Originally from New Zealand, I now live on the Isle of Man. I pretty much spend my life painting, wondering about things and travelling; not the most lucrative way to live, but I love it. I have a degree in Religious Studies and am a bit of an anorak when it comes to religion. I also love philosophy, history, psychology and, if my brain was bigger, I would surely love quantum physics too.
Today was the unwrap our artworks and find a pozzy for them day. I found a suitable place for my painting, but while I was having lunch, a curatorial decision was made to move it. I eventually found an even better place, and my painting is now hanging in the Chain Store, Trinity Buoy Wharf, in my first ever London exhibition.
The Chain Store
Even better than hanging my painting, was meeting, in the flesh, the other people on the course. It was amazing how familiar everyone felt, and how easily we all got on. It was also great to see everyone else’s artworks. Here is a video the lovely Jo took towards the end of the day, you can partially see my painting, which is blue, behind a long white bobbily thing hanging over a nest with eggs in it.
I really love the Trinity Buoy Wharf. There are lots of outdoor sculptures about the place, as well old pieces of wharfy-type machinery that I think are beautiful. But best of all, the wharf borders the confluence of the river Lea and the mighty Thames, making it a very special place indeed.
Here are my favourite sites on the wharf:
Seeing we are in London, my fella and I decided to live it up this evening. First we went to the new Canada Wharf Mall, and bought some innersoles and a pair of scissors, then we sat on a ledge, cut out our innersoles, and stuffed them in our shoes. Both of us have really sore feet, me because my shoes are new, and my fella because he’s not used to walking further than to his car in his fancy shoes.
After our fun-a-minute mall adventure, we went back to the same restaurant as last night, mostly for the chips, but also because I love a routine, even if it’s just a day old. You have to admit, it is a beautiful restaurant.
I’m a lame drinker. I hate the feeling of being drunk and loath hangovers. Plus, I am prone to migraines, so I can’t over do it. Still, offer me a drink in the middle of the day, and I’ll likely say yes. In my opinion, there are few greater pleasures in life than drinking during the day. When that day is on holiday, the pleasure is even greater. By far the best holiday drink is on the plane. It is a libation of sorts, separating the mundane from the marvellous. Our trip to London finally rolled around today, and like all good holiday goers, we began by drinking on the plane.
Once in London, we hightailed it to the exhibition venue at Trinity Warf to drop off the painting I am showing. I got to meet our wonderful course leader, Jonathan, in the flesh for the first time, and also had a tour of the space, which is amazing.
My fella and I then took a stroll to Canary Warf and found a beautiful restaurant on the water called The Hawksmoor. We went to the lower part of the restaurant, called The Lowback, which was a bit more casual, due to our somewhat scruffy, country-bumpkin attire.
The food was great and included the best chips I have ever eaten, as well as these salted caramel things that seemed a bit piddly sitting on the plate, but were ridiculously delicious.
It was dark and raining on our way back to the hotel, but the combination of the rain and lights from the surrounding buildings looked beautiful, and reminded me of why I love cities.
Equally beautiful is the view from our hotel, which includes a glimpse of the Thames. I’m completely in love with the river after reading Peter Ackroyd’s book about it. It has a long and fascinating history, and is full of wonder and mystery. I look forward to exploring it in person over the next few days.
I love dots. I love seeing them and I love putting them in my paintings. Nearly all my paintings have at least a little bunch or line of dots. In fact, most have lots of dots, and there are some that are completely covered in them. Dots are a pleasure to paint and are like sugar for my eyes. Basically, I can’t get enough of them.
Another thing I love are patterns. Whether in nature or by human hand, seeing a pattern makes my heart happy. If coupled with symmetry, as any self-respecting pattern is, then I am compelled to stop and stare, and invariably take a photo. For this reason, I have more photos of the spectacular wrought-iron work I saw on our recent holiday to Tuscany, than of the stunning scenery. Just ask my fella, he had to stop and hold my handbag every time I saw a lattice, and practically every house in the hill-top medieval towns we visited had them.
