Weathering!

It is absolutely true that we Brits talk about the weather A LOT! I used to resist it and try to find other things to comment on when I met fellow dog walkers or people on walks but I have recently decided to enter into the ongoing persistent conversation we are all having all the time.

Maybe moving out to a more rural area has brought my attention more directly towards the weather and the effects of it. I know I noticed it when I was a child but I don’t think my moods or decisions were directly affected by it as they are now (not that I had to make many weather dependent decisions as a child I suppose as most of the time it would be my parents deciding if we were inside or out).

The truth is, we have such a varied climate, not extreme but definitely changeable, in the UK. There are times when we need to think carefully about what clothing to put on and in fact one of the first things I do each day is check the weather app on my phone to see what I might need to wear so I’m not too hot or cold or soaked through! It’s easy to be caught out with a climate that can give us four seasons in a day! Layering seems to work well most of the year!

As an artist who’s work is about the natural world, I notice what’s going on outside every day and sometimes night. Clear skies, cloudy skies, varied clouds, a blanket of clouds, wind, rain, sleet, dappled sunshine, full blazing sun, a light breeze, gale force winds, stillness, storms, cold and sunny, warm and grey, heatwaves; I could go on and on listing the many words we have to describe very specific types of weather in the same way Inuits have more than 50 words just to describe snow.

Having lived in my current home for over 16 years with the same view across fields with a huge expanse of sky, I have noticed much more than weather too. When you look at the same view virtually every day you begin to notice how other factors create a different view virtually every day. The position of the sun changes as the year goes by because of our planetary position around it. On a day with even the smallest glimmer of sunlight, shadows change throughout the day. The flora and fauna changes, the colour of the grass. The wind blows the view in different directions whether it is easterly or northwesterly. Then we have dawn and dusk - the time when changes happen more noticeably quickly and yet we still can’t pin down the exact moment when it becomes fully light or dark.

On a sunny day in summer, the grass shimmers like a silk dress and everything looks sharp and clear. On a frosty day in winter the earth in the fields can be cold and hard making it easier to walk on than the days when it has been soaked with rain and you slip and slide through it. I recognise the need for a good pair of welly boots for the winter dog walks.

When we sometimes have day after day of mid-greyness and fog or mist, it can be hard to find energy and motivation. I am very thankful for my running friends without whom it would be difficult to peel myself out of bed early on a Saturday morning. I’ve run in pretty much all UK weathers - it’s true there’s no such thing as bad weather, only poor clothing and it’s amazing what your body gets used to. I need to wrap up fairly well if I’m running in below 0 temperatures but I leave my face open to the freezing air as it gives me such a feeling of exhilaration and aliveness.

I know the weather affects my energy levels, outlook and motivation and when I need to I find ways to override that effect. However, I think it’s a good idea to acknowledge the connection we have with the weather and climate. After all, we are part of the natural world and the weather has dictated the habits, patterns and survival of humans and animals for millennia. Our senses exist to tell us what’s happening around us, sometimes for our safety but often for our pleasure. I have decided to embrace the preoccupation we Brits have with the weather. It’s a wonderful, difficult, sometimes threatening, often beautiful aspect of life on this wild planet. Any way we can enhance our ability to notice the world around us is good and when we also connect with another human being over it, even better, so yeah, I think it’s ok to say ‘bit nippy this morning isn’t it?’

Why Do I Make Art?

Our many and varied attitudes towards and experiences of money can make or shape the way we live our lives both as a society and as individuals.

It upsets me that this is the first sentence in a piece I am writing about the reasons I make art but the widespread and justified belief that the arts are very poorly financially rewarded is, a huge reason why many artists don’t continue and parents actively discourage their children from pursuing any of the arts as a career. Artists (and when I refer to artists I mean from any genre of the arts) often take on a range of jobs in order to pay their living costs and then develop their creativity around them. Another reason people are discouraged from going into the arts as their chosen career is because they are not seen as contributing anything important to society. They are luxuries on top of our basic needs and often referred to as hobbies.

I won’t list all the reasons why the arts are an intrinsic part of what it means to be a human being because more and more evidence is coming to general notice and it is becoming clear that creativity is one of the most defining aspects of a meaningful life.

Another consequence of the focus on money is that artists are judged to be successful by the amount of money they make as well as the notoriety they have achieved. There is a scarcity culture which means a perceived limited space for artists to exist as ‘successful’ which then leads to a celebrity culture and singles out individuals as being better than others. It pits artists against artists as if in competition for the top spot.

Of course there are other reasons that contribute to anyone finding it a difficult challenge to be as creative as they would like to be but money often features.

Back to the question and title of this blog…why do I make art? I had to write the first section because I think it is a huge aspect of most creatives’ lives to varying degrees and I want to say that making money is not my first reason for making art but I need to make money somehow and selling art is one of those ways. But wouldn’t it be great if artists were seen as the thinkers and interpreters of universal themes and questions about why we’re all here…and then they got paid for their contribution to the wellbeing and progress of humanity that comes as a result of art being made and the meaning and revelation it brings to peoples lives?

My resolution to this situation was to train to be a school teacher after I left art college. I thought that if I had an art related job with a long summer holiday I might have some time to carry on with my own practice and also be teaching young people a subject I am passionate about. Although I didn’t stay in teaching for long as I had babies, it has given me some great opportunities to work in many different areas of art education, workshops, therapy, and now as a freelance tutor. In every situation I found myself, I determinedly kept some space and time to continue my own practice. Sometimes a small desk in our home, then a shared studio space, a shed at an arts centre and now my own amazing studio space in the back garden. I kept focus on this pursuit throughout all the messiness of life because I know that making art is vital. I can’t provide data or statistics but I see it in people when they create something they’re proud of or didn’t expect. When people’s eyes are opened to something they didn’t see before or they are given permission to play with materials and express something without needing to explain it, it has stirred deep emotions in them and in me. I make art but I also empower other people to make art because we are creative beings, it is in us from birth.

