Posts Tagged ‘thoughts’
Thoughts on tissue paper
Thoughts on tissue paper 1,2,3,4,5, Marianne Slevin (formerly know as Potterton!) September 2009
Thoughts written in children’s colouring markers on recycled tissue paper hanging in my studio in the Secret Gallery somewhere between Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher, on 5th September 2009. Maybe in a years time I can fill a whole gallery with these floating thoughts. This is a new phase in my art practice after 18 months or so of painting, though it relates to much of the previous art I did using text and materials that are not traditionally used for making art. I wanted to start to write a journal again in the old fashioned way, this is a culmination of blogging, tweeting and the good old diary, turned into a visual experience; you can read as much or as little as you like. I am drawn to working with fragile materials once more, I like the way when up get close to them and breathe that they move; our presence effects them, as well as the gentlest breeze.
I would like to do some as often as it seems appropriate for a whole year, but then that sounds a little contrived so I will just see where it leads me. 365 thoughts in the first year of my marriage my sound very neat but in my real and chaotic life it my be something like as many thoughts as I have pieces of tissue paper,( that was used to protect and wrap our wedding presents) till the time when the thoughts I have no longer wish to be written upon that same tissue paper! The very first piece I wrote was about this need to constantly compartmentalise things in the west, everything has the be accounted for, and all the messy bits need to be cleaned up! It is often those messy straggling bits and pieces that are the most interesting and awaken something within us!
Lifting your feet off the ground and trusting!
Hearts Oil on Canvas Marianne Potterton 2009
Yesterday I sat on our motorbike, clutch going out throttle ready for lift off and James said now take your feet off the ground! I just could not do it! Maybe today or tomorrow I will get the courage and believe that I am not going to fall over. It is a bit like painting, you can either stay where you are comfortable or dare to move off to an unknown destination. Many of us like our safety zones; not getting on that frisky horse who can leap into the air plunging and bucking at any moment! All of these scary things can make you feel like complete beginner because it is an unfolding road that you have never been on before, so in a way you are a constant beginner because it is always new.
Some of the voices that are in my head when I paint and make other art are:
Begin every painting like it is the first painting you ever made.
Be aware while letting go.
Feel how feels in your heart while you paint, when it goes numb stop!
Be really quiet but listen softly (I often listen to music I like and that makes me feel while painting such as Anthony and The Johnsons and Van Morrison, No Guru no Method no Teacher!))
Do not make up anything just for the sake of filling in space, it should feel right.
Try to have faith in your own ideas and let the other peoples voices and paintings fade into the background.
Alternate your focus between looking a every detail and painting with your eyes closes, between thinking and not thinking, between controlling what you are doing and not controlling.
These are some of my thoughts on art, they may or not make any sense to anyone else.
Peace to All
Painting and “non sense” and nonsense like that!
Work in progress, after Oil on canvas Marianne Potterton March 2009
Work in progress, before oil on canvas Marianne Potterton March 2009
Painting for me a wonderful way to explore the many nonsensical partially forms thoughts, and unrealised ideas grow a visual expression via the process of painting. Sometimes creating art can be disconcerting; what once felt like a breakthrough and something honest, true and maybe even beautiful can change into something embarrassingly awful in the blink of a eye! Yesterday this happened to be, it is almost like someone else comes into the studio and starts painting over your work, but more confusingly it is you! If I were to go up to the studio I might prefer the new look paintings or I might cry and wonder who I was yesterday! But thankfully because of James I am in our very own home imperial hotel enjoying the room service, surrounded by the smells of lovely lotions and potions for a day of pampering with not even a whiff of white spirits or turpentine within smelling distance! I have a day to enjoy and relax and it will the paintings some time to settle.
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