In progress for Battersea AAF

My latest paper cut in progress. I'm doing this post to try and gee myself on a bit. 

The grid like pattern is a taking a bit more patience than I anticipated. This is part of the first half almost finished.

The second half has more folds so it should take a bit less time.  In theory...

All the work while crying.

I'm showing my work with Stark Fine Art at the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, London. There are over 100 galleries exhibiting and it's a really brilliant day out even if you don't want to buy anything.

Its on from 7th - 10 March.

So. After a January spent playing or "researching", I'm now working on 2 new pictures. A courier's coming to collect them next Friday so it's a race against time as usual! 

I'm full of new ideas at the moment. I'm working on lots of small things really trying to push what I'm doing in another direction. It still involves removing material from sheets of paper so not too much of a departure. 

I do love paper.

Taste

A couple of weeks ago I was directed to this by another blog.




This really got me thinking...

Many people out there believe that having a good eye for appreciating other peoples stuff will make them a good artist. Its not about taste. Your good taste will only get you so far, and by that I mean maybe a toe in the door of being creative.

The work out there that's really great comes from within the individual who made it. 

At art school, in lieu of any critical analysis, some tutors would look at my work and then suggest I go to the library and look at 2 or 3 artists that they deemed similar to me. I tried to ignore what other people were doing. It can actually be quite dispiriting to see someone who is in a similar territory as you and has resolved the things that you have not. And very difficult to find your own individual solution once you've seen theirs.

Look at your own experience rather than your taste. Work inspired by someone else's will be just a dilute version of their work. 

Show people how you see the world. You have an opportunity to make something new, that no one else has seen yet! 

If you want what you make to live up to your ambitions, then work out what those ambitions are. What are you trying to say? How do you want people to feel when they look at your work? Keep this in the forefront of your mind and ask yourself time and again, what percentage of this are you acheiving? This way you stay aware of heading down a blind alley of churning stuff out for the sake of it. If you lose sight of what you are doing then just keep working and you will find a new ambition. 

The bit about making a great volume of work is very true. You move forward through doing, not thinking.  
It takes forever and if you're lucky you'll never quite get there. Its all in the chase!