I make art because I need to express something about my grappling with some of the big questions about life. Why does being in natural places make me feel so well. Why do I cry with joy when I see sublime landscapes or the extraordinary effects of light and colour. How does a wave work?! Life is about being alive and wondering without necessarily finding answers. Sometimes the answers are simply in the universality of human wonder. When we wonder together, we uncover a bond between us which is the ability to marvel at and grieve life, in all its beauty and horror. When made accessible to everyone, the arts can bring us into universal states of wonder, lament, and everything in between - that is why I make art and it is difficult to put a price on it.

Space to Reflect

How easy is it to stay on your own trajectory? I am wondering how many of my decisions are influenced by what other people are doing and whether that is a good or bad thing.

The above painting is called ‘Space to Reflect’ and appears to me to portray a reflective place just beyond the viewer’s reach but within sight. A few more steps and we will be there, surrounded by the gentle light and colours. The framing around the edges of the painting marks a boundary, guiding the viewer towards the middle space almost like the guard-rails of a bowling lane making sure the ball does not drift off its target. The colours on these surrounding edges are more opaque and the shapes solid to ensure nothing can get through to distract the viewer from the place beyond, where rest and reflection can be found. In contrast, the space itself is boundaryless where thoughts and imagination can expand as far as they need.

I know we need some structure in our lives but there are times when this feels like a restriction on expansive thought; a repeated clipping of the wings so that although flight happens it is limited. If I don’t have breaks from these structured times, I feel as if I might one day forget how to let my thoughts fly. I might eventually lose the will or the skills to try. That is why I am continually reminding myself or being reminded externally, to stop, slow down, think, reflect. I need to incorporate unstructured time in my life’s rhythms and patterns.

In this 21st century life, we have exposure to more and more and more…of everything! It has its advantages of course but we need to learn how to be blinkered as well. It is important we have a deeper knowledge of our selves than we have had to before because there is so much pulling us away from ourselves. We are seeing how easy it is to be influenced by each other with the term ‘Influencers’ being applied to a growing number of people. If we are always trying to be like someone else, how long will it be before we forget who we are as unique individuals. There are contradictory messages being bandied around to ‘be like me’ as well as ‘be yourself’!

I am thankful to be of an age where I have some life experience and wisdom to see how to extract myself from this element of social culture but I know I am not entirely immune from it either. It can creep in to your thought patterns insidiously and therefore influence your behaviour.

Having regular time to stop, extract myself from all that is influential, and find my own thoughts and connection with ‘me’, is what ultimately raises my consciousness to press the reset button. It can sometimes feel like coming up for air after having a bit of a panic underwater. At first you gasp, but eventually realise you’re ok and there is plenty of air to breathe. It can feel like a huge relief when you get to that space and find you can finally relax.

For me, the physical space around is important. I need to be able to expand my body into the space around it. Wide open places like fields, the coast, the top of a hill are where I go to allow my brain to un-crumple. When my eyes can see the huge expanse of sky above me, or the horizon beyond me, I feel able to give space to all the thoughts and clutter in my mind. Then, I can see what is valuable and what is superfluous or damaging or distracting. I can sort through them and throw away what I don’t need.

The adverse effects of social media and having contact with and awareness of what so many other people are doing can be detrimental to the connection we have with our own needs and potential. I am not anti social media but I grapple with ways to manage it so I can continue to enjoy the benefits of being involved in what is often a wonderful online community. Sticking with your own beliefs, self knowledge and the application of these, can feel risky sometimes. What if I’m wrong and don’t follow along with the majority? Can I cope with the consequences of that possibility? In my experience, when I’ve trusted my gut, intuition or whatever you want to call it, things have gone the way they were supposed to or better and I have experienced unexpected joys. Interesting that we refer to bravery as having the ‘guts’ to do something. It means we listened.

The thing is, we will only hear that inner voice if we go to that space to reflect, whatever or wherever that is for each of us.

Resting Colander

I recently posted on Instagram about an exhibition I did in 2011 at The Ark T Centre in Oxford. I gathered some useful household objects with an obvious purpose for example, a dustpan and brush, mallet, washing up brush, shower head and colander as well as a few others. Then I painted them and mounted them on clean white canvases so that they could ‘rest’ from their purpose. I gave the objects titles which alluded to the state of rest they were in and the colander was called ‘Totally Drained’. I also had captions and quotes around the walls and alongside paintings I’d done.

The aim of this exhibition was to highlight the importance of being still. It is in this state of stillness that we are often confronted with ourselves and the reality of our lives and it can be scary. I think we are sometimes afraid of stillness. However, what I really wanted people to take from the exhibition was permission to stop and rest. For a long time I think I have been aware of the human inclination to try and prove ourselves, myself included. As a child, my Dad called me his ‘ray of sunshine’ because I had so much joy and freedom and used to dance and sing through life. I had nothing to prove. I simply loved being alive! Then along came exam pressure, teenage angst and overwhelm! I totally flunked my O’Levels and scraped a minimum to get myself to sixth form. I felt the failure on the day I opened my results, deep in my stomach and cried hard. It had a lasting impact on me and I went through a time of purposelessness and lack of confidence. The one thing I was very good at though, was partying! I went nightclubbing at least once a week, sometimes 3 times and suddenly discovered how much I loved being with people, dancing, laughing and living wildly. In many ways, even though it was not a particularly healthy way to live, I was able to re connect with my joyful self.

