Questions beget questions

Last time I showed you a variety of photos that showed elements of design.  Line, Shape & Texture.  I  have been looking at

As you probably know I am fond of using neutrals, duck egg blue, turquoise and shades of orange and rust in my work.  One suggestion on the course, Essence of Identity, was to look at what coulour your clothes are and what your home looks like.

Ignore the bright red splurge - a bit of an aberration!  But the rest!

 

Next, photos of the inside of our house next to photos of my recently finished map pieces.

 

 

 

And a reminder of textile pieces and a paper collage which are some of my favourite pieces.

 Next random photos from our canal walks and parts of the canal inspired wall hangings.

The canal pieces are very obviously green although there is rust and a pale blue.  Looking at the previous photos and then this last one raised a question.

Could I have done the canal hangings in my favourite colours?

My thinking continued with looking at favourite or influencing artists.  I also looked back to 2017 when I was asked the same question by Christine when I had a mentoring session with her.

2017
Cas Holmes
Hilary Beattie
Wendy Dolan
Angie Hughes
Christine Chester

2023
Mixed Media Artists
Deborah Danelley
Seth Apter
Roxanne Evans Stout

Textile Artists
Christine Chester
Eszter Bornemisza
Amanda Hislop

Quite a difference over 6 years.  These 6 artists use some if not all of the elements and principles of design that I recognise in my work.

Colour   Line   Geometric shape   Texture   Contrast

Here are a couple of A5 collage pieces I've made with magazine pages.

These are some of the questions I’m asking myself as a result

• Should I use colours I like or colours appropriate to the subject matter? 
• Do I need a theme for making a series of work? If so what? 
• What shall I do next now that I've finished all the pieces I need for Eclectica exhibitions in 2023?

 Answers on a postcard please!

Although comments in the comments box below would suffice!

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

What will normal look like post lockdown?

In the UK, we are all hoping for a positive announcement on Monday, that lockdown restrictions will be removed.

After over a year of uncertainty and being disconnected from friends and family, we are approaching a time which is being described as normal. We will be back to normal!

Do you have a picture of what normal should be? 

The normal we lived in 2019? The busyness. The rushing about chasing down who knows what! The latest fashion look? The latest interior design?

Was our previous normal based on truth or on some stereotypical concoction made up by advertising agencies? Had we taken on a lie?

Is that why when things happen to change the ‘normal’ we’re living, we don’t acknowledge that we need to learn how to live with the new version because neither the previous version nor the new version fit the picture in our heads?

I don’t have an answer to these questions. These are just the thoughts scrambling around my head trying to make sense of what is going on.

Do we want all of things from before March 2020 to exist in our new normal? Would it be better to ditch some of the things?

Which things would you ditch? Which things will you keep? Which new ideas will you adopt in the future?

How have you dealt with the last year and a half? Have you struggled? Have you enjoyed the downtime?  Have you been overwhelmed by the negativity?

Or found ways to stay positive?

Climbing a spiral staircase

Do you have that sort of déjà vu feeling that you've asked yourself the same questions before?  Hopefully as you ask yourself the question you have moved on a bit - much like climbing a spiral staircase - where you come to the same point but higher up.

I went to Committed to Cloth for the workshop Unlocking the Mystery of Creative Play.  Having done it twice before, I knew what to expect - sort of!  Lesley changes it up a bit every year depending on who is on the workshop.  But I knew there would be playing with paper and design as you have seen in my two previous posts.

But I wanted to spend some of the time investigating what I am going to do with my work in the future.  I've been working through the Head, Heart and Hands workbook and found that to be really useful.  The activities are about finding your creative voice.

This is one of the things I wanted to talk to Leslie about.  I was very fortunate to have a session with her every day, just to talk.  In between I did the paper play activites but mostly thought and journaled.  I answered some of the questions that Leslie asked, which often provoked questions of my own.  Here are a few of my answers.

Why do I go to so many workshops?

• I enjoy learning new processes and techniques
• The 'cross-pollination' of working with other people and their ideas

Why should I stop going to so many?

• I don't spend time afterwards playing with what I 've learned or making the process my own
• Procrastination: a workshop can be a 'worthwhile' way of putting off doing my own work.  Why is that?  Lack of self belief in my own work.
• Money spent on workshops could be better spent on quality materials for my own work
• Free up mental capacity for my own work

Leslie talked to the whole group about 'finding joy' in our creations and our creative process.  She and I talked about numbing and how Brene Brown says you can't numb one emotion on its own.  If you numb one emotion you numb them all.   I wrote about numbing in January 2014.

I journaled about joy - or the lack of it.  I journaled about the investment of time and money.  I asked myself questions and came to a point where I felt there was a choice:

Give up creative activities altogether.  Clear out all the media and fabric and find a new thing.
or
Become committed totally to what I do.  But do what I want to do - no courses, no exhibitions, no deadlines - just play.

I decided on the latter.

I made a list of what I need to do.

• Narrow down techniques I like - make a list.
• List the colours I like to work with.
• List materials I like to work with - narrow it down.
• Take responsibility for my own creativity.
• Develop my curiosity.
• Go on Artist's dates.
• Value my work.
• Play

As I have written this blog post, all of the above seems so easy, but at the time - those 5 days away - there was a lot of angst.  I knew things needed to change but I don't like change.  I like to think I'm open to change but in reality I can be quite resistant.

I'm still working through the questions and journaling.  I looked back through my creativity journal and found that I was asking these same questions in 2017.  Hence the spiral staircase analogy.  I'm climbing the staircase and believe that I am making progress and seeing the same point from a different perspective.

Climbing the stairs featured in the first photo.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice