Threads

I find myself ready to show this series of drawings. Happily, they will be shown as my Candidate’s submission for the RBSA exhibition to decide whether or not I can become a full member of this historic society. (I’ve been an Associate Member for the required three years)

In the past, an exhibition has often been the point at which I depart, and seek the next idea. But I do feel with this lot, that I’m not anywhere near done yet. I’ve not answered the question yet: Can the unsettling feelings of rootlessness be conveyed through the subversion of traditional observational drawings?

I think, through an exploration of scale, composition, and manipulating the relationships between these natural objects, extracted from their original environments, that I am starting to get somewhere. I’m finding that little bit of weirdness that makes my skin prickle a bit… but there’s more to be done.

A few posts ago I mentioned the Assembled Utterances idea. I think that’s what I need to remember. I am gathering objects and ideas and metaphors and meaning, straining at the semiotics of the work to find something new… in order to express it.

By continuing to observe and record these found natural objects I examine and record, I am seeking common properties, to try to link them as families. I’m looking for the inherited qualities that make them (and then as signifiers of me, the signified)… family.

It all comes back to family in the end. Or whatever word you want to use for those connections we hold with each other.

I’ve decided that this year I am not going to do any “pay to enter” exhibitions. I did quite a few last year, cost me a small fortune and got me nowhere. I’m not sure it’s the right place for me, and I’m not sure that the money is going in the right direction. I don’t know what the ideal model is, but it sure isn’t this. So I’m not doing it. I’m not going to say never again, but for now, I am going to concentrate on doing things differently.

Last year was so busy I have decided to limit myself. I am an Associate Member of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, and this year I am up for full membership. So I am, for the first four months of the year, concentrating on that. The work is done, so I am now preparing it for the show, writing my statement, taking photos etc. The exhibition is in April. By the end of that I should know if I have achieved my goal. Fingers crossed tightly!

In addition to that, I do want to go to Sweden to visit Stuart Mayes and talk about how we might do a joint show, and explore where that could be.

That should take me up to the end of June. Then I will reassess and think about the later part of the year.

I think, really, this year, I just want to concentrate on the work, do some reading, talk to people, do something collaborative with Helen and Bill again…(and Stuart) and keep my options open. A period of consolidation is required I think. I need to go over what I have discovered over the last year or so, let it settle, bed down, and maybe it can inform what happens next.

I decided the applying for things merry-go-round was exhausting, and ultimately disappointing. Getting rejections, however well you steel yourself, is demoralising. So this year the thing to do is to counteract that by only undertaking those activities which uplift!

The Swedish lessons are going well I think, but I am still looking for a conversation partner… if you speak Swedish, or know someone who does, and you are vaguely in the Midlands, let me know! The coffee is on me… Fika is the way forward!

Over the last week, I’ve met four people who have said they follow me on Instagram, and I’ve been really busy!

I couldn’t for the life of me remember being really busy, so I thought I’d take a look. Since the new year I’ve had covid, read some bits of some books, and read two whole, but very short books. I’ve written three blog posts, sharpened some pencils, done some drawing, put up a poster about the sewing circle I’m trying to get going, done a two hour improv workshop, posted a memory about work I did three years ago, and stuck some words to bits of paper.  Hardly two months work is it? What is it about social media that skews your life view so much?

Having said that, I am at the moment feeling rather weary. My joints hurt and there won’t be any relief from that for a couple of years probably by the time I get on the waiting list, work my way up it, get a new knee and then recover. This has made me very grumpy. I’m snappish, angry, sad, and in pain. Not the ideal headspace for making art. Most of the time I do try to push through, and distraction is actually the only thing that does seem to work. If I am doing something, talking to people and so on, I’m not thinking about it, and can be quite productive. The effect that has on the work I think, can be seen. But maybe that’s because I know it is there.

I have a couple of deadlines ahead, that I MUST meet. But today, I just don’t have the bandwidth, as the youngsters say. I do not have the capacity to sort out six of my drawings for an exhibition, attach hangers to the back, and take decent photos of them to send in. Today, actually I want to nap, in between sleeps. Then wake up for a little rest. I want to bang out a bit of sitting.

Tomorrow of course, might be different. Tomorrow I might be rested enough, have the energy, and the renewed determination to do my hair, maybe make up, put on some nice clothes and just get on with it. I seem to spend a lot of my time telling myself to get on with it. My theory being that if I stopped every time I was in pain, or tired, I would get nothing done at all. I want to be productive, creative, and be seen to be so. But sometimes… just some days… today… that work is too fucking hard.

Stone thinking…

I am satisfied with how the twigs sit now. I know what they are, where they came from in terms of my evolving practice, and I know what they’re doing, what they stand for and what I’m doing with them.

I can’t yet say the same for these stones.

As with the sticks, I start to get to know the stones by handling them and drawing them. Stones are connected to the earth the twigs emerge from, the roots surrounded them but do not penetrate them. These particular stones though have holes in them, worn by the power of water and sand and smaller stones, or the burrowing of sea creatures into softer parts of the stone… (these holes could support a plant… I might make it happen… )

Semiotically speaking the place these particular stones came from is not the same environment as the sticks… perhaps my mother was a stone and my father was a stick? Brought together by circumstance from 2000 miles apart… I am already seeking extra layers of meaning for myself. Maybe I do this because of that feeling of rootlessness? A need to create order from chaos?

I will continue to draw them… to see if they start to tell me more…

I’ve started to draw them together, I like how that feels and looks, and threading a stick through a hole in a stone feels like the natural thing to do…

(more…)