Throughout this time, when I was in a bit of a wilderness and working in various shop jobs (I left sixth form before finishing all my A’Levels with just one in Art!) I never felt any pressure from my parents, I just knew they were concerned in the background and wanted me to be happy and find my own path through it all. I took a rocky way around but found the spark again when I saw all the art students from the foundation course at my local collage, walking down the high street carrying their portfolios and little kit boxes, wearing charity shop clothes and knew they were my tribe. This was not the end of my road of humiliation though and on the foundation course I was not the most talented student and had no idea what ‘fine art’ was so I stuck with graphic design thinking it was the best way to use a creative skill to go and get a job afterwards! I applied for a graphics degree and by some miracle (I charmed the interview panel with my quirky dress sense and clever pre knowledge of the course leader’s preferences!) was accepted but the humiliation continued as I was totally unsuited to the course and failed over and over again because of trying to fit into the wrong shaped hole. I eventually found my way onto the Fine Art course and the sense of ‘coming home’, was a huge relief! The tutors were so kind and encouraging, I still sometimes wonder why they were so nice to me!

Why am I writing about all this? I think it is because I know I am not the only person who has had experiences which have embedded a deep sense of personal failure which are hard to shake off. It has made me feel, time and time again, that I must not drop the ball, and the pressure of that is immense. I’m not a natural workaholic - I am the opposite! Offer me a fun day out and I’ll say yes every time! I work hard at what I do now, I’ve learnt some good habits, but I often suffer from imposter syndrome. I regularly think I’m a bit flaky and don’t push myself hard enough but what am I measuring myself against? What is it any of us is measuring ourselves against?

My inclination is always to enjoy life and to live within the rhythms of the natural world but I also feel the pressure to keep up with everyone who seems to be working so much harder and achieving so much more than me! I am very aware of the importance of knowing my own energy levels and the amount of ‘rest’ time I need. I enjoy achieving things as much as anyone does but I sometimes go beyond the realms of my own resources and then have to take time to recover.

It is hard to swim in the opposite direction to the way others are, it can make us feel all sorts of fomo and self doubt but the more we make it a habit and an acceptable culture to live within, perhaps more will join us in the un-pressured, more restful and enjoyable way of life. Rest, play, work, rest, play, work, rest…

Colours of a Day

Back in January I wrote a blog called ‘Threads of Silence and Time’ which described some revelations I had had. I also mentioned the way thoughts and work sometimes meet themselves in full circle and themes recur in a reassuring way. I am happy to say that I continued following this thread and the resulting body of work has become an exhibition at Darl-e and the Bear gallery in Woodstock, Oxfordshire called ‘Colours of a Day’.

The name for the exhibition came from the title I had given to seven paintings I created as a series. Each painting represents a different time of day. They are called Colours of a Day 6am, 8am, 10am, Noon, 2pm, 4pm and 6pm. What I wanted to do was create a recording of a day through the use of colour. The inspiration for the colours I used came from the many years I have absorbed and observed how a day progresses in the place I live. Over the course of time I have seen many many different types of day but in the months leading up to the paintings I made, there were some common themes.

Painting one is called 6am and describes the intense pink that can fill the sky just for a few minutes as the sun begins to break through over the horizon. Painting two depicts the intensity fading and the more muted lilac and blue hues that spread across the sky. 10am the clouds have come over and there’s a short sharp rain shower. At Noon the sun is high in the sky and stillness has overcome all the activity and flux from the morning sunrise and weather. At 2pm the light is less intense but the stillness remains. By 4pm we can see colours entering the scene again and changes start to happen more quickly and then at 6pm there is a blaze of fiery red, orange and pink as the sun sets and the sky explodes into its intense farewell.

You can watch a video of me talking about ‘Colours of a Day' - Noon’ on the Darl-e and the Bear website.

Darl-e and the Bear video

The interesting thing to me is the capture of time in these paintings. They are a series of moments or periods of time which, when viewed together create a timeline. The paintings could almost be seen as the frames of a film or the story board for an animation. This recording of time has fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Even as a child I remember being glued to the tv if time-lapse photography was being shown or animations being demonstrated which is also the breaking down of movement into short bursts.

In talking about ‘Colours of a Day - Noon’ in the video, I refer to the stillness in the middle of the day. On bright sunny days I often experience this awareness that everything has stopped, or slowed down dramatically. All the excitement happens at the beginning and the end of the day. I often find myself feeling restless during this time and long for the action to start up again. However, as has been a recurring theme for me and I need constantly reminding, these pauses are vital. This painting of Noon is a reminder to me that these moments (however long a moment is) of stillness are a gift to us. Without the stillness, the activity becomes relentless and exhausting. Without the activity the stillness becomes relentless and draining. Nature provides us with a beautiful framework to remind us to dance to her rhythm. Otherwise we find our lives will always feel somewhat out of sync and jar against the flow. Obviously our rhythms will not follow these timings, this is just an example of how our lives need ebb and flow, action and rest. We know full well that we can’t keep going and going and going without stopping to catch our breath, even better is to remember to breathe well before we are gasping. Stillness is the place we hear things and have creative thoughts. It is the place we appreciate everything the activity has achieved. It is the place imagination can thrive.

Be still, sometimes.

