Getting creative.

This is how I've been going with my new year goal of doing more art work.

In between lunches or coffee with the girls I've done quite a bit of drawing, some lino prints and some painting and some crochet.

Oh I do love holidays.

 This lino print I took from this photo. I really loved the image and it kind of spoke to me of the friendships women have how they support one another. I used one of the least successful prints to try hand painting it - a la Margret Preston style.

There is an exhibition for art educators coming up in February and I'm going to submit some work. One is the little 10x10 chicky babe painting. These items are put up for silent auction and any money raised is given to PMH (Children's hospital) it is very nearly finished.

The second one will I think be a mixed media piece, The crow consuming pears- a painting which is only in it's pencil stage as yet and this delicate crocheted wire hollow form pear will go with it.

Now I have to go and be mum's taxi service then get back to painting.

Bower bird brained

For a little while now I've been frustrated at the lack of space for me to come up with some creative ideas that I am finding interesting or satisfying. Now my physical space is always fairly cluttered and that doesn't generally bother me. I 'spose it's like my head crammed full of stuff and usually I like it that way. But recently my head has been over full and anyone who knows me would probably say that it is exactly like my house- FULL. Tim is quite a bower bird, actually he sees himself as a magpie but truly he is a bowerbird
bringing home all sorts of bits and pieces and scattering them about the place hoping to please me with their interestingness or prettiness. Chicky Babe has found an old "No Junk Mail" sign and posted it on the back door it now says "No Junk Mail Please!"
Anyway my head has been too full but I've been concentrating on trying to find some quiet in my head. I've been reading a couple of books about creativity. One is called The Confident Creative the other is 'The Artists Way' the second is a little 'new agey' but when you get past some of the excessive bits it has some great exercises to help 'unblock'.
So over the last couple of days I've started to play with some ideas for making jewellery combining my love of textiles and natural,recycled and found objects.

This one is hand stitched sari silk and recycled beads from old pearl necklaces.
Tim and I went walking along the beach yesterday looking for driftwood, pebbles and sea glass but unfortunately it is not really beach weather at the moment being summer or s(B)ummer. as Anki so rightly calls it. Beach weather to me is winter when the sea throws up so many beautiful bits of flotsam and jetsam.
Although I didn't find anything really interesting to work with I found a few bits and pieces to start playing with and practicing skills for when I do find something worthwhile and I got more exercise than I realized along the way!
 

Crochet pebbles as brooches or pendents- I'm just playing with the technique at the moment using the threads that I have on hand but I will experiment a little more with different threads and colours.

And then when I find some decent driftwood some of these...

This is very much a WIP! and a way of playing with ideas before they get lost in the clutter!

Present.

I went into the front garden this afternoon and discovered that my almost birthday present arrived today from Amazon. I ordered some books for myself - having a little splurge on myself. ($63.00 all up for 3 books and delivery.) They were to be delivered by my birthday but actually arrived almost two weeks early. 

  So far this is the only one I've really looked at  so far. It has some good ideas in it for me and some that I will use with the kids at school. The main reason I bought these was to motivate me to try and fit time in for creative play ( I typed work and then erased it and put play, because I want to have some fun and enjoyment with some artworks.) I figured 52 creative exercises to make drawing fun= 1 activity per week that should be an achievable goal.

Artist journals have always held appeal to me but I have been too uptight to have one of my own. I have several drawing books on the go most of the time but they are an eclectic mix of scribbles, magazine cuttings, shopping lists, house floor plans and school to do lists, drawings, doodles and plans. I couldn't do without them, I feel uneasy if I don't have one on hand but they are not beautiful in the way "artist's journals" can be.

I become stumped, stifled and worried that the pages deserve more than I can give them and I falter - hence "The confident creative" (It was only about $10 and as it added little to the shipping costs I threw it in as well.)  I think I should approach the journal in much the same way as this blog- almost a stream of consciousness approach, just do it and see what comes. It doesn't matter if I fail and I might just surprise myself in the process. I actually don't worry too much if other people like my work, it is me I often have a hard time convincing.

                                          

Now I'm going to make a cup of tea and spend some time exploring the other two and think about what other things I can spoil myself with for my birthday (still 2 weeks away but I think I could find at least a few more things to spoil myself with before then.)