The beauty of the lattice-work I saw, inspired me to begin including it my paintings, which I did for a series I painted while at the Royal College of Art Summer School. I think it’s probably best not to over do it, but I little here and there looks lovely.
For the green paintings I’m doing for my first research project, I’d like to include more complex pattern work. So this past week, I have been experimenting with patterns from Victorian wallpaper. I like the results so far. When I am in London next week, I will try and visit the Victoria and Albert Museum to find some more inspirational patterns.
If I’m out with my fella and he does a double-take, I don’t have to look around to confirm my suspicions. I can tell by the goofy look on his face that he’s spotted a dog. It’s like he has a special dog-radar. If one is in the vicinity – even crouched down in a car or hiding under a bush – he’ll spot it. I am regularly reminded that the only thing he loves more than dogs is me. It’s true that if the house was on fire and it was me or the dog, he’d rescue me first, but, you can guarantee, he’d then risk his life to go back in and rescue the dog. That’s the kind of dog-loving fella he is.
We reached the grand milestone of four years together yesterday. I completely forgot, until he turned up at the studio with two bunches of flowers. That wouldn’t have been so bad if I hadn’t forgotten Valentine’s Day as well. To be precise, I forgot to get him anything, while he surprised me with three lovely presents from a gift shop in town, and a dinner at the local pub.
My Valentine
To make amends, I bought him a belated gift. For future refence: an after-the-fact Amazon gift that you also bought two Valentines ago is bad! Luckily it was a Star Wars t-shirt, which seemed to soften the blow. The upshot is, he’s completely amazing when it comes to rescuing and romance, and I should live on my own with a cat.
I wish I could say that I’ve made great progress on the green paintings. But the truth is, I’ve mixed a bit of paint here and there, producing greens I neither like nor want to use, and that’s about it. Instead, I’ve been spending most of my time on the Ann painting, and I’m not even sorry. The home-stretch of a painting like Ann is an unmitigated pleasure, and I am savouring every moment. I was secretly hoping to have it finished before I go to London next week. But even if I worked on it all day and night, it still wouldn’t be finished. Besides, it would be reckless to try and rush it at this stage, as that is how mistakes are made.
As pleasurable as painting Ann is, it is also really nerve wracking, especially at this late stage. There’s no fixing a delicate, pristine painting like this, so damaging it is some way would be heart-breaking, not just because of the labour involved, but for the painting itself. Like a mother hen, I think all my chicks are beautiful, but Ann, she is beautiful and then some.
I love a good nap. And by far the best napping I have ever done was in my dead-lady-bed. The bed was a fixture in my last apartment, which I rented for 12 years (the longest I’ve lived anywhere). It got its dead-lady moniker because I am convinced an old lady died in it. It was a single, motorised bed that moved up and down, like you find in an old-folks home, and had a mattress so insanely comfortable, that even though I now sleep in a fancy super-king bed with a memory-foam mattress, I still find myself hankering for the warm embrace of my dead-lady-bed.
Coincidently (or perhaps not), the painting I had in mind for the Interim Show featured a dead lady in a bed. Although I wasn’t able bring the whole concept of the painting to fruition in time (of which the dead-lady-in-a-bed was just one element), it certainly wasn’t for want of trying.
Even though the painting doesn’t yet exist in its final form, I love it with a passion, and will do everything within my artistic powers to make it exist. Seeing the little experiments above gives me heart that it will!
After getting myself in a right pickle with my interim show painting, and almost flogging it into oblivion, I decided to take a more simple approach to the green paintings. My main focus at the moment is colour. Using the colour wheel I mentioned in my last post, I set myself the task of mixing my own greens using two colours, and then adding black and white to create different tones. I then added a colour on the opposite side of the wheel, known as a complimentary colour, and painted some little paintings to explore the colours and tones I created.
For my first experiments, I used phthalo green (blue shade) and yellow light, with red violet as the complimentary. It was nice not to have the pressure of creating an actual painting, and because I wasn’t trying so hard, some little paintings did pop out. The lighter tones are too bright and minty for the underwater paintings I have in mind, although they might be good for the odd highlight here and there. I really like the darker tones, and will definitely keep them in my bag of tricks. I also think it works better when the complimentary colour is quite strong, as in the painting below (which is of my fella playing Destiny and losing his hair from the stress of it).
Last week I decided to declutter the studio. Wow, what a difference it makes. I love being in here even more now, and find it much more conducive to arting. Of course, unless you’re a de-clutterer of the ruthless variety, the clutter has to go somewhere. Mine has gone into the room that my fella was going to use as an office. However, the non-fibre broadband we have out here in the woop woops isn’t good enough for his job, so he still works in his flat in Ramsey. With the empty space too tempting not to fill, it is now home to canvases and paints and things. According to my fella, I have now peed in every corner of the house, and if we ever do get fibre out here, he’ll need to water-proof the shed.
The other day I was lamenting to my fella about the agony I was going through trying to paint my green paintings, one of which I was hoping to get finished for the Interim Show. To clarify, he asked if I meant the paintings that if I didn’t do them there would be absolutely no consequences. That made me laugh so much. Because he was right, not just about the green paintings, but about painting in general. Absolutely nothing of consequence would happen if I never painted another thing. Sure, I’d fail my MA, and have a lot of time on hands, but no one would die, and except for a handful of people, no one in the world would even notice. And yet, I put myself under an inordinate amount of pressure, and approach my painting practice like my life, if not the world, depends on it. This has been true of the green paintings, particularly the one I had in mind for the interim show.
I absolutely love the painting I had in mind for the show, but I have come to the painful conclusion that it simply won’t be finished in time. Because it is a new type of painting for me, there is a certain developmental process that it has to go through, and rushing or missing out aspects of that process has so far resulted in a frustrating, dead-horse-flogging mess. So, before I flog the idea into oblivion, I’m going to return to the beginning of the development process, so I can build a firm foundation for the type of paintings I want to do. In which case, for the next couple of months, I will focus on colour and drawing figures.
During my last one to one tutorial, Jonathan put me onto a brilliant colour theorist, Florent Farges. I’ve already watched one of his videos, and it was extremely helpful, as is his self-designed colour-wheel system, that takes into account hue, chroma, and value. It’s all pretty technical, but I think it will be well worth the time and effort it will take to get to grips with it. So, watching his other videos, studying his wheel/s, and experimenting with colour is high on my list of priorities.
I have also signed-up for a couple of online illustration courses. So far, they have been enjoyable and easy to follow. I don’t want to do realistic drawings, and am not interested in portraiture, but I do want to develop my ability to draw expressive characters which convey emotion.
Instead of showing one of the green paintings at the Interim Show, I am going to show a painting I did when I lived in Australia. I have never shown it before, and very few people have ever seen it. That’s because I hid it in my studio due to what I perceived as a mistake in it. I always thought it was a shame, because apart from that, I thought it was a beautiful painting. Then COVID came along, the world went crazy, and I finally plucked up the courage to paint-out the mistake, and I’m pleased to say it worked, and the painting is now fit to be seen.
Acheron 90cm x 120cm acrylic on board
According to Greek mythology, Acheron (lit. river of woe) is the name of one the rivers in the underworld, which, along with the river Styx, Charon ferries the souls of the dead across. It’s an apt title for the painting, as I painted it at a time when I was miserable with unrequited love, an experience that sent my life into a tail-spin of hadesian proportions. Ahh, at least I got this painting out of it. A fair price I think.
A word salad is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as:
a mixture of words or phrases that is confused and difficult to understand.
Borrowed from psychiatry, where it describes the unintelligible speech of those afflicted with particular psychiatric disorders, a word salad has come to be used to describe a style of academic writing or speech that is unintelligible to the uninitiated (and sometimes even the initiated). Often touted as the panicle of the academic word salad is the writing of philosopher and literary theorist Prof. Judith Butler. It’s not hard to see why with gems like this:
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.
