more participants

More participants for the 'Painting in the Attic' collaboration - the deadline has now passed.  I am collating the images and words and thinking of the best way to present them all. The words below in bold and italic are the artist's own words.

Liz Davidson

Notebooks/sketchbooks - Liz Davidson 

'I still can't find any really early work although I know I saved a story I wrote about a tree, age about 7, but what I have kept are all my notebooks/sketchbooks, piles of them, rounded corners where various dogs have teethed on them and the striking thing to me, about the notebooks I mean, not the dog, is how much writing there is in them, some, more than sketches for work. And how my writing has changed over the years, alas not my spelling. My art college days were the beginning of having to write ....a lot...about your work. Being dyslexic this was agony, but I love to read and have a great love of calligraphy, marks, gestures, and am a font freak. And it's fun to look back over the years and see how many artist books I've made. So, for me there is a definite link between childhood preoccupations and my work to day"


Diana Collins 

Painting of mother - Diana Collins 

finding one hundred words about my mother...

(the woman or the painting in the attic?)

I speak of her often

sometimes

rarely

never................................

how often do you see your mother?

never

how often do you think about her?

(the woman or the painting in the attic?)

the woman died nearly 30 years ago

the painting has a place in the attic wrapped in a shell of other paintings

I painted her

the woman

from memory 20 years ago

when I re-imagined her

I imagine her still.

I find Diana's words and image very poignant

Teodora Totorean

'At 12 when I painted this landscape, I didn’t know that one day I would be an artist. I wasn’t even aware that there was such a profession. I knew there were people who created art and exhibited their work in galleries, but I never wondered how this actually happened and what they did for a living.

I painted regularly from 5 to 13 years old. Scenes from everyday life, flowers, fairies with long hair and big eyes, the spirits of the trees, everything that inspired me and had meaning to me at that age. 

Autumn Landscape - Teodora Totorean aged 12 years

And then I grew up. 

The mysterious garden - Teodora Totorean aged 33 years 

There are many established artists who encourage newcomers to go back to the stage when they were children, when they drew and painted intuitively. Twenty years later, I decided to take the advice and attempted to break into the arts world.

Since January 2011, after years of wanting to take the brush but finding excuses not to, I started to paint again. Flowers, nature, and emotions – I just felt the need to relieve the creativity within that stayed dormant for too long.

Now, I paint nearly every day with a rediscovered joy and happiness. Every now and then I watch the old painting and I’m thinking “Why did I ever stop?”  and I promise myself that this won’t happen again.'

Ro Bruhn 

'The photo is of an oil painting I did in my early twenties. It was the first time I used a

palette knife and at the time I was very pleased with the results.

I look at it now and realize how far removed it is from my current work. I now work with

acrylic paint, mixed media and do a lot of textile work. Colour plays a major role in

everything I create.'

Thank you Liz, Diana, Teodora and Ro for your participation - there are a few more participants to add in my next posts
I am truly amazed by the wonderful, rich contributions I have received and once I have had a chance to reflect on them all in more depth I will post my thoughts! 

Adding or subtracting?

While I've been subtracting the paint from my painting again today I have been reflecting on something a friend, who is on my degree course, said to me over a cup of coffee yesterday - we were talking about my degree project of destroying/remaking the art work I did 50 years ago, namely 'the painting in the attic', she said that she wished she was a 'conceptual' artist instead of a painter because being a painter was so difficult! (Inferring that my 'conceptual' work was much easier?) Well I was a bit taken aback and rather jokingly thanked her for the 'back handed compliment'.  We laughed about it - but I know what she meant! On the degree course painting is not encouraged and you really have to fight your corner in order to pursue it.  But 'anyone can do that' does seem to be the general opinion about conceptual art. I knew this and it was reinforced while I was invigilating and talking to visitors during BAS 7 at the Plymouth Museum and Art Gallery last year - however I was surprised that another artist/painter felt this way too. Is adding paint to a canvas more difficult than subtracting it? Are techniques prized above ideas? I think craftmanship is terribly important and I hate to see badly presented work but the thinking and researching behind conceptual art can also be arduous and the presentation absolutely key to conveying the message behind the work. It's just not that straightforward. You can be a skillful technician and still not an artist! What do you think? I'm continuing to think about all this..........

Today's scrapings.......... (or (s)crap work!!)