Hello! The leaves are finally turning, the nights have drawn in, and the temperature has become bearable for me again – autumn is my favourite season and one I find I’m most artistically-productive and inspired during.
This October I turned thirty-five, which involved a gathering of my nearest and dearest at my friends’ beautiful land in Carmarthenshire. One of my birthday gifts was a pocket-notebook, which I’ve found very useful for scribbling down middle-of-the-night ideas and general thoughts while out-and-about, I will share some snippets here –
I’ve paused my work on my dead birds series of paintings as I’ve had the urge to pick up textiles again – I find I just have to go where the motivation takes me day-to-day, sticking to one project when I’m not feeling inspired to do the work makes it feel too much like a chore. An acquaintance I had known for about a decade, died recently, so I decided to create a memorial patch for her, to be added to a community disability banner, facilitated by GS Artists and textile artist Menna Buss, this November. I’ve also been stitching a brooch for myself, the idea came to me while thinking on how to network and promote my art without social media…and being me, I needed to make it weird! So I came up with the idea of a textile bird brooch with the embroidered text ‘Dead bird artist’, as that is what I am becoming known for – much to my delight! I didn’t want it to look too neat, and I’m a messy stitcher, so I’m pretty pleased with it’s scruffy outcome.
I’m still handbuilding birds at Swansea Pottery Collective – I have two awaiting their glaze firing and one corvid pot awaiting bisque. I am more focussed on decorative hand-built ceramics than wheel-thrown practical pottery currently, I love hand-building, I love feeling the clay in my hands and watching something emerge. It feels like a collaborative process between me and the clay, I can have an idea in my head and try to mould it, but the clay can decide to yield or push back in subtle ways, it’s not static and lifeless, so it will tell me how long a birds beak should be say, or how deep it’s eyes should be.
I had a few reject ceramic pieces – too wonky or cracked to sell, which I decided would look at-home in the woods at my friends’ land in Carmarthenshire. A tiny vase I hope will become a tiny home for mice/shrews/insects, and a bowl became an offering bowl at my love’s druid/pagan grove. I look forward to seeing them change over time with the environment, accruing mud, water, moss. I used a lichen-effect glaze which works well in the woods.
This month I attended my first Clwb Crit session – a new group in Swansea, for creatives to share work and give eachother constructive feedback – it was a small group (preferable for my social anxiety) and there was some great work shared. It was lovely to encourage peoples creative projects, and I hope to make it to future sessions. I am trying to find ways to network as an artist, as an autistic person with sensory needs and communication differences (and a lot of imposter syndrome) this is tricky, but I’m trying things out, giving things a go.
I’ve been reading Grayson Perry’s book, ‘playing to the gallery’ lately. I’d had a hardback copy for many years, that I never got round to reading and at some point purged during a move.. but I came across it again in Waterstones recently and decided I really must read it. I love Grayson Perry, both as a person and an artist, he avoids hard-to-parse art-jargon and I appreciate how down-to-earth and un-pretentious and playful he is. I went to one of his exhibitions years ago, I think in Bath in 2015, with these massive tapestries telling a narrative about class and money and fame…taking a more traditional medium and making it very modern and humorous in theme, unexpected. With ‘playing to the gallery’ he explains how the art world works and explores the definition of art and what it’s boundaries may be, in a very accessible writing style. He also critiques the overly-complex art-language some artists use, how it can act as a type of gatekeeping of art, and make people without an art education feel they are not knowledgeable/educated enough to judge art or belong in an art gallery. As a working-class artist without any formal arts education, I find it really refreshing.
I hope to do more of these updates, though I am not good at doing things consistently with my health issues and what-not. The intention is there! I hope everyone is keeping warm, dry, and sane in these trying times.