Further Reflections on the Conversations of Our Time, published in the scholarly journal Diacritics (1997)
Personally, I find the above completely inaccessible and it hurts my head to even try. Unless Butler is being deliberately obtuse, and there is no “there there”, I assume an expert is needed to teach the meaning of what is being said, because knowing the language in which the ideas are being expressed is simply not enough. Of course, this is nothing new, the history of western philosophy is littered with great thinkers whose ideas were pretty much incomprehensible in their lifetimes, and remained so until greater minds rehashed and broke down the ideas over the years, making them accessible to average-Joes like me. So, who knows, in 100 years everyone might comprehend Butler.
There is an anomaly to my aversion to Butler’s word saladrey, that is a lecture Butler gave at a symposium called Topography of Loss, about Doris Salcedo’s 2017 TheMateriality of Mourning exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums. The lecture was titled Shadows of the Absent Body, and I have to say it was the most powerful, mind-expanding, and heart-wrenching art lecture I have ever heard. On the surface, much of it is incomprehensible. However, the ethereal way Butler strings words together seem to perfectly reflect the theme of the exhibition, that is the terror and loss of disappeared people.
One of the best things about the lecture, was it introduced me to Doris Salcedo’s work, and allowed me to access it and fall in love with it in a way that I wouldn’t have were it not for Bulter’s sublime word salad. I am deeply inspired by Salcedo’s The Materiality of Mourning exhibition, particularly the textile piece below.
Disremembered VIII Sewing needles and silk thread
I would like to make a textile piece for my Ann project, to be shown with the painting. The idea I am toying with is something related to the clothes the transportation system officials required be sent with each prisoner, the list of which I found in Ann’s court records.
I am also thinking of including the list of the female convicts who were on the Amphitrite, all of whom died when it was shipwrecked. I think the contrast between the beautiful penmanship of the writing and the terrible fate that awaited the woman on the list is both poignant and haunting.
Amphitrite Indent List – Ann’s name at the bottom of the last page
I’m not quite sure how I will marry the two together, but as soon as I have finished the Ann painting, I will start experimenting with different ideas and fabrics etc. Who knows, maybe something will come to me in a dream in the meantime.
Having recently completed my study statements (detailed descriptions of my aims and objectives for my two projects, and how I intend to realise them), I now have a clear idea of where I am headed, and how I intend get there. The statements were arduous and uncomfortable to produce, as I had to think about, and then articulate, what it is I am up to, and what I want from my work and my time on the course. However, having gone through the process, the clear view I now have is my reward. It’s similar to climbing a hill. Sure, it hurts on the way up, but the expansive view (commensurate with the height of the climb) is generally well worth the effort. It helps you situate yourself in the landscape, and allows you to see the direction and path you should take to get to a particular destination.
On Saturday, my fella and I went to the pub. On the way, we decided to walk up a hill. After much huffing and puffing and moaning that quads hurt when you use them, we finally made it to the top. The view was spectacular, and our thumping hearts and near-hyperventilation made the moment transcendent, and reminded me that exertion in pursuit of elevation is usually worth the effort. Of course, sitting by the fire in a cosy pub and eating chips is also pretty transcendent, especially after you’ve just walked up a hill.
Prior to the hill-walking and pub-sitting, we went in search of a confluence (of the river variety), which is the title I have chosen for my water/green paintings project. The project centres around the idea of confluence – the meeting and running together of two or more things. Using the metaphor of a river confluence (a place where two rivers meet and begin flowing together), I want to explore various historical “confluences”, where natural and human-engineered forces came together and resulted in disasters involving water. Within the selected historic disasters, I hope to find individual and/or forgotten stories of people who died as a result, specifically through drowning, and tell their stories. I also want to create a confluence within the paintings themselves, combining two or more stories within a given painting. If successful, the paintings will be an allegorical warning as to the fate that awaits more and more people due to the natural and human-made confluence of global warming.
Naturally, it remains to be seen if the paintings I produce even work as paintings, let alone achieve something as highfalutin as an allegorical warning (which, lets call a spade a spade, sounds pretentious). Still, I like the idea, and want to give it a go.
Anyway, back to the river confluence we went in search of. We found an absolutely beautiful one in Tholt-y-Will glen, where the Sulby river (the largest river on the Island) meets with a tributary (I don’t know its name) that runs down from the hills. It’s a heavenly spot, filled with magic and mystery. It is no surprise river confluences were once thought of as scared places where the gods danced. They were also viewed as portals to the underworld, and places where propitiatory offerings were made to secure the favour of the gods.
