A few thoughts, moments after sketching

Images of dripping,

Dark blue paint.

Like a tahini sauce

In a black sesame seed,

A pod,

A whole world

A whole life.

Let me do the « thing », dear head…

It is not you I want to live from !

Let the thing be the thing,

Let the mistakes become beauty,

Let the mistakes become the journey the marks need

In order to unfold themselves.

Let it be messy, let it be chaos.

I wanna remember why it is that I love to do this.

Bits, blurbs of paint on a piece of paper.

Play.

Other states of consciousness, we can access like a meditation.

This is why we make art.

Why do people buy art ?

Because the pieces watches over them, like a talisman.

A piece of art is a new possibility for being.

You can get lost, in an artwork, a reminder that there is another world.

Sketchbooks and Cy Twombly

On Monday, not really knowing what to do with myself, I went to Kew Gardens in an attempt to draw beautiful plants, enjoy myself and start a sketchbook practice again. Now for those who don't know me, I was once known as the Queen of Skecthbooks. That's right. When you study fashion, sketchbooks are the absolute centre of your universe, they are the moon, the sun, the water and the earth. You never go anywhere without your current project's sketchbook, you make them into truly beautiful objects, each page better than the next, collecting fabrics, images from magazines, drawing, sketching design ideas, creating the mood for the clothes you want to make. I absolutely adored them, it was my favourite part of studying fashion: I wasn't so interested in making clothes in fact... I was really into making these beautiful books, drawing in them, baring my soul. People used to say, "Your books are so beautiful, but they're not fashion, you should study fine art"... And I did, after finishing my BA I went on to study and MA in Painting at the Glasgow School of Art.

About 3 years ago though, somehow, I stopped having sketchbooks where I drew. Just stopped. I guess having started a "career" in the arts meant that I had "no time" for silly doodling. And oh gosh I miss it! I read recently in an artist blog that sketchbooks are very important and safe spaces for artists, and it is so very true. It's a deeply personal, intimate space where we get to safely try out new things, make mistakes, none of it matters, none of it will be exhibited anywhere. And that feels so good when every piece of work has usually got some pressure attached, a next show, a newt fair... Will it sell? Is it good enough?

So the other day, I started drawing in my sketchbook again, I have two to be precise! And I did some stuff on loose sheets too, drawings where I am "allowed" to do whatever! Isn't it strange that I need to give myself permission to do that? Well it's just the way it is.

Which brings me to the subject of master Cy Twombly. I went to see his show in Paris the other day, he is one of my favourite painters of all time. Oouaou, I was blown away, such beauty, such freedom. Not everyone gets it, some people feel he's just messing around, doing stuff "children can do" (that dreaded comment that doesn't mean anything). The scale of them, the amount of energy there is in each piece, how they hum, vibrate. I cried in front of the series "Nine Discourses on Commodus", absolutely breathtaking. You feel the murder, the blood, the hatred. I know what it takes to make good abstract art, and his are, in my opinion, as good as it gets. There's so much poetry in every mark he makes, in every space he leaves. I could imagine him taking time to just be with the paintings, waiting for the mark to build up in his hand.

View fullsize

View fullsize

And it reminded me that when I started really painting abstract works in 2010, I began making very abstract expressionist works, à la Cy Twombly and Joan Mitchell. Perhaps everyone who paints abstract pictures goes through that phase. Ans as I progressed, I went further and further away from that, and I recently rediscovered the love that I have for drawing, and especially drawing with coloured pencils, meticulous, detailed, time-consuming things that have been very satisfying. But... I miss the freedom, I miss the "fuck it" attitude there can be in painting more loosely. And my intention is to somehow mix those two different ways of working, to mix the "gribouillage" (scribble in French) and the more detailed works of mine. So I'm going to do just that. This week, I will prepare some surfaces, mounting beautiful Fabriano paper onto canvas, which allows me to work heavily in paint on top. Let's see where it leads me...

Nature

I have just come back from a long, relaxing Easter weekend in the countryside. My husband and I went to stay with some friends in West Sussex, and we also spent a day near Stroud in the West country. Coming from London and immersive yourself in a life of walks and slow time ticking is rather exotic, and is actually a little bit disorienting!

I have been craving more nature in the past few months, connecting with flowers, insects, the sun and just the general peacefulness of it all. I was in Devon a couple of weeks ago, and after 4 days, I really felt I could connect to plants in a deeper and much more meaningful way. I "become" the plant in some strange way, I "go inside" of it, it goes inside of me. And this connection is immensely useful when you are making art, because it stops to be just about you, you become available for "what is" as opposed to the stuff you project onto it. From this place, I can always let the art create itself, it grows slowly, organically. It surprises me, and if I'm there to listen, it will tell me where I should go next, which mark to make, in joy and with innocence, like a beginner. In art like in life, being in a space of "unknown" as opposed to "known" is the most powerful act there is. Each time, it will be different, each time, I create as if for the first time.

And of course this space is not always so easy to access, it takes work to maintain it, to access it. It is as if I needed to "seduce" this space, like a male bird of paradise flaunting its colours to attract the female, show it that I care, show it I work to preserve it. And this morning, after a few days away, I don't feel in that space at all. I feel worried, I feel I don't know where to go in the next piece, I have lost the flame and the space. All there is to do, is to sit, relax, and breathe. So I will.

New Day

I've decided to have a go at writing a blog again. It's not always easy, I often feel silly in the things I want to say. But I'm gonna try.

I've been very inspired by an artist's blog recently, the one by Eva Magill-Oliver, who's work is absolutely gorgeous. And here it is again, I guess the infinite cycle of comparisons. My work isn't as good as hers, not as beautiful, not as mature. That's where my mind's going with it today. Dear monkey mind!

Which brings me to the subject of a book I'm reading, given to me as a gift from a student of mine. It's called "Mindfulness & the art of drawing: a creative path to awareness" by Wendy Ann Greenhalgh. It's a very useful little book and I am very much enjoying reading it. Strangely enough, even though yes I am a practicing artist, I meditate, do regular bodywork and am familiar with the "mindfulness" themes, I have found it refreshing to connect those mindful practices to art in a way I hadn't quite given myself permission to do. Somehow, in the midst of life's routines, cooking and eating very well, doing bodywork and meditation everyday, my art practice had become routine too, and not so mindful. Being alone, I often feel the need to listen to the radio, podcasts, audiobooks etc... There are many distractions around. And because making art is natural to me, because I've been doing it for so long, I can almost do it "my eyes closed" so to speak. In fact there are many exercises in this book that speak about drawing your eyes closed. I had tried before, but the suggestions Wendy makes to the connection with the tool, the paper, the breath, I have to admit I hadn't been paying much attention to.

Reading this book, amongst other things I am doing in my life, has made me want to reconnect to my practice in a different way. I have also been blown away by a video my good friend and artist Rod McIntosh has recently made called "With the breath". Rod connects his yoga and meditation practices brilliantly with his work: he cannot start a piece without breathing, you can see it when he paints. And sometimes he may feel crap and it may not work out, but being perfect isn't the point. The point is to take a second to check in with oneself, in honesty, where am I at today? And to take a second to consider the space we are in, the tool we use, the paper we will draw on.

And these are things I teach to my students. So I need to do myself what I preach a little more. Yesterday, I made some works just for the hell of it, without caring about the results. Just do something. And ever so slowly, I could see the emergence of some new marks, of something new that wants to be born. But if I am not available, they won't come.