Tag Archives: art school

A Sum of the Parts

Walking with my parents as a child they would point out and identify flowers, birds and elements in the landscape. My dad taught me the names of the constellations. We spent time walking in woods, exploring moors, foraging in hedgerows and on holiday in Devon I remember swimming in crystal clear rivers. My knees skimming over giant flat boulders under the peppered fragmented shadows from leafy branches. Sunlight rippling through the water. On beaches with clay rich cliffs we dug out fossils and filled pockets with ancient shells, sharks teeth and belemnites. These are the moments that stick in my memory, the forming of a connection with the world. Existing in the natural environment, spending time exploring, absorbing, experiencing and observing.

Running ahead on walks through bluebell valleys collecting rhododendron flower heads on a stick. Stacked sculptural layers of soft pink and purple trumpets. A collection and a composition.

At night time I could stay up to watch natural history or science fiction programs. My escape was art, drawing, painting, doodling, making. After bedtime I disappeared into books, secretly under the covers travelling to other lands. Feeding my inner world, making sense of the outside. Imaginings. Curiosity and wonder embedded somewhere in my makeup. Sometimes hidden in my life journey and then rediscovered and surfacing. Now to explore materials, play with surface and colour and interact with environments: experiences, imaginings and journeys combine. The collecting and compositions continue, running ahead when I can along tide lines and hedgerows. Catching interpretations and thoughts in sketchbooks, or in a photographic moment. Art school helped me to re visit the world around me, shifting perceptions and seeing possibilities. Opportunities to communicate, connect. Seeing potential in the fabric of the world. I read New Scientist for inspiration, watched natural history documentaries. Researching artwork that transformed the everyday and ordinary into organic or fantastic forms. Breaching boundaries. Some elements remain in my practice, although it has shifted and evolved with constraints of space and time. Still woven into the threads, a sum of the parts of my story.

Lost and Found

My degree course had a sense of community, working in a creative hub. Constant feedback, communication, experimentation, sharing ideas. Space to create, explore, learn, reflect. The studio spaces were open plan and fluid. I made work on the ground on the walls and in the rafters. Transient and ever changing spaces that fed each other. We learned to explore processes, ideas, research and seek out the fundaments of our practice. What are you making art for? I made work in the sculpture studio using domestic materials. Clingfilm organic skins, car stockinette filled with barbecue skewer skeletons then covered in wax, mimicking huge sea cucumbers. I recorded these through photography, before deconstruction. A life cycle. I studied the art of the mid 20th century, and discovered Eva Hesse. Her use of domestic materials to create organic forms fascinated me. Transformation and transitions. Connections and fluidity. Breaking boundaries and perceptions. Regularly I would meet with mentors, discussing, debating, reflecting. These were the only years I had with so much space to think, time to explore and develop. Here I was setting out the grounding of my artistic practice.

When I left university after my MA course, I was left to find my way. How do you take studio practice skills into the world? I took a fairly safe option of seeking employment, I took a job in a graphic design shop, and then a gallery and corporate fine art company. Alongside this I tried to continue creating my own art. I had a small studio room in our house and continued to treat it like my uni studio space. Once I made a 5’ high piece made from white noodles painstakingly insert into oasis. I enjoyed the process, but it never left the space.

Just continuing to work has been important. In finding my way, coming back to my fundaments of practice has been a lesson I have learned. Back to transformation, translation, exploration of boundaries and potentials of materials. Context has shifted and changed, the time I have to spend is less. Progress is slower and in pockets of time. My creativity is shared between teaching and my own work. My learned practice has been, in part, lost along the way. More recently I have found new paths forward that relate. Metamorphosis of purpose, thinking about audience and where my art belongs. I have always been existing in the cracks in between.

Finding a purpose for my art outside of the university bubble proved to be a long journey for me. With hindsight every part of the story has mattered.