It is a while since I last wrote, and xmas was part of the reason, however, I’m back, and ready to blog. I found my exhibition inspirational, and loved the feedback, so thanks to all those who gave me that. I now feel ready to move on to start new work, and have made a begining with some paper casts as a starting point, and the grim weather outside helps to concentrate the mind on studio work. I have lost contact details of a client that I have been doing a commission for, so if you are reading this please get in touch. My camera is temporarily out of action, but should be back by next week. This blog can also be read with images at the a-n website.

For a visual artist, I have to say that the preamble up to an exhibition is to say the least, tedious, I wish I had a PA! Getting together a press release, sending out invites, (in the midst of a postal strike), organising posters, flyers, and information for miscelanious people. Trying to do it on an overloaded computer, that just wants to go to bed, and does, in the midst of my fraught efforts to e-mail out. Finding out who is still in post, I just discovered that my City council have done away with the Arts Officer, the previous County Arts officer had been deleted, but there was a new one in post. Blah blah, and on top of all of that, I have had the dreaded whatever, not flu, but something akin, not enough for sympathy, but enough to make you feel bad and want to crawl under the duvet. So one more week to fine tune, all work packaged up and ready to go.

This week has been about finishing off work and getting ready for exhibiting, its all the tedious jobs like edges and backs, titles and labels et al.Oh! I nearly forgot, I did have a bit of a strop and took the hammer to a piece of work that wasnt working, yes a real hammer and a real piece, it was very satisfying.It is important however that creative work of some kind continues,this is when I tend to try stuff out, like materials, techniques, just playing around,fun time.

When people visit your studio, and make comments such as “Oh, it must be so nice to be an artist”,I just wish that they could inhabit my shoes, on a week such as this one has been!I have succumbed to the art of procrastination,faced the terrors of the “blank sheet”, had the eureka! moment only to discover that the breakthrough was merely complete rubbish. Welcome one and all, to my world!! In mitigation, a couple of coffees with my friend and colleague, has now banished those blues and “Pollyanna!” is now back in residence, and I live to fight another day,……maybe?

All the time I have been working on “earth series” panels, I have been constructing a collection of spheres, which I am calling “creation spheres”, these objects have just evolved and have been created whilst waiting for paint to dry, or any other process that required a waiting time. I love them, and so am dedicating time to create a setting for them. I will try to find a way to upload images to this site, as I currently also blog on artists newsletter site and add images to that blog, it is so much better

Not a title for a new piece of work, but the outcome of my epic struggle with a panel that was just never going to work. What makes a piece of work, well, work!  and then their is the piece that is just ‘not right’. I have struggled and struggled with this damn panel, and maybe that in its self should have told me something, work should flow but this one? it just jarred and couldnt be rescued. This latest happening marks the end of this particular series of panels, and now the work must shift to other ways and media to express the concept. The concept remains but I need to explore more, and to bring the work out and off the wall, and to become more 3d. The music that is being composed to acompany this work is progressing well, and should be ready for exhibition by November.

I have been working on this panel off and on since March, and it is causing me such problems. Someone asked me, “how do you know when youre finished?”, and the answer is, when its as you internally visualise,  sometimes that comes straight away with out any effort, and sometimes as in this case, I have to work and rework, and rework until I get there, or trash it, which this piece is in serious danger of having done to it. I have been to the Scottish Isles and spent much time gazing in awe at the geology and stratigraphy, and taking countless photographs of such phenomena, it was so inspiring, the shapes and colours and textures, it will be interesting to see how this transfers to my work!

This week has been just one of those weeks, full of tedium and minor frustrations, nothing life threatening, but very very frustrating. My internet connection has been playing up, making logging on a work of art, rather tham my work being a work of art. My mobile ran out of money and then, went and hid from me, and because it needed topping up, wouldnt let me ring it to find it. Finally, my panel has been playing the “you’re not going to finish me yet game”, which meant that each time I thought I had got to the end of a process(layering), I discovered something else needed application. It is now Friday and I will be glad to reach the end of this week with my sanity intact. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

I have worked this weekend mostly on re-viewing, re-working, re-painting, and re- gilding. This is a tricky time for me, will the panel look as I have it in my head after all the processes have gone through, and sometimes the answer is absolutely not. This is the point when you wish that the process was less complex, and now the re-think and processes have to be gone through again. Currently the panel I am working on has has two new layers added, and has been under painted gilded and distressed every time, I am now witing to regild!!!! Although I must say that lengthy as this process is, it has previously resulted in one of my favourite pieces, lets hope the same will apply on this occasion. The next panel to be attacked is one that I have had languishing at the back of the studio, in the naughty corner so to speak. This panel went astray, and needs to be completely re-worked, I assess all of next will at least be taken up with this recalcetrant piece. At present all options are open, including being scrapped, or even in extremis, cut up.