Falling into Place

Shine Your Light Bright. 2024. Collage mixed media on kozo paper. This piece is now in the Southern Midlands Council ‘s art collection.

I find composition quite challenging. There are so many disparate elements jostling for space inside my head. When I try to get these down on paper they don’t always sit comfortably together.

One of the main take-aways from this artist residency in Oatlands has been my growing confidence in resolving compositional structures. When things don’t work out I have had to make executive decisions. Do I keep persevering with something that isn’t working or take the plunge, tear it up and start again.

This happened several times but in the end I was happy with the results. I wanted to challenge myself with the long banner format of the kozo papers I bought in Japan. I laid out what I thought was a good composition but when i took a photo of it I knew it didn’t work. I had two distinct motifs vying for attention. They each needed their own space.

I went for a walk and dropped into a cafe for a cup of coffee. As I was leaving I noticed the house across the road which had lamps on the gate which I liked. I took a couple of photos and went back to the studio.

I looked at my banner composition again. I took a deep breath and tore the doors out as I had already spent an hour painting the white lace on the curtains. tI then placed them centre stage on a square sheet of kozo paper. That worked and the rest was easy.

I took motifs from the house with the lamp I saw and combined them into the new piece with torn up fragments of a wallpaper painting I had done but didn’t like.

I created a new painting referencing the numerous ‘little libraries’ I had seen outside some houses as I was walking around the town. That’s a story for another day.

Meanwhile I used the remaining fragments of the wallpaper on my final artwork. It also was a challenge which I had trouble resolving. The main motif were the cobblestones I had made charcoal rubbings of in the old mill stables. (The mill has now been turned into a distillery). I loved the large stones all jumbling together and thought they would look good as the background to a fireplace. But I couldn’t make the composition work.

Before I went to bed that night I thought ‘what if the rocks came tumbling down in front of the fireplace’. So I painted them over the fireplace surround. I was still unsure if it worked so I took a photo and posted it on Instagram sharing my doubts. Feedback was positive!

One friend said “amazing how a little time & space can have things… falling into place”. Aha! That became the title of the work. Moral of the story - sometimes you have to walk away. When you look with fresh eyes at the problem, eventually things do indeed fall into place.

Too many stories! I’ll keep the doors and save the lost & found for another piece.

Renovate or detonate? At the despairing stage - time to walk away and come back!

Falling into Place. Adding colour to create dimension.