Drawing Closer

The Colonnades, limited edition print www.dlwp.com shop £30)

My drawing practise 

I draw in order to see.  I want to see things more clearly, differently, to gain better understanding of surfaces, form, contrast and space. It slows me down and stills my urgency to record and develop ideas. Through the process of mark making I become physically and emotionally involved with my environment. This connection is important because it allows me to interpret what I see, to get beyond the immediate.

Drawing enables me to begin developing a visual language for identity both external and internal. This is a life long growing cathartic narrative of how I see the world and its objects; this is an extension of me. A visual story revealing and mapping my life.

I find it stimulating, challenging, exciting and frustrating. I cannot, not draw. I cannot create work without drawing, it focuses and strengthens integrity. Drawing is about being raw, open and honest. 

Wave series #10 and 11 are in Rye Art Gallery until 24th March.

Wave series  #10

Wave series #11

Drawing prize to rock star via a shed

Being on the Jerwood Drawing Prize shortlist http://jerwoodvisualarts.org is an organic experience. As the exhibition tours the country its both perceived and received in different measure. The new Hastings Jerwood Gallery http://www.jerwoodgallery.org is currently hosting this diverse and fascinating show until January 6th.

For me, at a relatively early stage in my career its been an essential endorsement of my ability giving me that extra measure of self belief that opens new doors and not only seizes opportunities but anticipates them too. To see my work exhibited in professional spaces such as the Jerwood Space, London ,http://jerwoodvisualarts.org be written about, check out CQ magazine Winter edition http://www.culturalquarterly.co.uk and be taken seriously face to face is both amazing and invaluable.

Its a bit like making a really good hit single which needs to be backed up with an album. So in order to achieve rock star status I have stepped up my attitude and am taking myself seriously, getting myself a specific place to work, setting a 12 month plan in motion.

Ok I've bought a shed. The process of raising the money to buy a studio shed was incredible. I had to get all my work together from the last 25 years (oh am I that old?) completely empty and clean out our flat living space, (do not underestimate this task I live with 3 boys under 9 years) display it, price it, advertise the whole kaboodle and then bake mountains of Brownies. It was like having my own un-curated retrospective  Scary (because you don't always want to show a diverse range of work all together) but also enlightening because I could see a progression and maturity in my work, common themes, some fantastic observational drawing and experimental work. I saved a few pieces back to work on in my next phase.

The next phase is more drawing.  Big lumps of charcoal and square formats. Using the landscape as my framework I am developing a Creeping Buttercup illustration for a lovely friend who has been patiently waiting for this work for 2+ years! But its right that its being done now. Blog on Creeping Buttercup to follow.

I have been overwhelmed by people's support and their compliments. My three boys also spotted an opportunity to become the next young apprentice and made over a tenner selling their own drawings and painted shells for 10p each. This was fabulous and really broke the ice for everyone.

Shed-ding light on a new work space

I have been contemplating how I can finance a garden studio (a shed to most people). From researching several varieties of sheds it seems that a potting shed might do the trick as long as I insulate it, put a skylight in the roof, get some electrics to it and put a tap in the garden. (I would love to throw some old palettes together but just don't have the skills, time or physical build to do it methinks). All this is very possible but will cost over £1000. So after a meaningful discussion over the bathroom threshold with the software designer we decided I must sell work in order to finance the project... In my defence I have already begun with 3 exhibitions in Lewis and Eastbourne most notably the http://www.townereastbourne.org.uk/ Towner Gallery cafe where I have sold this one so far.

Storm 

But the niggling question 'what if nothing else sells?' remains and thus a strategy was born fuelled by a need to have a better place to work away from washing draped everywhere and the usual family detritus  Using my status as a Jerwood shortlister this year, I am pursuing contacts and galleries which I think will be suited to my work. 

My first research trip to Rye Art Gallery http://www.ryeartgallery.co.uk/ was very positive and Sarah was very warm even remembering my name and work from the Rye Contemporary Art Fair back in 2011. She was willing to set a date to look at my work despite being in the middle of curating two shows and expecting a new grandchild. 

The plot for a potting shed thickens: now I am having a studio sale to raise shed funds on 24/25th November 2-5pm in Bexhill, have been accepted into axisweb http://www.axisweb.org so now have this webpage, I am looking into crowd funding and an arts council application...so hear goes

Feel it don't think it.

this is not a horizon, 'Drawing Now' Linchpin Gallery, Eastbourne from October 6th -26th 

Disconnect shell collage 1

Drawing is a language we should all practise. If you do it often enough it becomes a natural extension of you. Distance yourself from ideas that drawing should be this or that. Drawing is mark making, expression, thought.

