A New Project

I’ve have an exciting challenge for the New Year - my first solo exhibition in April. The venue is the Artistsmeet Gallery at the Watersmeet Arts Centre in Rickmansworth.

I’m using this as an opportunity to move my work on further and to loosen up my way of working. I’m finding it the usual mix of excitement and fear, in equal measures. Of course the trick is to control the feeling of dread to allow a flow of ideas - I have come to accept that this is how I work, and that the terrible feeling of uncertainty is where everything originates from.

I’ve been thinking over ideas for a couple of months now, but with a busy time leading up to Christmas I’ve not had a chance to sketch any ideas out. This is the first opportunity that I’ve had to get down to some actual making and planning - perhaps the start of a new year means a fresh mind set?. I am going to get some sketches on paper today, but I started off yesterday with a walk to the nearby fields to photograph a patch of ground I spotted on a walk a few weeks ago. It is my idea of heaven - lots of seed heads, grasses and twisted stems suggesting abstract shapes, lines and tones. Here are some of the images I took on my walk.

I’m looking forward to an intense period of working and developing ideas. I have a plan of where I’m going, but I’m also prepared for some unexpected developments. I am planning on combining my stitched work with printmaking and work on paper to produce a more ‘painterly’, free-flowing way of working – I am literally making it up as I go along – I don’t ever take a conventional approach to my work. I think this is probably as I have never had a formal art school education so everything is a constant exploration, research and learning process.

I will post more progress as and when it happens.