It’s been a very slow start to the new year. Days slipped by and no daily art was being made. After a rush of house cleaning between Christmas and New Year, I wanted to have some down time, some time for reading books and going to movies and socialising. Consequently, starting my daily practice for 2023 got pushed to the side – tomorrow I told myself. Then another day rolled by.

I could feel myself actually getting uncomfortable and cranky. I’ve got to have some studio time I thought. Another two days went by until I finally started. I brought out my box of maps, cut them up to size and started to glue them down. It felt good to be creating again.

More than 10 years ago on the first of January, I began a daily drawing practice but by April had given it away. The following year I created stitched daily artworks, collaging images torn from old books and “bumper” annuals. I was not confident in creating images myself and relied on stitching together paper ephemera I found with text to tell a story.

Four years later II progressed onto creating square artworks in concertina books, then tried my hand at landscape formats on postcards and envelopes, I even spent 2018 creating tiny artworks on shipping tags.

As the years have gone by I’ve gained confidence in creating my own marks and images and in 2020 I felt ready to introduce painting with coloured inks. This continued the following year but in 2022 I was travelling again and making works about place, using scraps from artworks I had been creating in a series of artist residencies.

This year I am mindful that I will be travelling and be away from home for 10 months so I have started with maps. I have boxes of them and January feels like I’m mapping myself into the year.

I had a week of catch up to do and wasn’t sure if a simple map collage could sustain my interest. I needed to create a series that I was able to experiment with in short bursts of time. Once the cut squares of maps were glued down, I then added white paint to ‘knock back’ the map image, collaging texture and splashing ink marks for movement and focus.

It felt like a dam had burst and my creativity had returned. This led me into starting some new collages about ice which I had been hesitant to start until I realised I had to start somewhere and see where it led. It’s always a gamble when you tear up papers that have beautiful marks and images on them.

I know from long experience now that I have to tear and cut and turn things upside down in order to generate energy. There is always a moment of hesitation before the first rip. But once I start, somewhere, anywhere, then the work and ideas begin to flow. Tomorrow will be easy now that I have created that path forward. All I needed was those maps to show me the way.