This is my second Blog Post about preparations for my first Solo Exhibition at Artists Meet in the Watersmeet Centre in Rickmansworth. After a positive start to the year, the whole family has been plagued by a nasty virus that has taken weeks to shake off - it’s been a struggle. I must say, January is a really tough month ‘to get through’. I think for me, like many other people, it’s the combination of the short days, lack of sunshine and being stuck inside for much of the time that quickly leads to fatigue, frustration and anxiety.

Not a good place to be in when you’ve got a lot of creative thinking and making to do and limited time. I could choose the easier route and go through my existing pictures in my studio to fill the walls.

I visited the exhibition space a couple of weeks’ ago and this was really helpful. It’s a nice, light space in the foyer of the Watersmeet Theatre and (thankfully) more compact than I’d imagined from the photos I’d found online. I can now plan more easily what I’m going to put in each section - and find a way of linking all the different elements to have a bit of flow round the walls.

I always approach new work with a certain amount of trepidation - that feeling that it’s all going to fail and nothing is going to be good enough is always lurking. I become hypercritical and start examining every stitch or brush stroke – worrying about making ‘mistakes’. I forget to tell myself that some of my best work has developed out of those ‘mistakes’ - those things that don’t go as intended but end up somewhere different and more interesting.

I seem to have made it over a few hurdles this week and am busy getting on with ‘making’ rather than ‘worrying about making’.

I’m planning on having work in my exhibition in different media but with a common theme - including different treatments of the same subject matter/source material. I’m hoping that this will give a bit of insight into the way I develop ideas and a offer a bit of variety - it’s a bit of a risk but it seems the right approach to take. There are a number of different ideas running through what is developing - I will post some more images in the next week or so once they have taken shape a bit. In the meantime, you can always see my work in progress on my Instagram feed (just click on a picture below to take you to my account).

Sue Nicholls Designs on Instagram