Chicken and egg.

I used to be able to fit time for my own art work into my life but lately I just haven't got the head space for it. I would have thought that having the kids get older was easier, but right at this minute they seem to require more attention-not in the same way as when they were babies but pretty much the same intensity. I have reflected that late teen children seem to be like 3 year olds again in terms of parenting because they are moving from child/teen to adult and they feel ready to do all sorts of things yet they are not fully independent yet so they rely on you for your help but they reject it at the same time. Rather like when they wanted to dress themselves at three but could not quite manage the buttons.
I have decided not to do the George St Market this year as I am going to focus on getting Bantam Boy through his TEE. It looks like he won't get to keep his extra reading time (for his mild processing disorder) so I need to make sure the home is as stress free as possible. (In human biol. they took their blood pressure everyone else was normal and his was 150 over 80, the doctor thinks it is stress related, i worry because my father had outrageously high blood pressure- he had an over active adrenal gland and this made him stress more or feel stress more rather, so I worry about my boy.) I have applied for leave during this time and it has been approved. So I am going to dedicate myself to being a full time at home mum for the two and a bit weeks of his exams.
So I am tired and out of sorts and have not ideas of what to make/paint/do and don't have the energy to do it anyway. But I know it revives me so it is kind of chicken and egg stuff, I don't know if I'm blocked because I am tired or if I'm tired because I'm not doing any art work! May be it's a bit of both.

lady bird and bumble bee....

After dropping Bantam boy off at work I had a couple of hours to myself so I thought I'd have a little lie down. As I lay there I started to drift off not to sleep but to that other place- you know the place and as I did all the things I'd been looking at and reading about (I've had a thing for old embroidery of late) anyway as I lay there my head started to clear and finally it became empty- in a good way! All the clutter left and I knew what I wanted to make. I have been thinking of miniature embroidery brooches on linen. And finally today I knew what and how I wanted to do them.

So I raced off to "Art Mart" fortunately they are open 7 days a week and I got some unprimed linen. It has such a lovely coarse weave and it has nice body too.

Chicky babe finally made me understand how to find the micro focus function on my camera so I was able to take a couple of close ups, with thumb to illustrate the scale.

Here it is almost finished, I don't have a brooch back to finish it off with. (Oh and this is a short scarf I'm working on at the moment, I've also almost finished a Chevron cardigan I started a couple of weeks ago, I've finished it enough to wear it I just want to make it a bit longer, I forgot to take a photo of it!)


Close, close up!

The most important thing I realised today was that to relax is not enough. To create properly and connect with your ideas and what you want to do you need to be able to clear your mind to allow space for the ideas to flow into. And this makes timetabling 'creative time' a bit tricky.
Obviously for me I need to find a way to clear my mind of the day to day rubble to allow my imagination space to "percolate' (It is a bit like a coffee dripper, my imagination has to flow through all the things in my head until it forms a creative puddle, hopefully into some sort of "cup" and not a messy puddle!)

Oh gosh! I just realised it's not sunday anymore no wonder I'm a bit tired it's after 1am!

The Art of Mothering...

Yesterday was Bantam Boy's birthday. (He is 17!) Rather aptly I received a belated birthday present from Kirti - apt because it was a book called 'The Divided Heart' that is concerned with what it means to be both a mother and an artist. It based a collection of interviews the author has had with a number of artists across a number of art forms including writing, visual art, drama and music. From the first few pages I was laughing and crying simultaneously as I reflected on my own personal experiences in relation to those being discussed.

A part of me felt shamed at my underachieving- in that I am merely a creative person playing with art and that I have not had the courage to pursue art seriously. I am challenging the thought that I have nothing worthy to say. A lot of what I want to do revolves around the role of motherhood and the relationship I have with my children. Why do we so undervalue this so much?

