Gilding the lily

Hello. It has been a while. Here's a small list of things what I done of late...

AAF Battersea was good. I didn't sell well but it was a good experience.

Also in March, I got "Going Outside" into a show at the RWA. I was very pleased to be chosen. Its a great show - all drawing and mark making of some sort or other. Its on until 2nd June and well worth a visit.

During April I was wrote a pitch for a large scale paper installation. It was for a grand hall in a National Trust House in Somerset. I didn't win, but again, it was a really valuable experience. I've made contact with some good people through it. Also it got my brain really working and pushed some of my ideas in a new direction. 

Then earlier in May, I did the North Somerset Arts Trail. My friend Amy Shiner  and I showed our work in Amy's house.  I had lots of fun hanging out with a friend and avoiding my own housework! We even made a bit of money.

I'm tempted to stay true to the blog form and "tell all" how terribly busy I've been and how life is just a whirlwind! But...

Life is quite mundane most of the time, I find. My artwork is about trying to find some beauty and purpose in that. Instead of gilding the lily, I gilded this paper cut clothes peg instead.

More sooner, maybe.

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!

Its Christmas time...

...and there's no need to be afraid - apparently.

The few weeks before Christmas I usually feel like I'm being chased by bears. This year is no different. Please don't think I'm being a humbug. As soon as the girls and lovely man are on holiday, I love it. And once all the work is done, I am as excited as the children. It is probably the dark days. Living in a village with no streetlights really doesn't help. At about 5ish the day is done. I can see why people in the higher latitudes turn to alcohol at midwinter. 

This year, like every other, I'm excited about a few decoration ideas. I cut out the green foliage with my paper robot and pimped my mirror with lights. The dear came from a craft sale at a friend's house. I suspect he'll be up all year.

I'm feeling brave putting this up here. My living room is quite strange. You could call it vintage but I think probably not. A combination of original 1968 carpet and wallpaper (which don't go together) and our inherited chintzy sofa and furniture. Not a place to hang out with a migraine! But, its got an open fire so that makes it okay by me.

I'm working on a mistletoe decoration. I might even get it finished before Christmas! Still got hopes for some sort of retail situation for my paper mobiles and other stuff still in my brainbox. Next year maybe...

Now I'm off to sip something by the fire.

My workspace

I thought I'd post something about my studio. Its the old dining room of my house. Our kitchen is big enough to eat in, so this room's mine. We got the house a year ago and the room looked like this - you can't tell from this crappy picture but it was mouldy, both the the brown walls and the brown carpet.

I moved all my clobber in and set to work amongst the mould and dust. Then one day Bill and I cleared it out and pulled the carpet up. Two weeks later it looked like this. I painted the lino pale blue so its a lot lighter in there now.

I'll happily admit to being into house porn. I buy Elle Deco monthly - its a lot cheaper than doing my house up! And I look at websites full of inspiring workspaces. Mostly very sparse with a carefully placed mid century/vintage nik-nak or two. Inspiring to look at but I wouldn't get much done in that sort of room. 

My space is no shrine to design. Its functional. And its not very tidy. The making process is very fiddly and precise but I tend to chuck paper around and rummage through drawers looking for stuff. I'm sitting here with 2 cupboards, 1 drawer and a toolbox open right now, and that bureau is never closed! 

Here is a work room that I could work in. Fleur Cowles was an artist, philanthropist, publisher of Flair Magazine, aircraft pilot, and a lot more. This is her study. I think she probably had someone else do the dusting!

My studio is open for the Chew Valley Arts Trail this weekend 13 - 14 October. 

Along with my framed pictures, I'm hoping to have some paper mobiles for sale like this red and yellow one in my studio picture and also some a bit like this based on my Womans Realm pictures.

Come along and see.

Motherboards and motherhood

I'm typing this on a Dell keyboard on a machine running Windows 2000 and I'm not especially pleased about it!

Yesterday, my Mac went pop and it won't reboot. I'm taking it to the hospital this week but strongly suspect that the motherboard is kaput. Without funds to purchase a shiny new one, I'm resigning myself to having 2 shit machines to do the job of one average one; an ancient G4 mac to make artwork and this for the internet.

I've also been having a bit of a crisis in my work lately, trying to get back to some artistic habitat I lived in before children. And hey, the G4 just took me straight back there! I replaced it whilst pregnant first time round so its free of bookmarks for mumsnet or excel spreadsheets referencing school stuff, etc. If I were overly optimistic (I'm not) I'd say its serendipitous!

