Biography or Statement

This week I have been struggling with writing an Artist's CV and an Artists Biography.  I've yet to tackle the 'summarise your art practice' part of a project application I want to make.  More about the project in months to come.

I have also been looking back through some of my textile pieces so thought I would share this one with you.

Florida Freedom

I borrowed the format for the CV from Susan Purney-Mark so I have managed to complete that.

But the artist's biography - oh my!

It's so hard to blow one's own trumpet or even talk about ourselves.  Or is that just a British thing!?!  Do people in other countries stuggle like we do?

I have written the biography but it still needs polishing before I unleash it on the world!

In the meantime I suggested to the writers group I facilitate that they might like to write a Writers Biography.  Not sure how popular I'll be with that suggestion!

But that led me to thinking about this blog.  Why do I write it and who for?

Which is probably describing my practice rather than my writer's biography!

Actually I write it for me.  I don't have a reader in mind - the equivalent of a 'client avatar'.  I also don't do it to build up numbers of readers. In fact lately I've had a few people unsubscribe - maybe they are reading this via a different route.

I write it as a sort of journal.  I can look back at my memories of travel and holidays.  I can look back at my textile and mixed media progress.  I can look at the various workshops I've done.

And I get to take a few of you along with me - which is great.

I love sharing my creative practice with whoever reads my blog - whether you have an email subscription orfollow me on Facebook.  

I believe everyone - ALL - are creative but not necessarily artists.  Creativity takes many forms - just feel encouraged to do what you do.

And if you get any inspiration here then that's great.

See you next time.  Thanks for being here today.
Bernice

Saturday Story

 Last Saturday I talked about storytelling.  So here I am with the first Saturday Story.

A for Australia.  Not K for Koala

I am very aware that I live a highly privileged life.  For most people a trip to somewhere 11,000+ miles away would be a once in a lifetime trip.  We have visited six times between 2006 and 2020.

Some of you may know that my son went to Sydney in 2006 to study at Hillsong College.  He met his wife there who was also a college student.  She comes from Florida but they are both Australian citizens now.  

To be honest Australia wasn't on our list of places in the world to visit.  However we have enjoyed every trip we have made.  We have visited Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Tasmania, Ingham, the WhitSunday islands and various bits of countryside around these towns and cities.   Having three grandchildren in Sydney is a considerable draw to visiting again.  2022 perhaps?  I don't think travel will be available in 2021.

But my connection with Australia goes way back before 2006.

My father's parents went from Birmingham (UK) to live in Brisbane in the early 1920s - I'm not sure exactly when.  My Dad was born there in 1924.  He came to England when he was 7.  My mother and I used to tease him about being born in the street.  For Place of Birth on his birth certificate it said High Street, Bulimba.  We imagined Grandma walking down the street, crouching down and giving birth!

Anyway, in 2008 we took my Dad to Australia.  He had never been on a plane.  When he came from Australia it was on a ship, and the journey took 6 weeks. Once he arrived in the UK he never went outside of the country again.  He didn't get a passport until 2008.

So his first ever trip abroad was London to Singapore, Singapore to Melbourne, Melbourne to Brisbane, Brisbane to Sydney, Sydney to Singapore and lastly Singapore to London.  It took him several months to recover!  Not surprsing since he was 84.

In Brisbane we went to find the High Street in Bulimba.  We took the ferry down the Brisbane River.  The road is now called Oxford Street.

He could remember where the house was that he had lived in and we found it.  I doubt it looked like this in the 1920s.

We went back to Oxford Street and sat outside a cafe.  Dad suddenly said: There used to be a cinema here somewhere!  We looked up and it turned out we were sitting outside the building that had been the cinema.

A is also for Administrator.  I worked as the church administrator for 12 years.

And after administration there is art - both in life and in the dictionary.  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

According to my grammar school I was no good at art.  Well in terms of fine art, they were right and they would still be right.  But I think art is anything creative involving a variety of media.  However when it came to choosing what GCSE subjects I was to take, I wasn't allowed to take art.  I wasn't allowed to take Physics or Chemistry either.  So I ended up doing Cookery and Needlework.  And many of you will know what I think of cooking these days!

