Well it feels like I have been very busy doing nothing over the last few weeks. I am actually trying to get some stuff finished so have not started anything new. Except for a session mono printing, of which I have done lots over the years but seemed to have forgotten every thing that particular day and ended up with a mess. The next ones will be better……
Because I feel pressured as far as time goes I feel like I need to be producing something each session. It doesn’t stop me playing and messing at the time, I just feel more disappointed afterward when I don’t get a ‘result’ this would never have bothered me in the past. I want to play I want to play all the time…oh bother gainful employment!
I have also been out and about a bit looking at some other local artists in the Cheshire Open Studios event. I didn’t get round too many but I did visit some, which I enjoyed very much. Every one I saw was glad to see me although I was obviously not there to buy, and they talked openly about their work and practice. The presentation of the work was quite different from house to house some set out like a gallery with price lists and print racks and other’s just house walls filled with pictures. I like looking through the sketch books best..will I be brave enough to put mine out they can be so personal.
Well it’s all back from holiday, and back to school, and work at our house now. So I can maybe settle in to a routine of getting a little work done once again!
We had our Artist Trail meeting in the pub Wednesday night and it was good to see everybody, although it only being the second meeting I still don’t feel I know people too well yet, except maby Emma King who is organising the event. Things were getting sorted out though, like the pre trail exhibition dates for February. Everybody agreed the pre trail exhibition is a good idea and to go for it, and get the Bollington Arts Centre booking firmed up. Faith Walker who is one of the trail artists organises the exhibitions in the small gallery at the arts centre and is sorting this out for us. There were also plenty of volunteers for a hanging committee. (I would honestly love to be move involved but had vowed to myself to sit on my hands as I just don’t have the time). There is also going to be an exhibition the first two weeks of the festival itself in May at the Arts Centre, and together it is hoped they will promote the trail so people can get a taster of the work, and be interested enough to want to visit the artists in their studios. Maps and any other publicity will be available at the exhibitions…..hmm maybe need to get some post cards printed… We discussed the trail map that one of the artists Dean Entwistle is kindly illustrating and publicity was also discussed. Others volunteered again…I sat on hands again. Apart from agreeing the banners to hang outside out houses/studios to be the same as the last trail ones because they looked cool, and someone checking on insurance. That was about it.
Next meeting 19th November.
Oh I had a nice chat with Jack Loyd who is a photographer showing at the White Gallery in Bollington for the event. He has a Gallery in Chorlton Manchester and they do framing…I need some frames….
http://whttp://www.bollingtonartscentre.org.uk/home.htm
http://www.bollingtonfestival.org.uk/
It’s been a while………I came to a halt, between being busy at work and the school holidays I have not been able to do much. Things are lying unfinished and my enthusiasm for finishing has been slipping away. I want to make new things now not finish the old. I however promised work for the art sale in October (help) what am I going to send? It’s getting closer and closer and we go to France on holiday soon. September is going to be a busy month!
I found more shells, sea shells all broken, small spirals exposed and twisted, loops and holes…….more shells more spirals. I have started to draw them in my sketch book, not sure what I am going to do with them yet. Probably nothing for the artists trail event unless I find more time. The trail meetings will start again in September too, I think it may rekindle my enthusiasm.
Things are a little quieter at work now so I can sketch a bit in Photoshop and explore some ideas from my sketch book, which is good but its not getting the work in my studio done!
They are crawling every where and eating everything my muses. It has been wet and I haven’t been out to collect them up and relocate for a while. They are also crawling all over my studio but unlike the outdoor ones these don’t move, eat, and multiply when I am not there!
The paintings are going well but slow (at a snails pace hehe), but the prints I enjoyed doing on second look are not pleasing me. I am not quite getting to what I want. When I look at then lying around on mass they look promising but when I went to tidy them up and looked at them individually I was disappointed. That should tell me something………
Here are some of my experiments any way.
Nothing much, I ground to a halt wondered about carrying on then had a good experimental printing session.
The studio is full of unfinished work and prints all over the place and funnily enough its starting to look like it might hang together ok. If I ever get anything finished that is! There always seems to be something stopping me getting a little time in the studio at the moment, but hey ho I spent years when I first got “a job” doing none of my own work at all. So this is soo much better than that!
I had an interesting problem when printing the other night, I think it’s a problem with my brain, but considering much of the snail work is about direction I couldn’t get some of the snails to print the right way up!! Maybe I was just tired or maybe they just want to go their own way! Much of my sketch book is full of a kind of automatic drawing, a technical detachment to try to get to what I feel. ( ok scribble) so I quite like it when things seem to take a will of there own. ( happy accident).