The novelty will surely run out in about 15 minutes creating an incentive to sell some pictures and  get a new one. Until then I'll be mostly using a pen and pencil...

Gil Gerard, nice!

To donate to the cause of bringing me - Buck Rogers style - back into the 21st Century, look out for my Etsy shop opening soon!

For the musings of a desperate house husband neighbour with a keen interest in forest gardens and raising kids in the country check out Diary of A Country House Husband.

See, I'm not the only blogger in the village!

(I really hope this looks okay on a 'modern' browser. The whole thing could be in comic sans for all I know.)

July - missing in action

. of paper and things .: paper fix | chrono shredder

by susanna hertrich

July didn't really happen here on my blog and August nearly got away too. I've watched the tattered remains of the past 2 months pile up around me.  

Poetic, yes but a load of old bollocks. We are living in the chaos of the Summer holiday whilst trying to buy a house, oh and at long last, I'm learning to drive. So I've not made anything, excluding lots of mess, some cake or art stuff with the smallies.

There have been moments of near bloggage.
Amongst them:

The death of Lucian Freud

Gillespie, Kidd & Coia - The architects of my primary school.

Stencil cutting and street art v fine art

The evils of bunting

most recently - Danny MacAskill trial bike genius

Its not the done thing to admit it, but I am looking forward to the end of the holiday. Mostly because our house move, just a few days before the start of school will mark the end of a long period of change, but also because I'm bloody knackered.

Land of the rising obesity levels

I'm Scottish. So there. Mallow courses through my veins along with Irn Bru. Perhaps not, but I grew up there and its brilliant. Lochs, mountains, castles...

I grew up miles away from that stuff in a new town made of concrete and weird green landscaped hillocks by the side of a dual carriageway.  We did have this. Chocolate, mallow, jam and biscuit. Eaten in that precise order. And of course, most amazing packaging in the world.

After Sunday school my sister and I would, after carefully removing the teacake,  flatten out the wrapper and painstakingly remove every wrinkle (working from the outside to the middle) until left with a super shiny sheet of foil,  curving slightly at the edges. Sometimes we would then mould it or fold it into a shape. Very fiddly.  Not having access to google in 1983 it would mostly be a very limited origami fortune teller. 

Japan meets Scotland -  land of the rising obesity levels.

I'm still obsessed with super fiddly detail and painstaking, high risk creations. Also all things Japanese.

This may be where it all started, so along with the other stuff I haven't finished yet,  I'm going to be making some stuff about it...

Now what?

 

If you're the nice person that bought my picture then a great big THANK YOU!!!! 

Now for the difficult bit... what to do next? I know what I'm doing artwork wise but I've somehow got to get stuff into galleries or maybe apply for an MA?

Dunno. Feel a bit inert. A slight down after last weekends up, maybe. Its the end of something so my energy is tailing off, yet actually, in the broader sense this should be the beginning of something else.   

Its half term this week so I'll be dedicating time to the littlies. I am grateful for this bank holiday making it a 4 day week though. Bill is tinkering with bike things and Nos 1 and 2 are painting each others faces whilst number 3 has a nap. I've got no food or laundry liquid so I'm off to get provisions.

Check in soon for the next thrilling installment... 

The First Big Weekend

I refer to this post.

Not the track by Arab Strap, but what is for me, the 1st big weekend of the year - putting my work out there in public.

It went well, lots of really positive comments and I met some really lovely people.

Special thanks to all the people I know who made the effort to come along, especially Lou from Littlegreenshed for agreeing to take some decent pictures of my work.

Special thanks again to Vicx at Paper Village for letting me use the space, and for creating such a hub of creativity in South Bristol.

Tomorrow I'm off exploring the Arts Trail with friends and family. I'll report back later...

Those magnificent men in their flying machines

Gotta love Terry Thomas

... up tiddly up, up
... down tiddly down, down.

Roller coasters,
Fear and fun, fun and fear.
Making art?
Sort of similar.

Got paper, got scalpel, got frames,
got TIME - for once!
and...
got a crisis of confidence.

The pressure to perform eh?
My very expensive new paper cuts sooo easily and its a bit scary how easy it is to make mistakes.
There is no Ctrl Z with this,
one mistake and its in the bin.

Got to get stuff made over the weekend.
Onwards and upwards...

The First Big Weekend

I lived in London for 10 years, during which time I listened to much Scottish music on my mini disc player/ipod device on the tube. Trying to cling on to an idea of "Scottishness", I guess...