Unsaid things

What an amazing natural world we live in…

I sometimes wonder if the way I feel about the natural world comes across in my work and my life. I mean, I think it is utterly PHENOMENAL!! By ‘it’ I mean the whole thing! The world, the planet, the universe, space, the people who live in it and the way we are made or have evolved. It’s incredible don’t you think?! I mean, look at the night sky, look at the amazing colours in sunsets and sunrises and how different they are from day to day. Look at the numerous varieties of insects and animals and their survival instincts and methods. What about light?! I mean, how does that work? Then there’s colour - the number of colours in one small patch of rough ground can be overwhelming, and the more you look, the more you see! Plants and flowers…how many varieties and designs?! I just think it is pretty overwhelmingly wonderful and I can never express how I feel about it without appearing totally crazed! This is what I try to bring to my work but I’m still not sure if it’s expressive enough. I need a whole beach or field to myself with a massive canvas and huge brushes so I can make wild and crazy gestures in paint to express the joy I have which comes directly from the natural world. But I hold something back because I’ve sometimes found that this kind of behaviour makes others feel uncomfortable. Talking with passion or anger or extreme joy, I have found, has put others in a difficult position. They don’t know how to respond and I’m left feeling like I’m a bit extreme and need to temper myself.

Well, I think this has to stop. Because I am angry, passionate and overjoyed all at the same time and it is like a pressure cooker building. I’m angry because my beautiful world, OUR beautiful world is being trashed and it’s not just because we use plastic bags, it’s because huge corporations refuse to change their manufacturing methods. They think that if they distract us into thinking it’s down to us, the consumer, to make sure we always carry a tote bag and we’ll somehow save the planet, then we’ll forget about the bigwigs with their power, control and massive great yachts! Of course the individual can make a huge difference to the way things are done and we must continue to be careful with our resources and value every drop of water but without the really big stuff changing, frankly, we’re fucked! So, we have to find ways to change this. Of course keep signing petitions, buy local and only what we need, re-use, recycle, boycott crap products but for the bigger issues Extinction Rebellion is a good place to start if we want to find out about how we can put pressure on corporations and challenge the way stuff is made and produced. Change IS possible.

I’m about to start reading a book called ‘All We Can Save’ which is a collection of ‘writings by women at the forefront of the climate movement who are harnessing truth, courage, and solutions to lead humanity forward’

Quite honestly I can’t wait to hear their wisdom and knowledge because we really need it I think. And need to act upon it! I will pass on anything I glean from this.

I’m also reading a book called ‘The Book of Trespass’ - another issue I feel strongly about - the origins of land ownership and how it became possible for anyone to ‘own’ pieces of our shared planet and therefore forbid others from walking across it! How ludicrous is that if you really think about it!

And yes, I have strong views on politics because I care passionately about the way we conduct and organise ourselves as humans - that is politics - not ‘are you a lefty or a tory’ - just - how to live together and care for our planetary home with tenderness, care and empathy.

The main thing for me though is this - if people really love something and know about it, they want to keep it. If we were all in love with the beauty and wisdom of nature, and I know most of us reading this are, we would be cherishing and working alongside it and not trying to conquer it. It’s those who still think that nature is something to be bled dry for our benefit who need to be educated and humbled into realising that nature contains everything we need but only if we learn from her rather than trying to rape her.

One final note - I think it’s important to remember that it’s not all bad news. Looking at the big picture we can see how much we have progressed since we started inhabiting the world but we have to remember that progress is not always straightforward. We slide backwards when huge changes are occurring. Change and progress is messy and right now things are really messy. My hope is that this time of turmoil will force us to be creative in our resourcefulness. When I look at the generation coming into their teens and twenties now, the way they treat each other and the natural world with understanding and compassion is enough to restore my hope and fire up my passion again that a better world is possible. Come on!

Full Circles - Why I Paint Them

My favourite shape, as I have come to realise over the years, is the circle! It’s just so satisfying! To me it represents wholeness, completion and also a safe boundary. A circle can help to contain something that may appear weak or fragile. It is aesthetically pleasing and easy on the eye. It also represents movement and I see circles particularly when I’m drawing the sea. The way the waves roll in on the shore is in a motion of circular movements. Sometimes I like to fill in a circle but other times I draw a thin line around an ‘untidy’ area in a painting. Often it is an intuitive move but circles have definitely been appearing in my work since I began painting in an abstract way having gained initial inspiration from painting the sea. My hand loves the act of drawing and painting circles. It’s quite a freeing gesture. I usually go anti-clockwise. My Dad used to comment on the fact that I would stir the sugar into my tea in an anti-clockwise direction, while he stirred clockwise! Yes, those good old days when we had sugar in our tea and were none the wiser!

The phrase ‘has come full circle’ can often be interpreted as a negative idea - that we’re back to square one having gained nothing. I recognise that I have often come back to an idea having explored many others and that the exploration informs and improves the original. I guess this could appear more like a spiral upwards, gathering knowledge and meaning through exploration but always coming back to the roots of my creative practice. So I am not going around in circles but I am moving in a circular direction, revisiting and moving away from my starting point in a cycle. This means I retain my core identity and creative intention but I gather information and inspiration from other sources which help me to grow and develop my work.

I love that circles are a recurring motif and I will continue finding more meaning in them as I spiral upwards in pursuit of creative adventure!

Beneath A Widening Sky

“It was like having a great big hug….!”