In the Sixth Form, because I wasn't allowed to do 3 'A' levels (I only did two), I had too many free lessons so I was made to do General Art.  The only valuable thing I learned in those lessons was a form of calligraphy.  And if I remember rightly I was kept in Detention to really master the art!!!

Of course the biggest A in my life is my son Andy.  His name is Andrew you understand.  We kept to calling him Andrew right up until he was about 15 when all the teachers at his school parents' evening called him Andy, so we gave in.  My parents never did!  Even for his wedding vows he said 'I, Andy ...'  Harrumph!

That's all for now! 

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Taking Stock

Do you find that sometimes September is a time to look at the future?  More than at New Year?

I think it's to do with the school year starting in September in England.  Especially as the daughter of teachers, then as a pupil and as a teacher myself, and as a mother of a child at school, my year was regulated by term times and the new school year.  I haven't been ruled by that since Andy left school in 2005, but still September feels like the time to re-set.

I feel it's time to take stock of what I'm doing with this blog.  Obviously Covid has something to do with feeling unsettled.  I often blog about my holidays and workshops I've attended, and neither of these things are happening much just now.

I would really appreciate it if you would spend a few minutes replying to this blog in the comments when you've read my questions.

I write my blog for me.  It's a bonus that people read it - thank you.  However maybe now is the time to make it more focussed for your interests.

So what keeps you reading my blog?

Which of these topics would you like to see featured here?

Travel (when I can do it again!)
Days Out
Textiles
Mixed Media
Step by step photos of a piece of work
Challenges
Photos and photography
My faith
My Word of the Year and the journal that goes with it
How to make books
Other people's work
Posts about mental health issues

Is there anything else you would like to see not in the list?

And my last question. I post every week on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Is that about right? Too many posts? 

I would really love you to reply in the comments below.  If you prefer to cntact me privately clik on Contact Me on the right of this page.

Thank you for joining me today.
Bernice

Faith & Creativity: Mary Brack

Today's guest is Mary Brack.

Mary is a wife and a mother to adult daughters and works in church outreach ministry. Creative pursuits of art journaling, blogging, photography, and hunting vintage items keep her sane. 


“In the beginning God created….the earth was formless and empty…” Genesis 1:1-2
God took nothing and created something.

”God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female He created them.” Genesis 1:27

We were created by a creative God who made us in His image to be creative also. When we create, we reflect the image of God, the Creator.

Through creative self-expression we become more of who we are and who God created us to be.

Erwin McManus, in his book The Artisan Soul, says,
"He who is the Creator God is the creative God, and he created us in his image and likeness. He created us with imagination and curiosity, with the capacity to hope and dream, and he placed within us all the material necessary to live an extraordinarily creative life. The proof is that more than anything else we are a soul, and that soul is the divine material with which we are made to create. The difference between humans and every other species on this planet is that humans are artists. This is our uniqueness - we were created to create."

For me, my creativity and my faith are very closely intertwined. In fact, in times of dryness, when I am experiencing a creative block, I generally find in looking back that I was experiencing a time of dryness spiritually also. Once my spirit is refreshed, I find that my creativity is refreshed as well.

Much of the time when I create, my ideas for art journal pages come from my time spent in God’s Word and in prayer. I may make a page that has a Bible verse on it, or a page that has a quote, or just a word or two. Those quotes and words may be spiritual or not, but they have all come about as a result of my time connecting with The Creator in prayer and in the Bible – it is all created from my soul.

Over the years that I have been art journaling and making mixed media art, certain symbols appear often in my art. They are not overtly religious or spiritual symbols yet they hold spiritual significance for me. Circles, for example, remind me that God is whole and eternal and I find my wholeness in living out who He created me to be. I have a love for birds and enjoy watching them. They appear often in my art simply because I enjoy them. But they also hold a place of significance for me. We went through many tough years and those times brought us to a deeper faith and a deeper place of trusting God for provision and care. Reading Matthew 6:25-34 during those hard times would help me keep my focus on God and remind me of His care for us and that in caring He would provide what we needed. So a bird became a symbol to me of God’s care and love and a reminder that I can trust and depend on Him.