If I apply this same freedom to other areas in my life I can get a better sense of myself unconstrained by what other people or groups think. Without judgement. This in term allows for a stronger integrity and truth.

My disconnect series continues with work based on reflecting a state of mind, a psychological self portrait. Investigating my history, my reaction to influences in my life such as faith, family, culture, education and location. Black graphite is something I strongly identify with and use a lot. I am using a combination of  representative forms such as triangles and landscape as a structure for thoughts, feelings and emotions.

It feels clumsy and shaky but I think drawing gets more interesting the more vulnerable I feel, I often feel very nervous while I'm drawing. As I'm doing it though, strangely, there is a transferral of confidence and strength. As if another force is at work and that is my logic letting go and instinct becoming dominant I have to feel it not think it.

Oddly enough articulating this phenomena involves thinking not feeling it. Which lies at the heart of writing an artists statement. My conclusion is that I should see writing as drawing and get practising.

Juddering through my internal terrain

Internal terrain #1 

Yesterday I went to a very interesting talk by artist duo Annabel Tilley and Rosalind Davis at the De La Warr Pavilion. 

The A to Z of surviving as an artist. 

Annabel and Rosalind are founders of ZAP or 

<blockquote>www.ZeitgeistArtsProjects.com</blockquote>

What came across was passion, drive and 'can do' attitude. This duo is dynamic and entertaining Rosalind and Annabel seamlessly tore through the alphabet of do's and don'ts a lot of which were good old common sense, but who doesn't need a bucket full of that tipped over their heads now and again? It never ceases to amaze me how I can be thinking of doing something but just never really actually DO it. So I picked up a few salient points.

Be ambitious and audacious! This is strong stuff, sometimes I feel very ambitious and strangely guarded at the same time. But once broken into small enough chunks most things become reachable so I aim to grow into these characteristics and be more myself.  

Research doesn't just mean reading. It also includes (and thank goodness for those of us bad at and easily bored with reading web based text) visiting, talking, tweeting and building relationships face to face. 

So yay! I CAN do that after all. 

Set aside 10 mins each day to check over a few relevant blogs rather than try and read them all and then instantly forget everything.

Being an artist is a job like any other, you need to put in the hours and work hard at it. This is common sense GOLD. I reckon there are several other people out there like me who are still struggling with the inherited notion that it's a vocation and something to do in between other things ....but if we don't take ourselves seriously and develop strategies for all the blocks and hurdles that we encounter then who will?

Following that little revelation is the small matter of choice. I have a choice (ta da!) and need to practise using that right and become skilled at communicating it well, focussing my choices to make the most of opportunities for my artistic career. 

The 5 P's 

Persevere - keep on keeping on. 

Plan - research and use direct experiences 

Pick wisely - be aware of choices and agendas

Pernickety - agree to some things not everything and get details right. 

Posterity - what am I laying down for the future and how will that future be nurtured?

The reality is I am not emerging as an artist. I am juddering on as an artist....forwards a bit and then stopping before something spurs me on again. Does that resonate with you? 

I my next post: more of my latest judderings and some further explanation of the internal terrain series. 

Jerwood drawing prize

I entered along with over 2000 others for a place alongside 70 in the London show of the longest running drawing prize just daring to hope I might be accepted.

I was!

This is the drawing. 1x1.5m in graphite and charcoal called Longman.

I did have another one of a different section of the same hillside ....but I tore it up in anger. Was that wise I now ask myself?

In the Studio - work in progress.

I have spent a long time living with and looking at this first piece, as often happens it has been influenced by the progress I made with the second piece. The second piece was an outworking of the ideas from the first. Almost like the subconscious as opposed to the former conscious. The construction process is interdependent and has now developed another spur in a third piece. This is perhaps the abstract subconscious !?

The work is evolving from abstract landscape towards self portrait. Retaining identity from within the landscape there is now a new space beyond this where my internal psychological terrain is becoming a visual language. I am represented by shapes and forms and their relationships, colours are significant.

The narrative
Piece 1 Disconnect.
This piece is all about division, separateness, segmented parts of a whole within a context, the context is the land and the incoming tide spreading over the space between. The triangles are blocking, cramming and perhaps suffocating the connection of a wider sense of calm brought in from the larger free moving forms appearing from the right. In order for connection and flow there must be destruction.

Piece 2 Disconnect 2
This piece has a strong naive presence, holding back, repressing or simply containing fragility depending how you look at it. Protected or held back. Bold or vulnerable.

Piece 3
This is simply a self portrait I am not even sure I can articulate why other than to say it's language is visual so words don't seem to work. It's more about getting an abstract sense of me and how I see myself at this point in time. If it helps I identify strongly with the black triangle though I wonder if both the White square and the Black triangle are two aspects of me, their placement is significant the White square moving in from the right.