Arab Strap
Boards of Canada
Belle and Sebastian
The Blue Nile
even a bit of Deacon Blue

This takes me straight back to Dundee, 1996. Its a life I might have been leading had I not buggered off to Art School. Although we did our fair share of drinking and silly stuff there too.

This and the album its from are so badly produced, its actually good and I love those early Belle and Sebastian albums that sound like they were recorded in a church hall (and they were)...

It has been a "Big Weekend" of sorts. I'm up to my eyeballs in life, instead of making right now but I'll be back soon with more art type stuff. I'm getting stuff ready to make some actual pictures for frames at the weekend.

Until then, this could be some sort of 'on hold music'....

Evening Sun

Waiting for a bus at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol at 4.50pm - the sun just thinking of setting....

 
I looked up and there was this amazing tree.  I was feeling a bit sad leaving my buddy in her bed, but thankful for seeing her.

There's really a lot to be thankful considering everything. 
A running theme for the last few weeks.

This time of year and being on the edge of the city, closer to the countryside, the quality of light. It throws it all into sharp relief, or rather sharp contrast. My biggest girl is back at school and we're all back to the same old routine.  Feeling a bit somber, but all in all perhaps its just a little bitter sweet.

wondergirl

For my best friend who is unwell.
You are amazing and I love you xxx.

Be thankful

I had the idea to make light blue neon sign saying, "be thankful" about 6 months ago after a medium sized hospital stay. Its been a tough year for a variety of reasons and I want to be reminded of how lucky I am everyday.  

My daughter spent a night in hospital last week. After IV fluids and antibiotics, she is definitely on the mend. This is my next papercut. I'm forgetting the other stuff for now.

Today Bill, did a big tidy of the garden, cutting back all the dead stuff from winter. This fell from one of the trees...

Like a birds nest from your imagination.

So perfect - soft inside and the outside is glued together with clay. Its very light. After we all had a good look, Bill put it back in case it might be reused again, this year.

So there you have it, another corner turned. Spring's around the next one... 

St Valentine

This is my effort. Started it a couple of days ago with plans. Its wholly dependant on symmetry as I have no time to do both halves of anything today. Daughter still very unwell and I can't be ignoring my children in order to draw pretty pictures on my computer.

Feeling like a half hearted artist and a shitty mum. Can't do anything wholehearted today.

Sorry. Back later with some cheer, maybe.

For the love of Newtownland

A Valentines card to my hometown

I grew up in a Scottish newtown from age 5 - 18. It was a bizarre place in retrospect.

I love and hate it.

The first of 5 newtowns built in the 1950s, it embodies a utopian dream that the planners and architects had, but also some mistakes made by them in their first go at actualising it.

As Britain's first shopping mall, the original "Town Centre" really was, in my opinion, a building worth looking after.

the Toonie

Look at London's Barbican Centre or Southbank. 

Southbank

Barbican

The Town Centre was built in the wrong place - on a dreich and blustery hill.  Over the years, a series of bad planning decisions have left it crumbling and bookended by Tesco and Asda. The original building is more or less abandoned.

More on this stuff to come...

Woman's Realm

Things on top of other things.
The loneliness of the long distance mother.

The beginnings of something. Screenprints, papercuts, doillies.
Yep, more circles.

About Me (in progress)

"We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there's a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now. We arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought we'd have a bowel movement again. Our systems had stopped working, jammed with the odor of copy machines, Wite-Out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. We had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on a Saturday night was enough. But now that we live here in the desert, things are much, much better."

                                                                                                            Douglas Coupland, Generation X (1991)

In 1991 I was 18. I went to Art School, tuned in and dropped out - well not out of college but we  tried to tune out the corporate background noise and make some things with some meaning. I did well and left with a good degree. After studying digital imaging, film making and animation, I went off to London to seek my fortune and chain myself to a Mac.


For 10 years I worked freelance in the film and video industry. I've learned the language associated with being a designer and talking to corporate people. I met some great people and made some work that I'm proud of, but its not what I ever set out to do.

In the last 4 years I have had 3 children. My life is very different - dealing with the needs of a family and trying to remain a creative person. Its a challenge. I have more ideas and less time than ever, but time limit can be a good thing. When I get down to it, I faff less.


Most of what I've been doing is unfinished. I'm pottering but with a direction. It makes no sense to anyone but I can see some common threads running through it all - sometimes. Maybe this blog will put it in a context where I can see things a bit better.