woods was a favorite tree to climb.  One of it's branches was parallel to the ground about ten feet up.  My friend and I walked across this branch like a tightrope, knowing it was wide and strong enough to walk on, knowing that beneath it was a drop and we could fall, but equally knowing we could walk along it.
 It is art that gives me this rush of bravery now.  To create is to bring into being or form out of nothing.  Knowing you can fail but still going into the unknown regardless.  The artist is a pioneer in the space beyond language, stepping out of the metaphorical edge of the canvas and bringing "it" back.  The fool is apart from the other cards, the joker in the pack.  It is sometimes represented by a madman or a beggar.  It is the only card that is unnumbered, being zero, or a circle that has no beginning and no end.  This is said to symbolise that the fool is everyone in every place, energy that is always on the move and cannot be pinned down.
  The word eccentric means "outside of the circle".  The outsider, a social deviant, and often walks the line between genius and madness.  Edith Sitwell described eccentrics as "entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd."  Maybe it is being outside the circle, or thinking outside the box, which enables a different perspective.  Thus, allowing a holistic view of the world and insights on the human condition.

Huang Shen, (1687----1768)

   The eight eccentric painters of Yangzhou or "the eight strange ones", painted in a style that was deemed expressive and individualistic.  Their paintings showed strong personal character which broke away from the restraints of the time.
  I came across the term liminality, from the Latin for "threshold", meaning between two different existential planes.  It is the state of being in between situations or conditions.  A no-place or limbo, like the universe before the big bang, that although uncertain and frightening, is a rich ground for creativity. A place of initiation where the known identity and established structures dissolve.  Within this chaos is the possibility of a new perspective.  I love this idea of threshold people.  Eccentric outsider artists ahead of their time.

  Outsider art is art created by insane asylum inmates or people who live life as they see fit, not giving into external social pressures, such as Henry Darger, the reclusive American artist and writer.

Self-portrait, "Subconscious". Oil on board. 12 x 15". 2011.

The above painting is part of a series of four that make up a painting in the style of a photobooth photograph.  It is still a work in progress, I haven't finished the eyes and I know it is not "there" yet.  I have included it because of the background.  The orange and black was supposed to represent an oppressive version of the photobooth curtain.  After I had painted it I saw it was a tiger.

"Fear not.  What is not real, never was and never will be.  What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed."  Bhagavad Gita.

I used to be so afraid, but now I  look back on the tumult of my life with a wry smile, then I paint.

The naive, the bad and the amateur.

 I am disconcerted by the term "bad art", and paranoid that I may come under it.  Is it simply a matter of being in or out of fashion and current opinions.  The Museum of Bad Art  aims to bring the worst of art to the widest audience.  Art ahead of it's time is often viewed as bad, before it is accepted and appreciated.  In Van Gogh's case, not even in the artist's own lifetime.  It can take a showman who believes in his own art to convince us to believe also.  Sometimes, merely a high price can command credence.

 Abstract art is criticised with comments such as, "A child could do that."  A recent psychology study explored whether a painting could be identified as being by a professional, a child or a monkey: How to tell a masterpiece from a painting by a monkey.  Overall it seems that we can identify the mind behind the art.  I admire the confidence of abstract artists, capturing suggestions from intangibles.  I painted the abstracts above as studies for a background of a future figurative piece.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain. 1917.

 So what is Contemporary art?.  Isn't all art made now, contemporary, regardless of it's classical or modern influence.  Artists were creating conceptual art long before the "Conceptual" artists were born. Originating in the 1860's Modern Art could now technically be seen as old.  Duchamp's original urinal, "Fountain" would be 93 years old, which could be considered antique.  In 2004, it was chosen as the most influential work of modern art, by 500 experts. The beginning of conceptual art, it highlighted the creative process as the art rather than the work itself.  The artist as "thinker".

John Baldessari

Everything is purged from this painting but art,no ideas have entered this work

Acrylic on canvas, 1966 - 1968

  Just as music ranges from punk to classical, this is an exciting time for all types of art irrespective of manual labour.  We have rich treasures to draw from and a multitude of combinations of craftsmanship with original ideas.  As Duchamp said, " It is the spectators who make the pictures", and it is also us that keep a work modern.  A constant stream of new people seeing a work of art for the first time.

Rodin, The Thinker. 1902.