At the beginning of this year, 2021, I realised I needed more structure to my rhythm of working and had not ventured outside to draw for a while. I was flitting from one project to another with undirected creative energy. Considering I see the natural world as the foundation of everything I do, I could understand why I was becoming like a rabbit in headlights with so many different ideas buzzing around my head (a symptom of being a number 7 on the Enneagram if you’re interested!). It was time to anchor myself! Drawing outside, in situ, underpins most of my work and underpins me! The light, colours, shapes and atmosphere of the land and seascape are what energise and inspire me. So I decided to plan a small series of work based on one or two outdoor sessions. On the day I set out, towards the end of the daylight in January, I could already see the light changing - I love the dawn and dusk because this is where you see the changes before your eyes and it fills me with wonder. It’s like witnessing the turning of the earth and brings rise to all those feelings of connection with the planet and our universe. I found my spot, sat and spread out my boxes of pastels and the unevenly cut pieces of paper taken from a large drawing I had kept but didn’t like. My intention was to draw over these cut sections. The sky was a dusky, grey blue with hints of lilac and cobalt but as I completed one drawing after another everything became bathed in the warmth of a pink sunset, including me - It was like having a great big hug!

I was able to capture something of this in my memory but had used up most of the paper by the time the sky was in full glow. When I set about creating the paintings back in my studio a few days later, the first thing I did was mix a warm pink and painted the whole surface of the boards in it, so that it became the under layer of this series, giving it the warm glow I had seen that day. If you look at the work on my website, you can see the underpinning of this pink and how it brings warmth to the paintings. I have always found so much joy and security when I am outside in the natural world, as so many of us have and more so in this last year. I wanted these paintings to go some way to bring this warmth and comfort to wherever they find homes.

"Art is Everything That You Don't Have to Do..." Brian Eno

I’ve just re listened to the brilliant Brian Eno’s John Peel Lecture from 2015 on BBC6 Music…Inspiring and Hopeful!

Me in the foreground with my older brother…I love this picture because I look like I am jumping for joy which captures how I remember being and still am a lot of the time…I’ve included it because it visually describes how I feel about being part of a collaborative creative community…

So much in this lecture, packed into about 45 minutes…the first big question ‘What is Art?’ and as the title of my blog suggests, that’s what he brilliantly came up with! He then explains this with examples such as - we have to move, but we don’t have to do a tango or a waltz or a twerk…and we have to wear clothes, but we don’t have to wear a style of clothes. So art is all the stuff we do that is beyond our basic requirements to survive.

He goes on to describe what art can do - imagine new worlds, create empathy, give people opportunities to experience extreme feelings in a safe place and so on…these are just a snippet of the examples he gave and the depth he alluded to in a short time scale.

As well as providing a means for people to be exposed to some of the dangers and situations in the real world through the false worlds that art creates, it can expose us to some of the joys and freedoms through a false world in order that we might be made aware of the joys and freedoms of the real world. Both are necessary if we are to have a balanced view of reality so that we can be active in improving the lives of ourselves and others as well as celebrating the wonders of the world and each other.

He talks about the possibility that we are moving towards a time of abundance and generosity in the arts rather than economic scarcity and I think for many of us we have seen this happening through schemes like the Artist Support Pledge, created by Matthew Burrows this year. But I have seen it personally too in the way artists are working more in community and sharing ideas. There is a move away from the idea that the individual should be celebrated for their genius and rather the community around the idea is celebrated for the development of ideas as a cooperative act. Ideas are not seen as a secret to be kept for the glory and wealth of an individual but something to be shared so that we can use our collective creativity and intelligence to expand it to it’s full potential.

He leaves us with the hope of a great collaborative artistic future and I’m definitely going to celebrate and join in with that! What we’re going through at the moment is hugely challenging in so many ways and at so many different levels. But we do know that pandemics do end and we will come through this - not necessarily in a positive way for everyone that’s for sure, but we have to hope that as a collective community around the world, there is much to look forward to beyond the pain, heartache and trauma and I believe creativity is going to play a huge part in our recovery and re building.

Calm in the Storm

Anxiety is a part of my life. I think it’s a part of most of our lives but some of us experience more of it than others. To be honest I’m not really too far along the scale and what I cope with is pretty manageable but there have been times in my life when it has become unmanageable. I have often catastrophised situations in my head and it has sent me spiralling into panic mode. A lot of the time, all I wanted was for things to return to ‘normal’ so I could feel safe again. As long as everyone around me was safe, I could feel safe, and relaxed. But what happens when the situation is not going to return to normal? What happens when I am faced with difficult situations that go on and on?

About 14 years ago, I had a revelation about ‘rest’. I created a whole body of work about the need for us to spend time doing nothing. I bought a series of household objects with an obvious purpose, like a colander, dustpan and brush, clock. Then I painted them. By doing this, I rendered them ‘useless’. They still held their form but looked brighter and more interesting and creative but they couldn’t ‘do’ anything. They were resting from their need to be useful. The exhibition I created around this brought some viewers to tears as they realised their need to ‘be’. That our existence alone is enough. We are enough.

Over the following decade I discovered a number of ways to allow stillness into my life. I have practiced many different things and found several that work well for me. Some of these have become habits, embedded in my being but that doesn’t mean I have it sorted. I still feel anxious, and I’m glad about it because I think it runs alongside sensitivity. I’m not saying you have to be an anxious person in order to be sensitive but I know mine are definitely linked. I’m still in the process of making friends with my anxious self but I rather like her ability to sense things others may miss.

I am a painter of the sea and land because I find such peace when I am out in natural places. Feeling the wind, the rain, the sun and smelling damp earth as well as the salt of the sea and the sounds of crashing as well as gentle waves brings me such equilibrium. Creating art is my language and my way of making sense of the world and my place in it. I can’t always tell you exactly what my work is about, it just is. But I can say that when I looked at one of my latest series’ of ‘abstract’ gestural paintings on paper like the one above, I felt as if I was looking at the storm ahead. I can see the vigour and intensity and it looks dramatic. The wonderful thing is, though, that I am standing firmly rooted, looking and observing without being drawn in. The storm rages but I am still. Even if I don’t feel like this most of the time, the least I can do is stop every now and then and look at these images as a reminder that for now, in this moment, the storm will not swallow me.