I meant to take a photo of the confluence, but I was too busy securing a favourable outcome for my project. However, I did take this video of a beautiful pool above the confluence, which is part of the tributary that flows into the Sulby.
Oh, and we also found a cave where I suspect the Cabbyl-Ushtey lives. The Cabbyl-Ushtey is a malevolent Manx water-horse that lures passers-by onto its back. Once on there, the person is stuck-fast, and the Cabbyl-Usthey leaps into the river and drowns them.
For me, painting is an obsessive drive that consumes my every waking hour. If I’m not doing it, I’m thinking about it. It is no exaggeration to say my life revolves around my painting practice, the discipline of which is anchored down deep. Not only does my fella support my love of painting, he actively facilitates and protects it. Were it not for him, I’d be a lonely cat-lady with no cat, pushing my trolley around town with paint in my hair (I’m not kidding, that’s how he found me). Instead, I’m painting all day in a beautiful studio next to the sea, doing my MFA, and generally living a life I could previously only dream of. True, I still have paint in my hair, and don’t have a cat, but I am loved and warm and completely indulged, and am no longer in need of a trolley. Its a wonderful life, and I am thankful everyday that I get to live it.
Each week, I have a break from the studio (from Friday evening till Saturday evening), so Geoff and I can spend some quality time together. Geoff refers to this period as Bexapalooza, Bex-in-the-park, or simply Bexfest. That’s because we typically end up doing Bex-related activities, like visiting graves, wells, or my parents. By way of a counter-balance, every now and then we have Geoff Day – i.e. 24 hours of Geoff-related activities. When I say “every now and then“, I mean once every two years. That’s until last Friday when we had Geoff Day on Fire (after already having a standard Geoff Day in December). As we were celebrating his birthday as well, I wanted to make this Geoff Day extra special (hence the Fire), so I booked a night in a swanky hotel and organised some activities I knew he would like.
First on the list was a Trike Tour around the Isle of Man. Our particular tour was called “The Road Less Travelled”, which took us on the stunningly beautiful roads in the centre of the Island, while our tour-guide (aka our friend Simon) regaled us with tales of the grizzly murders and goings-on in the isolated cottages and farms along the way – like the son who ran-through his father with a pitchfork, over a quarrel about a cow. It was a fabulous tour, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it.
Next, we went boozing. I took my book in case the conversation got slow, and Geoff displayed his uncanny ability of making a raspberry mojito look manly.
Then it was back to the hotel for some wine and birthday presents, one of which was a fancy massage gun, which obviously needed testing, so I graciously obliged…after all, it was Geoff Day on Fire!
We then had a delicious dinner at the hotel’s Asian-fusion restaurant, after which we retired to our room. I’d like to say a great time was had by all, but I was struck-down with a migraine and kept Geoff awake all night with my fidgeting and moaning (of the “holy smokes my head is sore” variety). Added to which, the bathroom stank of raw sewage, due to the old-as drains that had likely not been changed since the Victorians were knocking about.
Geoff Day on Fire having already devolved into Bexfest, Geoff took us the long way home the next day, so we could stop off at a cemetery, and look for a well (both of which were involved in a story I am researching for a post-Interim Show painting). We then popped in and saw my folks for good measure. To show my appreciation, I let Geoff do something he’s been wanting to do since we met. That is, take me on his motorbike. He got a little choked up when I agreed to do it, as he’s never had a girl on the back of his bike before, only Phil and Belal. To be honest, I’m not a fan of motorbikes, on a account of all the dying, but I trust Geoff, and knew he’d ride sensibly. Still, I was terrified.
What Geoff thought we’d look like.What we actually looked like.
I’m pleased to say, I survived the ride, and Geoff survived another Geoff Day, despite the no sleep, residual smell of sewage that was burned into his nostrils, not to mention the grave-visiting, well-searching, in-law-seeing Bexapaloozing! I bet he can’t wait for the next one!
bexODESSA 