 The word amateur seems loaded with derogatory and inferior connotations.  In fact it originates from the Latin,"to love".  Is not art created for the love of it, equal value to art churned out to meet it's market.  It must be the case that all professionals begin as amateurs before another is prepared to pay for what they produced.  For your work to be what you love is one of the greatest privileges to aspire to.  The tragedy would be if the artist loses their love and authenticity in their effort to make art their profession and source of income.  May art forever wrestle against soulless consumerism and never become a slave to interior design.
  Naive Art sounds even worse. Is this the term used for artists who for whatever reason have not received a Western art school education.

   "What is Art School really? Well, it's a bit of time you are given. A bit of time in which to learn things." ~ Maggi Hambling

  One of my favourite artists,  Séraphine de Senlis, is considered naive.  I discovered a film about her on Twitter via @Deanthepainter.           
 

 I have not had time or opportunity to learn the crafts of the old masters, and to some extent I think this is a liberation.  I am not confined by what you can and can't do, according to the current consensus on art.  Having had chance to develop and mature before the influence of the art world, any skills I do learn will hopefully enhance my ability to express myself rather than obscure.  If during the course of my fine art degree I turn into an art snob, please let me know.  I hope I can retain a degree of objectivity.  Too much specialism can distance you from the actual art.  Nigel Kennedy is undeniably a fantastic violinist, but trapped in his classical training he has not been able to fully embrace and create his own individual music.   Like the beauty of a rose, pulled apart in an attempt to analyse it's beauty.

A portal to understanding.

 I love art.  I almost drink it through my eyes and skin as if by osmosis, straight to the soul.  Like beauty and nature, art is pleasure without satiation.  Replenishing like pure, cool spring water.

Old opened oak. Photo. 2010. Markeaton park. Derby.

 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but I think art should strive to connect to the masses.  Here is an interesting link I found at Gillian Holding's Twitter: How gallery visitors view work.
 I cannot stand elitism.  The false mystery created by high-art priests, circling in their cliques and separating new clothes for emperors only.  What is this hierarchy that makes one human animal more capable than another, to experience a work of art.  The term "dumbing down" baffles me.  I value the comprehension of clear expression.  Specialisation and intellectualism are commendable pursuits, but if you really understand, exclusionary terminology can be put aside.  Isn't that the wonder of a picture, that it can give you it's thousand words in one physical blast of interaction.  A resonating mirror reflecting a journey.

Mona Lisa. Leonardo Da Vinci. 1503 - 1506.

  Art that speaks to you as you walk past it, with the power to stop you in your tracks is my ideal.  If I have to read a label in order to appreciate a piece, it still has it's place in the gallery, as a vehicle for depicting theories, but ultimately I look for an emotional response. Art can prompt a kind of nostalgia, fused with a primeval sense of homecoming that we cannot quite grasp before it fades. Leaving only a distant sense of sadness.
 What is it about the Mona Lisa's smile that has intrigued for centuries.  What is the answer to her enigmatic puzzle.  This is the kernel in art I am searching for, the key to the doorway back to the source of inspiration.  A portal through to the mysterious state the artist once inhabited.  It is a rousing of something deeper.  A clue of what it is that makes us more than mere functioning automatons.

Inside the oak. Photo. 2010.

 An artist sends their energy into a creation, it's internal structure and outer form designed by thought and desire.  When finished it is a separate, contained expression of human life released into the world. Captured evidence of why we are here and what we are about.  This is were reproductions in books or online can be a massive disservice.

  I wander through exhibitions like a criminal archaeologist, searching for meaning in the layers of paint, still infused with a residue of creation.  Google art project is a wonderful find, enabling you to walk around and zoom in and out on the artworks.   Turner's fingerprint caught for eternity in a watercolour. Bits of sand, rock and leaves caught in the paint when Monet painted outside.  Such physicality and immediacy can connect us to a place and time, the story of the room, the brushes, the process.   

Interior at Petworth. Detail. JMW Turner. 1837.

 The simplicity of a line drawing, when only a pencil separates the mind from the image can convey a power and honesty, revealed by it's lack of interference.  As Hockney said of Turners' watercolours "they come direct from the heart down the arm."
  I have always been fascinated by forgery.  Although an art of deception, a forger's intense scrutiny and accurate execution must give them an enviable closeness to the original artist.  Whether by sheer craftsmanship, imagery, scale or use of colour and medium, art in all it's forms can open our perception.