The Power of the Sea

I knew I needed it but didn’t know how much…

What is it about the sea that draws so many of us? Is it the open space, the colours, the opportunity to see the horizon? The fresh air, the breeze, the energy. Of course it is probably all of these things and many more.

For me it is the space, smell, colour, movement and energy. I know there are many who believe that it makes a difference if you grew up near the sea but I’m sure that’s not exclusive. I think there are many who discover the power of the sea later in their lives.

I grew up by the sea though, and I know I didn’t realise how much it would affect me when I moved inland as an adult. It was so normal to be near the sea, I think I naïvely thought I’d be able to get the same feelings of freedom inland if I went out for walks and sometimes I do but there is something else about the sea - it’s like the ultimate outdoors. Is it going back to our origins as some believe? We came from the sea perhaps so it is in our genetic coding? Is it because there are no apparent boundaries?

I love its mighty power and its gentle stillness. In one day it goes through so many different states and movements. Some days it is like a millpond and others tempestuous and restless.

All I know is that it is in my soul and I can’t imagine not being able to get to it. This huge powerful body of living energy, heavy and so much stronger than we realise.

I’m so thankful I unexpectedly made it to the coast this summer - it has refreshed and inspired me - filled me up and spurred me on.

Walking the coast path of North Cornwall, I felt I could have stayed there forever in a constant state of peace and true joy. Painting it brings me similar joy - a state of absorption almost ecstatic. The movement of paint and mark making created from my own inner energy and intensity is like the sea welling up from within me and spilling out over the sea wall.

A very dear friend of mine, artist Tim Steward, sent me this piece of writing over the summer - it is so apt. It relates to a painter called Joan Eardley whose work inspires me and I connect with.

“The sea, the sea. Baudelaire thought of it as landscape in perpetual movement. To paint the sea convincingly is a near impossibility. It has to be experienced. Like snow on the land, its essential nature simply may not be painted. With snow it is silence: with the sea it is movement. There is the calm too. ‘It is a mild mild wind’ says Ahab to Starbuck (Moby Dick), looking at the flat ocean ‘and a mild looking meadow’.

But the power of the sea over the imagination derives from its enormous bulk, weight, volume and depth being hugely in motion. There are certain rare kinds of mentality which recognise an innate emotional connection between sea and paint, between the changeableness of mass and the ambiguity of paint, between what it is like to confront the illimitable motion of the sea and to imply volume and movement in broad, running paint through the risked gesture to such an extent that the spray is in the pigment and the racket of the waves and wind have inexplicably entered its sentiment.”

I’ll leave you with a few photos.

Creativity Rocks Our World

I know I want to write something but I don’t know what it is yet…sometimes the subject comes before the urge but other times the urge is there without a subject. Those are the times when you have to just start writing or painting SOMETHING! Where does this creative energy come from? My personal belief is that we are born with it. Some may experience it in greater degrees than others but I think all human beings are born with a natural creative instinct or ability. It doesn’t mean that we should all go on to be artists but it does mean that we should all be given opportunities throughout our lives, to use creativity as a means of expressing our experiences of life.

When I’ve heard stories of people who, as children, were told their drawings weren’t very good or they were torn up in front of them, it breaks my heart. It is so brutal and it feels to me like someone having their voice box ripped out from their throat or silenced with gaffa tape. I hear stories of this kind of response to artwork even now, by people who think that by being cruel to children they will somehow teach them to try harder. Who created the standards by which art is often judged? Who decided that drawings are supposed to be a realistic representation of an object or subject. I love the Ken Robinson story he tells of a young child in primary school who was asked by her teacher what she was drawing. The girl replied ‘God’ and the teacher said ‘but how can you draw God? No one knows what God looks like!’ to which the girl replied ‘they will in a minute!’. I laugh with joy at this story and I love the freedom she had in expressing her imagination and can only hope her picture was received with the wonder it deserved.

I’m only really touching the surface of this topic but I sense there are a lot of adults and children in the world who suffer the consequences of ‘creative abuse’. Creativity is vulnerability. It is the revealing of our unique response to our experiences. I have had the pleasure of teaching a lot of people over the years - expressive art making, more formal painting and drawing, life drawing, and worked with people of all ages from 1 - 91. There are always several conversations with people who have been deeply hurt by things that have previously been said about their art skills and yet they know they need to keep doing it. So many of us are inhibited by the possibility of ‘getting it wrong’ or our work looking rubbish. I want to say to those of you who have had negative, hurtful experiences around creativity - you ARE creative and you CAN express yourself wonderfully and meaningfully. I want to see people released from the shackles that have been clamped around their beautiful creative energy.

I feel pained by the phasing out of the arts - particularly visual art, from the school curriculum. It is one of the most vital means of expression, discovery, connection with others, mental development - I could go on - we have as human beings.

Communicating through pictures and made objects has been going on for millions of years so come on everyone lets keep making, painting, photographing, dancing, singing, writing (and all the other art forms available) and show each other who we really are.

Oxfordshire Artweeks

My Artweeks Story

Land, Sea and Sky

I entered Artweeks just before the deadline in December, knowing it would be one of the first things I’d be doing after being made redundant from my job at The Art Room in April. This was long before COVID 19 hit Europe. I’d been preparing work for a while and had in mind the kind of exhibition I’d create and the work I’d like to sell. I made sure I had a good variety of large works and smaller items that would be easy for visitors to take away. I had them all mounted and prepared in advance. In February I went to a great training day with Esther and Jo, the organisers, at The Jam Factory in Oxford. I met other artists and made friends and connections and left feeling very informed and a little anxious about the volume of work involved but hopeful and excited at the prospect of throwing myself in to something art career related, immediately after my final day of work.

