The secret gallery’s blog

Joseph Beuys said ‘Everyone is an Artist’, I agree with this statement and think that Joseph Bueys was a terrific Artist himself, and one of my greatest influences. Much of the art made since Beuys has the same sentiment; that everyone is an artist, yet it is often this very art that many people feel alienated from, or baffled by, it is such a paradox! I notice this with my own art sometimes. A reasonably skilfully drawn, recognisable and framed piece, where people feel that they could not technically draw it themselves is revered above the pieces that are more inventive, imaginative, creative, original, and playful, and there are many other qualities that can be associated with art and life which are available to everyone and you don’t need to go to art classes to get them! We work with what we have available to us at any given moment. As we change constantly so will our art. One day we can be present to making a certain type of art but the next it does not seem to fit where we are at that moment. Sometimes it may never fit!

If I do not have a steady hand to paint fine detail with precision or the temperament, this probably means that I wont be painting the fine intricate masts of the ships at sea, that I remember being in owe of as a child. However my strengths as an artist will be somewhere else, and the same applies to every single other person. Making art related to what you are passionate about and not faking it is a good start! Just because you like Rembrant, it does not mean you have to be like him and reproduce his work. Sometimes I am shocked by what I create and have to leave it for awhile to catch up with it, but this work-play helps me to grow; it is all part of the creative journey.

Overload! even as I write this blog the T.V. is on, I turn it off! The wind blows, there is information and lessons coming from every direction: nature, myself and each member of the family, every electric gadget in the house such as, iPods, laptops and televisions! and memories of past lessons and information. There are also lifetimes worth of learning in books, poems other people’s art and many other things to take in. That’s just inside the house!

One of the jobs of an Artist is to make a lot of decision! What is important? It seems limitless, stretching into infinity, but you have got to start the journey with a single step, that step could be in any direction. It could even be a step too far! Last night I had a dream about making a garden in a little corner of a built up area, I planted young leek plants and laid some stones but there was something missing, I placed one of my boots set one step into the earth, by removing one step’s worth of earth, like the person had taken one step too far or something! I think I might actually try to reconstruct this dream somewhere in the real world. When you dream you have already filtered through loads of information and made sense or stories out of what you have been witness too. Sometimes this can be really creative, and uncensored, and while we are asleep there are not all the usual distractions of external information.

Sometimes I ask myself can I  balance the information I receive, and give it perspective, can I integrate the ideas of the modernists and the postmodernists? Can I also while doing this not dissipate into a million different directions! Is it simply better to forget everything you think you know and give it to the wind and the snow! Sit under a tree and learn everything you need to know!? Or continually balance our two sides? Maybe if we could balance our own polarities so they sang in harmony the rest of the world would follow!

For many years dreams have played a large part in my art. My degree show was an instillation which was inspired by a series of dreams. There were nine horse dream blankets, they were the size and shape of real horse blankets. They were suspended between the floor and the ceiling, like bridges between the earthly and the spiritual. They were made from different materials  including: hay, hessian, clay indigo pigment and poppy seed stain, some of the blankets had dreams written on them.

Last night I had a dream about painting, all I remember was in the dream I realised that when you are painting you have to become the painting. I think this relates to how connected you are to the painting when you are working on it; that you really have to feel it. It is a little bit like how the Zen masters become one with what they are meditating on, or say writing a Haiku about.

Sometimes it feels like you become the painting and sometimes it feels like the painting becomes you, it is a dialogue between the artist and what is becoming revealed through the painting; or the conscious mind and the subconscious mind.

As a child, one of my strangely strong memories was of thinking to myself that, I wanted to invent a way for us to tap into the subconscious mind. Then I did not know how art could do this. It is strange, or maybe not so strange that this is what I am still attempting to do!

I love the idea of things being a little bit surprising, even odd! I would like to think of the art that I make extending out beyond the parameters of the frame or actual piece that I make. I was thinking why did we call the gallery The Secret Gallery, well one of the answers is that the word secret hints at something that is unknown possibly magical or mysterious, coming across something that is personal or intimate as opposed to solely commercial. I like the idea of having a gallery in a cottage that is also a home. To me art and life are inseparable. I do also enjoy the less homely type of gallery! However, they say we try to create what we think missing in the world, and I wish there were lots of secret galleries, and if I was going to buy some art I would love to talk to the artist over a good cup of coffee or a glass of wine! I wish there was more art that was taken out of its studio storage hiding places! For me it has been a very positive experience to air my paintings and other art work to the public.

I agree with the artist Deborah Butterfield who makes large sculptures of horses out of pieces of scrap, when she described horse riding as a "kinetic language" and that we try to "communicate with another species". I have been fascinated by this kinetic language since I was eight years old when I began to learn about horse riding. I think my first lessons in art came from my horse riding instructor, Fergus O’Connor. Since then horses and the art of horse riding have been a huge inspiration to me. The feeling I try to (though don’t often!) achieve while on a horses is a dynamic, athletic movement that is so soft and balanced it almost like floating along in a dream! It is both effortless and precise at the same time. I think this could be applied to just about anything, but to me it is the same feeling I try to achieve while painting in many ways.