One of my first cyanotypes on handmade kangaroo grass paper made in Central Australia in 2019.
Have you ever felt your ideas have sprung from ‘out of the blue’? Yet the colours, processes and themes which have caught your interest along the way have all pointed you in your current direction. That is what I have discovered about my abiding love for the colour blue and the joy of cyanotype printmaking.
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Daily collages made during a trip to New York in 2013. Pennsylvania Love and Imagine MoMA, October 2013.
Creative minds often get bored doing the same thing repetitively. Yet there is comfort in repetition, where tasks are so ingrained they become almost automatic. I’ve discovered that art and exercise are good companions; both can build skills and confidence through incremental, repetitive action taking.
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New series of 10 x 10 cm collages; some will be included in the upcoming Enchantment exhibition at Et Al Gallery, Sandgate Brisbane.
You don’t always have to ‘think big’. There is a move back to sustainable and small, like tiny houses that use less space and resources. So too with art, small is making a comeback with so many end of year exhibitions asking for artworks less than 30cm . It’s a great way to make art affordable and accessible for buyers and especially requiring less time and outlay for artists.
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Parent & Child stencil cut out which I used to make a cyanotype print (below).
Sometimes it may take years for ideas to come to fruition. Artists need to keep hope alive so their work is received by receptive audiences, even if their art is ahead of its time. That’s why it is important to hold fast to stories of hope, to keep persevering, keep creating, keep showing up for yourself until the time is ripe for ideas to take root and flourish.
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Riding to our local mobile library Bookmobile
Finding ways to personally connect your art with the public and activate art conversations can consume a lot of an artist’s time. But making art and culture accessible can be as simple as creating a pop up art event, staging an artisan market or taking your art to the streets. Have art, will travel.
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Post-Operative artist book (WIP)
When systems fall into chaos, it’s time to get creative and start imaginative mapping. Creating a visual representation of how you want life to look helps bring that future into reality. Chaos and entropy are natural parts of systems under pressure and from them can emerge new order and stability. Hold that thought!!!
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Footprints in snow. For a short time our lives are made visible. Photo taken on my trip to Japan.
Our lives, like footprints visible in the snow, are brief. To practice the art of living is to embrace the skills we have, to master acceptance, to change what can be changed and release unrealistic expectations. As an elder, this is an act of embodying wisdom.
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Empty paracetamol blister packs and the flattened out hospital pain medication cups
We are taught to reach for perfection, yet that sets us up for failure every time. Printmaking in any form has a strong ‘perfection’ element and to make blurry prints which messy edges is not considered to be technically correct. Yet what if you reframe that idea to turn seeming failures into successes. Perhaps it is a truer reflection of living life in all its messiness.
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Making pain visible - cyanotype print of blister pack tablets
When one image is not enough to tell a story, then artist books are a great way to combine pictures with text. I have been wanting to find a way to show pain through its relief and have started planning the structure for an artist book. How the materials and narrative work together is an exciting journey of discovery.
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My (rejected) doily press with stitched doilies I made with cyanotype collages.
Rejection is not the end of the world, although it may feel like it at the time. Applying for art opportunities is part of the process of being an artist, whether it is for exhibitions, collaborations, residencies, grants or any other project you dream up. Not all applications are successful, which makes the ones you do get accepted for even sweeter.
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