PANIC!

Starting to have a little bit of a panic now about my upcoming show.

Firstly, I have been quite ill. So haven't been able to get much painting done.

Secondly, whenever I have a show I really start to question my work. When you are creating so much work in a short period of time it is really hard to get distance from it and I just can't tell if it's any good. 

And the work for this show is really triggering my low artist esteem button. I think because the changes to many of my photographs are very subtle. And someone in my past told me that what I created wasn't valid because I wasn't changing the original photographs 'enough'.. whatever the magic 'enough' is. 

But the work for this show seems the most authentic work I have done. They are views and objects I see on a regular basis and they are truly things that please me. I am making the photographs 'right' for me. Cutting out the things in the image that don't interest me and highlighting the objects, lines and positive/negative spaces that do. 

I think that is enough. 

So here is a photograph of a happy boat!

2 shades of grey.

This week I have been spray painting bunting grey for my exhibition.

I have a bit of thing for bunting! I think it's all the triangles. 

This grey bunting will go up around the shop during my exhibition and hopefully bring together my monochromatic paintings which will be dotted around the shop. 


When I bought the spray paint the shop keeper told me that sales in grey paint and paper have gone up since '50 Shades of Grey' came out!

Black Dog = Something New

My depression flared up a treat today. 

Depression sucks.

But, strangely, I tend to be more creative when I am depressed. And more willing to take risks. I guess when I am that low I figure what have I got to lose.

So I have been trying out something new:

Still don't really know what I am doing. But, despite the depression, it feels right.

Flyer First Draft

This morning I have a plumber in my studio; so I have been creating a flyer for my upcoming exhibition. 

This is the probably the first draft. 

I will ponder this draft in the gym and will no doubt come to a halt on the treadmill and fly off as I remember that I haven't included a vital detail. *

*This actually happened when I wrote my copy for the Coastal Currents Festival.

Still don't know what I am doing!

Oh my! Time is moving way too quickly.

6 weeks till I hang and I am still not completely sure what I am doing! 


But... I do have 3 mixed media paintings that are close to finished that I am liking. 

But (again)... I am an artist prone to temperamental fits of creativity... and all 3 works could easily be destroyed during one of these! 

Though, they could also be improved during such fits. This morning I hated the De La Warr Pavilion painting and in a fit of pique I cut it into three and that seems to have worked. 

I am working on images of buildings and structures around Bexhill. I am not sure why, but my exhibitions are often site specific. In this case, I think I have been looking for an 'excuse' to create work based on the things I see every day. Especially when they put scaffolding up around the Clock Tower. (Oh my! I love scaffolding!) I like making photographs 'right' by breaking the image down into the lines and the positive/negative shapes that I am seeing. Does that make sense?

Someday my prints will come..

And that day is today!

I still have no idea what I am going to do with them. 

And I think I have had them printed too large.

Eeek!


Looking forward to my next day off to start playing with them...

Shit! I've just realised you can't tell scale from this. Just believe me.. they are big!*

* A1 and A2 to be precise. So not massive... but truly big!

Preparing for my new show.

So I have a show in less than two months.

I have no work for it.

I had a great idea. But was a local gallery rejected the idea with no explanation.

This bummed me out. 

But I have to pick myself up, dust myself off and make some goddamn art!



So I took some photographs around Bexhill:

I just need to figure out what to do with these now...