Art as activism sends a powerful message which can speak to the emotions of people. It is one way to bear witness to the events going on around me. I realised that the new work I am making in the studio is a direct result of watching a program, Glacial Narratives presented by Taigh Chearsabhagh Museum and Arts Centre in the Outer Hebrides.
How much do you value yourself? Do you give yourself permission to go on really wild and scary adventures? I have given myself permission to take a helicopter ride to view the active volcano in Iceland, if it is still erupting in April 2022. It is something even a year ago I wouldn’t have contemplated.
How do you promote your art? Tell a story. When the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was reopening after 10 years of renovations, a flashmob were hired to stage a recreation of the museum’s famous painting, Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. Connect stories to your art and you will never be lost for what to say or how to explain what you do and why you do it.
How do you express your stories, and how do you document your daily life, the personal and social times in which you live? If you look at the great writers and artists, their work was a product of the times. Documenting an I Was Here moment is in the patchwork squares of Victorian artist Nicole Kemp’s Covid Quilt, a visual story of 2020.
Thinking with your materials means you allow the unique quality of that material to lead you into experimentation. “What if” becomes the starting point for my experiments with abstract painting using bright coloured paper pulp.
How do you make time work for you? This might mean synchronising with your body clock to create extra time so that particular tasks are done when you are most focused and alert. When there is a big job to do, like getting ready for an exhibition, you need to create time in abundance.
The search for peace and love is ongoing, especially in the midst of worldwide chaos and upheaval. The annual lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower gives a focus to that impulse, if only for one hour on one day of the year.
The business of art is overlooked at your own peril. What if the “business” of art bores you and you would rather be creating than talking about your work? Having a business strategy is like having a plan, you fail to plan means you plan to fail. First you need to create a body of work. Then you need to know your How, What & Why and explain it.
Repurposing your old artworks releases the energy stored in your materials. When you are deep in your creative flow, the impulse that brought you to create at that time is captured in the materials. Like stones, they hold energetic vibrations of your thoughts and emotions which can be tapped into to tell a new story.
Lately I’ve taken to counting birds, in the sky, in the garden. Listening to the sound of them in the trees, hidden yet present. They symbolise the freedom of flight, the raucous antidote to silence and the great Apausalypse.
