Archive for October 2008
Hit by my own painting!
I have a swollen lip, I am not sure how the small light-weight canvas did it! I was taking it off the wall when it hit me on the mouth, it is one of the tiniest paintings I ever made but it had a big punch! The painting had been in the gallery then I took it back up to the studio, maybe it thought that it was finished and did not take kindly to breathing in white spirits and being covered in oil paint!
Sometimes it feels like painting is allot to do with timing and knowing when to work into an unfinished painting. Today it felt, for a sort while, like I was able to add the, or a vital missing ingredient to some off the painting that I have on the go, I had thought that they were finished but they never really hummed, that “I’m finished” tune.
For me it is important that my paintings have an element of surprise in them. Whether abstract or recognizably of something ‘real’, both in my paintings and other art work, elements of surprise, play, and the unexpected are always welcome to come into my art! However I was not expecting to be hit by my own painting!
Laying a line of Mother of pearl along the garden path
Today, I suddenly started to tidy up the garden, it had got pretty neglected looking. A month or so ago, I had put a kind of trail/ladder of mother of pearl shells and driftwood down the garden path. Gradually it had turned from a line to a tide line to a messy bird picked, children kicked, moss covered and even seaweed-like, green balls of slime infested path, with some random shells and driftwood on it!
I cleared (I am trying not to use weed killer, my hands have aged about 50 years in a single day!) and edged the path and washed the shells and relayed the trail, starting this time with oyster shells, then driftwood going up as far as the little tree, and up to a branch! Then I lay the Mother of Pearl shells, it was such a meditative experience; gathering the shells then washing them and laying them out carefully. It felt like a lovely ritual, I would like to do it once a month or so.
Even after the big tidy up, the path was still a little messy and mossy, and wet and ended in a Turlough, complete with strange green slime balls!(Does anyone know what these rootless, spreading, weird things are?) Placing these perfect, beautiful little shells on top of natures contributes of it’s persistence and constant reclaiming and growing back over the man made path, both gestured at poetry and absurdity! This felt like a meditative ritual, creating a space to be very quiet and work in a gentle way with nature. When doing my interventions I like to introduce unexpected objects to a place, they tend to be playful and often quirky: changing the way we see things by putting them in a different context.
I have some dirt in my Rainbow!
Sometimes children make more sense. Our two year old son, just said “I have some dirt in my rainbow,” he meant eyebrow! but today I feel like I have some dirt in my rainbow! My car dug it’s heals in and refused to move away from the bank in Ennistymon, I had just given it a rest for a couple of days and maybe it was insulted that I had thought of it as a gas guzzling monster! Or maybe it was my karma. I have been listening to some Eastern philosophy podcasts by Alan Watts. James, my partner recommended them to me, they are fantastic lectures that have been recorded many years ago.
Today, the lecture I listened to, described us living in a phantasmagoria! What a great word and world! In another lecture Alan Watts talked about the pitfalls of announcing that you are on a trying-to-do-something-good path! Basically all your karma comes quickly, very quickly! the trick is not to announce it to the world or even yourself! If you act without thinking about it first you can avoid this negative karma! I think the car breaking down today as an example of this: I said that, “I want to reduce my carbon foot-print and drive the car less”, the next time I drove it, it brakes down! So more action less thinking! Today I am making no claims to do anything better! At least, not that I am going to mention to myself!
The times they are a changing!
Propelled into motion by James my partner, we are juxtaposing drinking at home, budgeting and reducing our carbon footprint! (when I say drinking at home I mean once, but it was fun!) I have not been taking my usual unnecessary ticky-tours around in the car and constant trips to the not-so-near supermarket! The Secret Gallery has been a secret bakery today! I was hoping that just at its messiest moments that nobody would walk in! The smell of freshly baked bread can help sell a house but I am not sure about paintings! Or more lightly recently, burnt offerings and flour everywhere! This morning’s baking was brown bread, then sticky flap jacks, apple and pear crumble with organic fruit from Mum and Dad’s garden. I am trying to resist the temptation to do a 20 something kilometer round trip just to buy a bulb of garlic, I know it would make the lentil and squash Indian dish I am making, taste allot better! Though I made it so spicy we probably wont be able to taste a thing!
The other day I picked up the book, Scott’s Last Expedition. Reading the glossary I was woken up slightly when I read the endangered words such as:
Barrier, the immense sheet of ice, over 400 miles wide and still greater length, which lies south of Ross Island to the west of Victoria Land.
Frost smoke, a mist of water vapour above the open leads, condensed by severe cold.
Piedmont, coastwise stretches of the ancient ice-sheet which once covered the Antarctic continent, remaining either on the land or wholly or partially afloat.
Nunatak, a ‘lonely peak’ of rock in the mist of ice; when rounded by glacial action, a Nunakol.
Ten things to get you to create!
1) Create a space for yourself to create in, it has really helped me to have a constant space for me to leave everything out so I can just start again whenever I feel like it. Setting up and tidying up just gets in the way!
2) If you have children, paint with them, I don’t do this all of the time that would be too exhausting! but sometimes it is great fun, the other day I gave our two children their first lesson in printmaking we did some mono prints, using the plastic lids from takeaway containers, using water soluble oil paint.
3) Carry a small sketch book with you everywhere you go, I don’t but wish I did!
4) Get your partner to force you to create a set amount of time every day, penalties for not creating should be severe! James did this for me by himself and it was the only thing that got me to do art again in a real way! It worked I made art every day even when it really was the last thing I felt like! Now I don’t do it everyday but I did for several months and made enough work to open our secret gallery, thank you James! It also got me back into thinking about art and thinking more creatively everyday. Sometimes it is too hard to do it on your own.
5) Make a piece of art for someone you care about.
6) Collaborate with someone, it can be a relief to take the focus off you!
7) Try to make bad art!
8) Be childish and play and make yourself laugh while you create, you might not even notice you have made art!
9) Recycle something into art. The other day James suggested I turn my classic leather motorbike one piece suit into art, I had put it on for a joke and really hurt my back just picking up something like a sock! He thought I should not wear it anymore, as it had some negative energy. So I started painting words on it to hopefully transform it into something positive and healing, like Peace and strong Woman.
10) Think, have you ever regretted making art?! I can think of many things that are a waste of time but, being creative is always worth while!
