Into Existence
These are three of my resent pieces, they are paintings that have grow out of drawings or even doodles; just seeing what will come out when I let go of control. I am really enjoying using the pigments that James gave me, it is such a different experience to squeezing paint out of a tube.
Salmon run 1 Mixed Media on Canvas Marianne Slevin 2009
Salmon run 2 Mixed Media on Canvas Marianne Slevin 2009
Please excuse the shine!
Into Existence Mixed Media on Paper Marianne Slevin 2009
A dance between north and south and east and west
The square or rectangle has its own north, south, east and west. Every time I find myself facing yet another blank canvas, board or piece of paper it is a new experience for me. There are also certain similarities even the very first paintings and drawings I ever did seem to repeat themselves over and over in different guises. Today as I painted layers of semi-transparent pigment and varnish certain things that I had forgotten came back to me like how I like to go between the conscious part of my brain and the unconscious, juxtaposing serendipity with decision making, and attempting to get the best of both worlds. It feels like a kind of a dance between all the different aspects of what we call human beings; the right and left side of the brain, the conscious and the unconscious mind, the soul, the experiences we have been through, the now and also a search for something new or undiscovered.
That which is new or undiscovered can seem ugly or uncomfortable at first. So sometimes we retreat from that, covering it over with something more recognisable and safe. This can be a huge temptation, doing what we know we are fairly good at and stirring away from the dark unknown. This dark unknown can look frighteningly raw and naive, and lacking some of the sophistication and finesse that we might hope are work would have. The funny thing is that after I have struggled and danced all over the page with leaps of faith and playfulness as well as concentration and sensitivity at times, our wonderful 4 year old daughter said to me, while looking at my painting “I could do that couldn’t I ?” I replied, “yes of course you could”. Picasso said something like, “ children spend their childhoods trying to learn how to paint like adults and adults spend their lives trying to paint like children”.
One of the things that I have been doing lately is going back to pieces and reworking them, committing to them, as my Husband and Muse suggested. I think there maybe something in this! I do have a particular fondness of the sprint method of art making! but who knows I may become a long distance walker too!
The studio Battle round one (again)!
The prep talk in Artist’s studio at The Secret Gallery
View of art work in progress drying on floor of studio mixed media on canvas by Marianne Slevin 2009
Detail of the Mixed Media on Canvas above
Detail 2 of the Mixed Media on Canvas above
Detail 3 of the painting above
Detail 4 of the drawing above
Detail 5 of the Artwork above
Today, I decided to get back into making some realer art, by “realer” I mean physical, messy art! Getting your hands dirty! This art piece is half way between a painting and a drawing. It turned out to be at least partly to do with the yearly salmon run: where they go back to the same place they were born, to lay their eggs. I think it is amazing! Apparently they can recognise even a couple of drops of water in gallons and gallons of other water, from their home place and they follow that stream all the way back.
Wind records
I made these, well I did not strictly make these, as the wind determined where the drips would land on the cotton. I orchestrated it in a way, by placing sheets of cotton, one at a time under a clothes line while the little hand folded, stitched and painted funnels slowly dripped indigo pigment that was mixed with oil.
So tonight I sewed ten sheets of wind records together to form a kind of book. I love the layers of cotton, it makes me want to climb into the book and go to sleep! Many people fall asleep with a book but how many people fall asleep in a book!
Currently I am trying to make some decisions about how to present and finish this work. Should it be displayed on the floor like an open book, hung from the wall or ceiling or to use the central spine as a large tent pole and open it 360 degrees with lines that you would use for a tent? Sometimes it is hard to make a decision!
This art work was made in 2000 in Doolin where we have returned to live many years later, I feel it is still relevant today, maybe even more so as our climate changes, as I write this there is a gale blowing outside, the “Gallery Closed” sign on the door goes bang bang bang!
The Frugal Kitchen
The sight of a fridge that has little else but ends and rinds and vegetable on their last legs (well almost!) strangely, satisfies me greatly, when it comes to making something to eat. I am much bolder and more inventive when I have to search through the remnants of the last weeks or fortnights shop. I end up by cooking something that I have never cooked before, this often means eating dispirit combinations of fodder but it is a little more interesting then having the same old reliable small selection again and again! Luckily I had some shallots hanging in the kitchen since I pulled them from the garden in the summer and some garlic that was starting to grow from cloves that I put into ground hoping they would grow into big bulbs of garlic. If only I could remember what I cooked!
On a memorable note, but not a gastronomic one! One day, while my Husband and I were walking the Camino de Santiago, it was February so many of the villages were closed down; that is to say that to a passing hungry walker there was NADA! We were so hungry for a couple of days that when we arrived at yet another shut down village we walked around the village searching for anything we could eat. February is a bad time for this! When we walked in the Summer we found lots of fruit and nuts. My eyes were out on sticks, to my delight I found a couple of onions someone had thrown into a ditch! Outer skins removed they were the main ingredient of our soup for dinner! We were staying in a little Refugio or hostel where some previous pilgrims had left about 10 straws of dried spaghetti and one or two other tiny morsels of food, these with the onion and some rosemary we found, I made an edible but quite disgusting watery soup! I did taste very strongly of rosemary and was very watery but it was hot and got us through the night. I remember we even decorated that Albergue with some art, I wonder is it still there!
James walking the Camino de Santiago, somewhere in Rioja, in February 2005