The painting below is a painting that I have been 'playing' with for about 5 years maybe more. It is based on a photo that was taken of me and Chicky Babe at a friend's wedding many, many years ago (I was chief bridesmaid and designer/seamstress, for the bride and 4 bridesmaids and a flower girl -Chicky- and I was the florist too! All made in five weeks while working at my 'real' job full time too.). This painting is one that challenges me. I so want to get it right because I love the way I was captured whispering lovingly into her ear and yet she hardly seems to be paying attention with her eyes turned looking beyond to her future, as she should! I'm happy with parts of the work but every now and then I pull it out and fix the colour here or a line there and look at it a while and then shove it away behind a shelf, damage it a bit in the process, until the next opportunity comes that happens to coincide with my desire to work on it!



Reading the book raises many questions about how society perceives motherhood, how women perceive it and perpetuate myths around mothering and indeed how I perceive it myself. I know I value it highly and I an grateful for the way my children have grown, and I like to think that I can take credit for a portion of that but also recognize that I have been dealt good cards in that department, neither of my children have any serious health or behavioral issues that I have had to contend with. Yet I am dissatisfied that I am just a single mum and school teacher when I could be doing something REALLY important!

I've been thinking that as a single mother I have made some choices that have meant that I have taken the safe road as a primary school teacher rather than actively pursuing an artistic career. It means I can pay (although sometimes at a stretch, especially when I worked part time to fit in time for art and mothering!) the mortgage, drama and music lessons etc. I don't really regret these decisions yet a part of me is always wondering 'what if???' Being on my own has made it tricky at times to fit in time to be creative but it also allowed me to 'selfishly' follow my dream and go to art school for a very very brief nostalgically wonderful year. Then the pull to be sensible and dependable took over and I returned to work being a far more acceptable reason for abandoning my children to daycare than pursuing my desire to learn something as flippant as an art course!

When I met my husband I was 'arty and creative', I designed and made a lot of my own clothes and although I was studying teaching I majored in art. This was not something he valued (although on reflection I think it was something he was jealous of) and over time as the relationship deteriorated this became obvious in the way he spoke to me and I was more and more trapped in my depression and self loathing. Many people say that they feel having children hinders their creative self and to a large degree that is true and I can relate to the ways in which choices have to be made but in a way for me having the children reawakened the desire to express myself creatively.

When bantam boy was born I had just lost my artist, father and really began to question where I was, what I was doing and who I was. By the time Chicky came along I was really wondering if the I who is me would survive and I had a very dark internal struggle that eventuated in my leaving the marriage knowing that if I did not the real me would surely die inside. Hence the sojourn at art school. From then onwards it has been a juggling act making sure I find and allow myself the time to be creative because I know when I don't it is so destructive to my soul!

I'm looking forward to the rest of this thought provoking book.

Last lazy holiday projects.

I finished my black dress.

However the fabric has sequins sewn into the embroidered sections and they scratch my arms when I move. Not a dress for all day wear, which is a shame because I thought I would wear it for work.

I've been watching Dr Who DVD's with the kids. Don't ask me how many we have watched! But it has been lovely spending a couple of days this holiday slothing around chatting with them. While I've been watching the T.V I've kept my hands busy with my crocheted flowers.



I had intended to use them on a floral panel on a handbag, but as I'm working I thought that I might use them on some purple felt as cushion covers.

I'm playing with different ways of constructing flower forms. I started to repeat a design with 6 petals thinking that I could join them and make a rug. (I'd need a lot more David Tennant episodes for that!) Unfortunately my crochet is so 'free form' they don't seem to tesselate.

The photo below was taken with the flash on, I don't like the way it washes everything out. I am playing with the settings on the camera and have discovered how to stop the flash and change some of the settings for different conditions. Another medium to explore in my spare time!

Finally having all the unfinished flowers everywhere was too much for me so I made a headband with some of them last night.

It's hard to take photos of things on your head on your own! Maybe I should have used the flash here because you cant see the edging- that took me the length of a movie to work, frog and rework, frog and rework until it was acceptable. (The problem that comes from not using a pattern)


As I worked this I wondered what it would be like to make some of the sections in silver wire- I've knitted bracelets before, thoughts of earrings started to play in my head using sections of the flower forms....

and chokers or bracelets...

but I really MUST tidy my room today. It was the one holiday project that I should have done but all the wants and whimsy got in the way. Housework will always be there tomorrow sometimes the creative urge is not.