When the restrictions were introduced in March, there was some uncertainty regarding their length of time and severity so it looked as if Artweeks could possibly still go ahead as it was still 6 weeks away. After a couple of weeks of updated upon updated emails, we realised it would either have to be cancelled or go online and take on a whole new character. I am still flabbergasted that in only 5 weeks, Esther and Jo managed to put together a varied, professional online studios event with so much choice and lots of features to last the whole month of May - Astonishing!

I spent hours and hours getting my head around the back end of my website, the front end of my AW gallery and all facets of my social media presence!

There were lots of possibilities for virtual studio tours, online zoom talks and live sessions as well as videos of artists talking about their work. I learnt a lot of new things and managed to create an online flip book http://online.fliphtml5.com/cxzel/jlvg/?1588155961917#p=1 , make a time lapse video, photograph all my work and upload it, label and detail it. All time consuming, mind bending, eye aching stuff.

I loved it when it started and I was able to put out a vase of freshly picked flowers and put them in a jug on an old table outside my house. I used my Artweeks banner and put out business cards. Lots of people were using the lane outside our house for their daily lockdown walk so it was busier than usual and lots of cards were taken and interest raised. I had some interesting conversations with locals I hadn’t met before and made some new connections.

I enjoyed creating social media campaigns and engaging with people through Instagram and Facebook. Most of my sales came in the first week but each weekend I created a different focus and this helped to keep people interested. I really enjoyed drawing and photographing 10 small pastel drawings done in my garden and hung on mini bulldog clips and selling for £15 each.

For the final weekend I put four paintings in to a secret auction for viewers to bid by direct message. It was a bit of a risk but I made it clear I had a minimum amount in my head so would decide whether to sell or not if the bids were too low. Luckily this didn’t happen and I sold one piece to someone I know will appreciate the work.

I’ve learnt that it is fun trying out new ideas, having a go at technology I’m unfamiliar with, and that selling art has a lot to do with relationships. People love to know the story behind the work and the story behind the artist. I love taking part in events like this because I gain so much from the comments and observations people make about mine and other artists’ work. Lots is opening up before me and I really hope you will stay with me. Please feel free to comment or email me anytime - conversations are always so helpful and thought provoking. If you’d like to subscribe to my monthly - ish newsletter please click on the link - it’s easy, just your name and email address and click ‘subscribe’ https://www.alisonberrettartist.com/subscribe-to-newsletter

Until next time…..stay well.

The Big Sky

For anyone needing some sky today here are a few moments from today’s offering…click on the image for more…

I’m coming through a few days of lacking in focus and energy. It’s been only 4 days of lockdown in the UK so far and I’m so thankful that so far we’ve had sunshine and good weather to lift our spirits. I think I’m going through that detoxing time that often happens when you stop…I sometimes feel it on a Sunday…all the melancholy comes to the surface because of the stresses of the previous week. Rather than keeping on going and going and going and suppressing the feelings like we usually do, this period of stopping has meant that my body, mind, spirit have allowed it to surface and be kind of skimmed off. I’m thinking we all need a bit of adjustment time to this new and hopefully temporary way of life. Today though, because I haven’t forced myself to ‘do’ things for the last few days, I felt a bit more energetic and able to be a bit creative…I cleaned the bathroom - yippee - and then started sanding down a set of drawers that I want to paint and revive so I can get organised with my art venture. I’m remaining hopeful that good things will come from this time but I’m aware that there will be many different experiences of it.

The sky helps me to keep things in perspective. The size and scale of the sky reminds me that we are not alone in this vast universe. We are not going through this on our own.

Pink Tramlines and where do we go from here?

In just over a week, this painting was due to be shown at the annual Oxford Lent Concerts held in Queens College Chapel, Oxford University. Sadly it has been necessary to cancel the concerts due to the risk of spreading corona virus. These concerts were first created by an inspirational couple 15 years ago. I was asked to be involved by an artist friend of mine Tim Steward who’s idea it was to have art ‘icons’ to meditate upon whilst listening to the extraordinary live music in a setting I would not usually find myself in. We have been part of these concerts from the beginning and it has been a wonderful way to mark time and the changing of our lives over the 15 years. It has become a community of artists and musicians meeting together to create something free for people to come to and I’m sure will continue next year if not before.

The great thing about these concerts is that they give us all a chance to stop and reflect and to enjoy some stillness. We forget the busyness and sit listening to the music in total silence for 45 minutes.

This painting suggests a moment of stopping, looking ahead before embarking on our forward journey. It is inspired by the fields I look out upon near my home where there are the same tractor lines in the field almost all year round. I often put paths in my work. I like the idea of stopping and having a chance to dream ahead. I’ve done this a lot in my life and I’ve seen many of these dreams become a reality. I really think stopping is essential. We can’t go on in the way we have been in our culture with this ever increasing pace and filling our lives with so much content that it hurts. I’m seeing and hearing more and more people writing and talking about the need for simplicity and slowness. It’s what I’m craving and I think many others are too.

I hope that the corona virus dies out before taking any more lives and my heart goes out to any who have lost loved ones already. I also hope that throughout this time where our lives have been internationally interrupted, we can stop and reflect so that when we set foot on the path again we don’t end up running so fast that we miss the beauty of our lives.

So let’s use this time whilst we’ve been forced to stop, to make some thoughtful decisions about how we will live our lives when it is time to start moving again. When we stop, wisdom speaks and it is for us to decide whether we follow the path she lays before us or get caught up in our own addictions again; addictions of achievement and productivity. Let’s come together to bring back some quietness and slow enjoyment of our beautiful world.