Nature is another thing that appears often in my art journaling and in my photography. Time spent in nature, walking and taking photos, is a very sacred time for me. I see all that God has created, the beauty that it holds, and it is a time of worship and praise. Nature reminds us that we are finite beings who serve an infinite, mighty and merciful God.

So, whether you look at my art pages and see a verse of Scripture or simply a quote, those pages reflect who I am in Christ. They reflect my journey and my heart. Many symbols on my art pages, while not speaking directly to the observer, reflect the ways God has transformed me and the ways He has made Himself known in my life.

Thanks Mary.
Find Mary's faith explorations of life and art at Found on Brighton.

Faith & Creativity: Susan Mulder

Welcome to the first in a new series on Faith and Creativity. Let me introduce you to Susan Mulder who I met on a retreat in Fremont, Ohio earlier this year.

An award winning, classically trained artist, Susan works in multiple media including oils, sculpture, installation and encaustics. After receiving her MFA in painting from Kendall College of Art and Design, Susan has served as an executive director for an arts organization, taught at the collegiate level, designed and led workshops for regional arts organizations, colleges and conferences and has spoken at national conferences on arts related topics including arts and entrepreneurship and religion/spirituality in art. She currently resides in Western Michigan with her husband and enjoys spending time with her growing family, reading, writing and creating.

Anomoly, 2017, 60"h x 40"w, oil & mixed media on linen

Susan Mulder: Christian Art
If you ever want to have an awkward conversation with an artist, bring up “Christian Art”. I don’t think I have ever had one that wasn’t filled with strong opinions on either side-there seems to be no middle ground. This may have to do with the fact that it is incredibly difficult to nail down what the term “Christian Art” means. Some believe it is religious art, some see it as spiritual art; but one thing we can all agree on is that it is difficult to agree.

I’ll begin by defining the terms religious and spiritual, as I will use them, because I believe there is a distinct difference in their application in regards to the nature of art. Religious represents a more didactic turn in which the work exhibits characteristics of ‘telling’. It is obvious in it presentation and leaves little room for interpretation on the viewers part. A good example would be images of the crucifixion, biblical stories and almost any image that contains a visage of Christ. Spiritual, on the other hand, is more enigmatic. The content is less direct and may be parabolic in nature, distinctly indiscernible as specifically spiritual in nature and can serve as an extension of the artists spiritual inclinations.

How this applies in my own work has been a journey. Long before I had any formal training I had an idealistic viewpoint when it came to the role of religion/spirituality in art. As an artist and a Christian I believed that I was called to be deliberate in my choice of subject matter and have a moral punch line for each piece. I worked with my church to bring about a better understanding for the role an artist could play-besides merely watering plants-in both the worship space and the worship experience. While this fed my creative nature it left me feeling constrained and, at times, not much more than a propagandist for leadership. In my attempts to create ‘good Christian art’ I was operating under the misnomer of what, I thought at the time, Christian art should be.

When I returned to complete my degrees I walked away from any idea of creating work with religious or spiritual implications. I was heavily vested in conceptual interpretations and often imbued my work with densely layered philosophical underpinnings-which I loved. I still love deeply hidden meanings in my work but the difference now is that the meaning really only applies to what happens in the creation process-which I’ll touch on in a moment. I have an undergraduate and graduate degree in painting and also work with installation, sculpture and dabbled in performance work. While working on my undergraduate degree I undertook a course of study that led me down the path of researching religion and spirituality that carried through into my graduate work. I was fortunate to have a professor who supported me (she was an art history prof.) and allowed me to spend a concentrated course of independent study that included seminary courses at an outside institution and the production of a lengthy thesis on the role of religion and spirituality within the context of contemporary art.

Pour Some Sugar on Me, 2011, 72" x 72", oil, mixed media on canvas

Following the completion of my MFA my art has undergone several permutations and, at one point, the complete suspension of any work at all. I walked away from creating for a period of about three years because I could find no reason to continue to paint. It wasn’t an existential crisis of any sort it was in response to a fresh calling to let go of everything. My personal life, my work and my spiritual life were in a season of deep transitions and when I finally went back to my work I found that the old ways of creating were of no use to me. Concept felt empty and I was forced to reevaluate what it meant for me to create.

