Who ever said being an Artist was easy!!!!

I have just came back from Sydney, Australia, seeing my new 2month old grandson Felix! I know everyone says this about their grandchildren but he is SO cute!

While in Sydney, l had time to think about my Art and where l am going! I have decided that l am not being true to myself or my Art, at the moment. I am painting what l think might sell and not really enjoying what l do. A lot of people might see this as a good thing but it isn't always, believe me. When you paint only by using the techquines you have learnt but don't also paint with your heart, l think you loose "yourself". I am not sure if this is making any sense but maybe talking about it , in public, might help me to make sense of it all. 

While l was looking after my new grandson Felix, life seemed so simple. Feed, play, bath him and then sleep ... simple. My bond with this little boy, my son"s baby, is so strong and primal. I began to think about how to tell stories, my stories. The way must be through my Art l thought but how? Paint, drawing, collage, wax, pastels, embroidery, writing, .... so many ways and so many mediums that l love. I have hundreds of questions going round and round in my brain but no real answers. 

A while ago l started painting my dreams. Why did l stop ? I allowed myself to listen to some people who said such things as:

"Your work is too naive to be serious ".

"You are not doing yourself much good, painting like this".

"Why are you not painting serious things?"

I also realised that although l love how the dreams/stories were turning out, my techniques were to put mildly ...  crap!  I have so many stories in my head and l want to discover a way to create them!

When l went to Art School, l thought, naively that they would teach me how to "Do things". How wrong was l!!? 

So since arriving back home, l have not done very much Art. What with Jetlag, my 43rd Wedding Anniversary, Christmas and Boxing Day, l have not had much spare time. BUT l have been doing a LOT of reading around techniques and how others tell stories. 

When l was 30, l started travelling with my family. We spent up to 3 years in each of these place ... Dubai, Papua New Guinea, Jersey in the Channel Islands, Luxembourg and the Bahamas. I had a great time in all these places but never really thought people would be interested in my life there. How wrong l was! It seems people are interested in my style of life there . For instance when in Dubai, my husband was offered a white camel for myself and my daughter,  or in Port Moresby, when l helped to deliver a pig and then watch the wife breast feed it and her son on the other breast !!! 

How l create these stories is still to be decided .... onward and upward as they say .... pass me my sketch book!!!

My work and the start of a very special Noah's Ark canvas.

Even a piece of  wood can look beautiful ... if you paint it !

On Tuesday l am off to Australia, to see my new grandson, Felix. I am SO exited !!!!! As a present for him, l am painting a " Noah's Ark ' canvas, as requested by my son and his wife.  I have painted quite a few of these and each one is different. I have found it really hard to paint this one because it has to be perfect .. in my mind anyway. This is the start of it.

Then in between waiting for bits of it to dry ... l painted some journal pages. Especially the journal l am taking to Australia , to record my trip.

This is the start of my cardboard journals.

This is a canvas for spare paint ... this is the way a lot of my paintings start!

This is as much as l am going to show you. You can see the completed canvas, when l have given it to my grandson!

Nov 2nd ....My Birthday Treat.

One of my Birthday Treats, from my husband, was a visit to the Royal Acadmy of Art. The Exhibition l was dying to see, was the work of the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. To get there we went through Waterloo Station and saw this beautiful Poppy Dispay, for Remebrance Day .

We are here and l am so excited!

Tree, 2009-10, 2015

This is the beginning of the Exhibition ... a Forest made of bits of old wood, from all over China. Each tree is made up of bits of wood, all screwed together, to form each tree.

Quite a few interesting people went pass me, while l sat on the marble seat.

Straight, 2008–12. 

Steel reinforcing bars1200 x 600 cm. These were the rods (rebars) that were meant, to hold the concrete together! The concreate was not even all around the rods. A lot of students died in schools, He collected tons of the rods and his team straightened then all out! Part of the time he was doing this, he was sent to prison but his workers kept on working.

Porcelain crabs, 3,000 pieces,

each 5 × 25 × 10 cm

Twelve Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) and four Neolithic (5000–3000 BC) vases with industrial paint.  I want one !

Marble Stroller, 2014

One ton of compressed Tea ... the smell was wonderful.

Just love the design on the floor of the studio ... floor vent!

A lot of things, such as bones, copied in porcelain. Beautiful!

S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011–13 

Six-part work composed of six dioramas ( 50 % smaller than normal size )– Supper, Accusers, Cleansing, Ritual, Entropy, Doubt – in fibreglass, iron, oxidised metal, wood, polystyrene, sticky tape, each 377 × 198 × 153 cmThe police detained the artist in a secret location for 81 days, throughout which two guards stood silently watching him from only 80 cm away at all times, even in the shower. 

(from the RA Catalogue)
" Bicycle Chandelier ", 2015, a further evolution of Very Yao (pictured). Once a floor-based installation, Ai has re-fashioned it for the Royal Academy, where for the first time it appears as a chandelier made from Forever bicycles, the country’s most popular brand since 1940. His appropriation of the bike calls attention to its one-time status as China’s chief form of travel, owned by Chinese citizens across the land. Today, however, the bike has ebbed in popularity as a result of the country’s rapid modernisation, improved public transport and air pollution. Significantly, it has also become unaffordable to many. Ai has pointed out that owning a bike in China has become a luxury, a fact he emphasises by converting the installation into another symbol of extravagance, the chandelier.
The artist, who grew up in exile without lights or even candles, further accentuates the status of this work by suspending and illuminating white crystals that cascade down from the rims of the bicycle wheels. He has taken Duchamp’s concept of the modest readymade and not only enlarged it to a grand scale, but also transfigured it. No longer utilitarian items promising their owners a means of transportation and thus freedom, the Forever bicycles now hang eternally motionless.

An amazing exhibition and so much to take in. There was a lot more to see but how many more pictures can you take! :)   I don't normal use the multi-media guide but for this exhibition, it is a must. My husband, who only came to the exhibition to please me, said

" I didn't expect to  enjoyed it but l am so pleased l came, it is amazing" ! No more needs to be said!

Fungi and Circles !

This blog entry is going to be about what l have been upto lately. I have been moving my studio into my two bedroom apartment .  Was not easy, l tell you! We have been able to turn my kitchen annex, into a great studio . My husband has been amazing about it.

So first off ... many of you will know l have a "thing " about fungi!! I have been on a hunt in the woods to see what has been coming up. 

Love the texture on this one.

Beautiful pink !

Love the pattern on the edges.

When my 2 year old grandson saw this fungi, he thought it was an Orange. 

This looks like gills!

Fairy toadstool!

Love the delicate pattern on edge of the fungi. I know it is because it dying but still beautiful !

So white and beautiful and beautiful edges.

So delicate.

Like the colour and the central dot!

I have had so much finding these. I am not sure why l am so fasinated by fungi but l am so hooked!

:)

If you have been following me, in anyway, you will know l am also fascinated by circles. So finding these decorative balls/circles, well l was in heaven!  

These will certainly go into my sketch book.