I must go down to the Sea again....

I have early memories of my mother taking my siblings and me, dressed warmly and with pyjamas underneath, down to the seafront when it was a high tide in Weston-super-Mare where we grew up. There we would watch the waves crashing over the wall, sometimes running away from the sea spray as it erupted like lava towards us.

At Art College in 1989 I had a revelation about the way I could express myself and respond to the thrill of nature when a fellow art student and I took ourselves down to Exmouth beach during the terrible storms and made paintings of the sea. They were encrusted with sand and the wind was so strong I could only see through a small slit in my scarf which was wrapped tightly around my head. There were some women in the beach cafe opposite looking on in bewilderment. It was a turning point in my work. The speed at which I had to work and the intuitive and impulsive mark making I made have remained with me and are a central part of all the art I create.

Like so many of us, the sea pulls me towards it almost like the gravity of the moon cycles pulling the waves by magnetic force in and out. There is nothing more energising and cleansing than time spent by the sea.

In 1995 we (my art student husband and I) moved to Oxford - one of the most landlocked counties in the uk. I had no idea I would miss the sea so much. I hadn’t appreciated how important it was that my life so far had included an almost daily opportunity to experience the joy and freedom of living near the coast.

Being an optimist, I made it my aim to find ways to be inspired by the inland landscape and me and my creative and resourceful husband and family eventually fulfilled a dream of building somewhere to live in Oxfordshire with spaciousness and open skies which help me daily to find joy and clarity.

However, I cannot cope for too long without responding to the call to drive towards the horizon. Throughout my career as an artist I have revisited the theme of the sea. It is where my true voice emerged and I found a way to express myself through mark making with all kinds of materials - paint, charcoal, sand, pastels and pigment. As a child I had a strong urge to draw - I didn’t know being an artist was a thing but I knew I had to draw what I could see and to express my inner voice. I used pencils and pens and paint and remember having a set of pastels which I loved. I’ve kept coming back to pastels over the years.

2019 was the year that my use of pastels has not only been revived but has unlocked so much more potential to express myself through colour and mark making combined. In February 2019 I visited St.Ives in Cornwall with the intention of making work whilst I was there. It couldn’t have been a better week. The spring tides were high and dramatic and the Cornish light at it’s best. The combination of being able to record colour, light, movement and energy through mark making with my favourite Unison pastels was so liberating! I filled sketchbooks with energetic drawings. The memories of being there are so much better embedded in my mind, and body if I have made drawings on site. The gestures made, the colours combined and the emotions experienced are retained in my body through the act of drawing.

I get such a thrill from being in the natural world and especially when it is dramatic and overwhelming. It’s that feeling of being truly alive! I believe there is an innate connection between humans and nature and the work I do comes from a response to this from deep within me.

When I returned from Cornwall, I was able to work from the drawings I’d made on the beach and a series of sea pastel drawings came pouring from me. Seascapes of the Soul - Unleashed was one of this series. I loved making the deep blended background first and creating the depth and drama I had seen from the beach. Then I unleashed a variety of marks and colours to try and recreate the sense of wave after wave hitting the sand and the multiple directions of spray and swirls and puddles and energy.

This year the advert for entries to the Pastel Society Annual Exhibition pulled me towards it and I decided I had nothing to lose. Imagine the thrill of receiving an email saying your work has been accepted to the next stage of judging! On January 4th my husband and I got up very early to get my picture to the Mall. It was my older son’s birthday so we didn’t want to take up too much of the day as he was staying with us! We drove from Oxfordshire and then walked through Hyde and James Park taking it in turns to carry it under our arms. We dropped it off and quickly walked back on what was a beautiful sunny, clear morning with central London looking its best. I was over the moon to receive an email later that week to say my work had been selected for the show!

On the evening of 6th February, the opening at The Mall galleries was to take place. I booked my train as early as I could get away from work hoping to be there by 6pm when the show would be opened officially by Paul Martin. I arrived at the station to discover my train had been cancelled! During that frustrating 45 minutes of waiting I received a phone call from Alistair Redgrift from The Mall Galleries to tell me I had won a prize and would I be at the show by 6pm?! I knew I wouldn’t make it by 6 and there was nothing I could do to make my journey faster at the mercy of public transport! I took as many short cuts as I could and made it through the gallery doors at 6.15! Prizes were being awarded, claps given, photographs taken. Had I missed my moment? No! 3 prizes later, my name was called and I made my way through the throng of visiting and supporting public to receive a handshake and a beautiful box of Unison Pastels! A quick photograph with Paul Martin and a beaming smile! Next thing I knew a kind gentleman was buying me a glass of wine and a photographer was asking me to find my work. Soon after, one of my sons and his girlfriend arrived as did one of my very dear friends. We wandered around enjoying the show and all the while I held my new box of pastels close to me! There was such a variety of interesting and beautiful work with some incredible skills demonstrated. It was wonderful to meet one or two of the other artists in the show including Susie Prangnell who won first prize in the catalogue award. Her work is beautiful.

Since then I have been overwhelmed by the response to my work and the award from friends, family and complete strangers! Seeing my drawing being used in the publicity and on social media by The Mall Galleries and the Pastel Society has also been an unexpected thrill and I’m really looking forward doing an interview with Unison Colour for their blog! It’s been an amazing week! Thank you so much to The Pastel Society, Mall Galleries and to Unison Colour for a brilliant prize and one I can’t wait to start using! Thank you also to the brilliant Isis Creative Framing for presenting my work so beautifully.

I can feel the energy rising for more work to be unleashed!