The work I now began felt directionless but more necessary than what I had previously done. I discovered that when I was in my studio I entered into a space where I was finding a deeper expression than I had previously known. It was as if all of the training I had undergone had peeled off and I was painting from a place that lacked a definitive explanation. I couldn’t tell you the why of it, I only knew it was what I was supposed to do. That doesn’t mean I erased what I had learned-I still have a conceptual foundation based on ideas that have clung to my work all along-I just didn’t rely on knowledge but more on spirit. My work became more intuitive, abstract and, ultimately, satisfying.

It also became more spiritual. Not in the physical manifestation itself but in its creation. In my studio I encountered a kind of communication with God than I could not find anywhere else. As I worked, I found I would ease into a sense of suspended time-a kairos. I poured out my frustrations, my prayers and soul longings without the use of words. Would I call the work I am doing now ‘good’ within the context of the contemporary arts culture? Probably not. This said, the work I do now is infinitely more valuable to me as a person-it possesses meaning and purpose in a way my previous work did not.

My understanding and appreciation of the role of religion and spirituality has evolved. I use to argue the intrinsic necessity in application of both within the context of the contemporary art world. Through the experience of how my own development as an artist has transpired, I have come to value one over the other. The larger argument of religion and spirituality in art has roots that date back all the way to the reformation but I will speak only from where I stand at this point. My work itself is neither Christian nor non-Christian. It is certainly not religious but could be categorized as more spiritual - but, being abstract it can be argued that it is neither. It possesses qualities that only express themselves through individual interpretations. No one comes to a work of art without bringing their own experiential narratives to the interpretation process and, therefore, the work will be defined not by whatever intent I put into it but rather what they bring to it themselves.

Bookend, 2017, 24" x 24", oil & mixed media on carft fabric

Thank you very much Susan for your contribution to our discussion on Faith and Creativity.  Thank you for telling us about your experiences and your thought processes in creating your art.

Next time: A guest post from Valerie Sjodin

Introducing . . . . .

Me!

I survived a long steep walk on a hot day 

I am on day 15 of the 30 day blog challenge and I would like to welcome new subscribers and readers who use other types of blog reader.  I am so excited that you are here.

I thought it would be good to tell you a little about myself.

I was born in ......

Never mind, I won't make you read through the whole of my life!

I was under the impression that I don't share a lot about myself on this blog but maybe I have let slip more than I thought.

In brief, Roger and I have been married since 1983 and we have one son, Andy who lives in Sydney, Australia which his beautiful wife Naomi and their new baby.   Roger & I are both retired and enjoying ourselves.  We like to travel and go walking.  I love to visit Stately Homes especially those belonging to the National Trust as I have a Lifetime Membership which means we don't have to pay for us to get in!   Many of my blog posts have included photos from our walks, visits or travels.

As you have probably gathered I like to take photographs and lots of them.  I discussed my love of photography in a post about Why Photography? in two parts: part 1 and part 2.

I tend to sign up for online classes which I never finish.  I did try to cut back this year on the online classes but have attended real life workshops.  I was really thrilled to finish the fabric book I started in a Steph Redfern class.  But that was back in February 2014 and I'm not sure I've finished anything since.

I suppose that's not strictly true!  If it's a daily art challenge I've set up then I will always have finished the project as I blog about my pages every day for that month.  All of my art challenges can be found at the top of this page and can be done in your own time.

I shared about my struggle with depression when I described my choice of one word for 2014.

And random bits:
I'm totally addicted to Strictly Come Dancing and It Takes Two.   I like watching NCIS, NCIS Los Angeles and NCIS New Orleans.

I have never seen an episode of Downton Abbey or watched the film Titanic.

That's probably enough for now!   If you want to keep up with my art and my travels please subscribe to my blog via the Subscribe by Email box at the top of the page.  Or you can follow me on Twitter,  Instagram or Pinterest.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice