I am currently at my Mum’s house, which is covered in paintings, all kinds of art really on every wall from all different types of artists including some of mine .
They take me back to different parts of my life, things that were going on then , artists I was interested in, but one particular painting got me thinking.
In our last year at school (I was 18), we had to compile a body of work and a written thesis about the artists in question. I had chosen Robert and Sonia Delaunay.
I had spent the year so far painting fairly large scale highly coloured abstracted landscapes mostly based off Robert Delaunays many scenes of Paris. It culminated in a door or window sized piece that had two sides with tissue paper stretched out over the frame with one cityscape on either side but different times of day so different colour pallets. It hung in the middle of the room with light going through like a window.
I felt it only reasonable to pay homage to Sonia Delaunay also and I was inspired by her dancers series ( this one in particular) So I set about thinking how I might go about it, not to replicate but to be inspired by.
One of my closest friends at the time was a dancer and I asked her if she would come and dance for me and I could photograph her which she agreed to. I took reams of actual film pictures and had them processed and then proceeded to cut them all up and splice them together (sort of like this) and made up a very long and skinny canvas on which to start painting.
At the time we had two art teachers and although we were usually under the purview of just one we periodically had consults with the other. It was one of these days that I had a consult with my alternate teacher. She was to say the least, discouraging, dismissing my plan and saying I should stick to my strengths and not draw people. She thought I was making a mistake. I was a mixture of cross and shamed . Ultimately the cross won out I guess because I kept going despite the negative feedback. I just needed to make this piece I could see it and was willing to go against the advice and bring my vision to life. ( I may also have gone home and talked to my mother who would probably given me words of encouragement to keep going, I don’t remember but its pretty likely )
In any case I pushed through and created this piece of work and I was pleased with it and felt like it sat together well with the rest of the work.
So wasn’t I surprised at the end of the year when that same teacher decided that out of all the art work produced that school year she chose my painting that she had told me not to paint to wrap around the front cover of the school magazine. Validation indeed.
However as much as that is a good feeling (and it is ), thats not in fact what I was reminded of when I looked at this painting. It’s the one of internal dialogue and having a vision, and executing it despite what is being said outside of your head. It is being sure of your self to see an idea through not because it might be great but because you won’t know unless you give it a go.
To quiet the noise outside your self(not an easy task of which im sure there is considerably more noise than when I was 18) and follow that idea and push it until you are happy with what you have created , then you can release it to the world or not, but you literally won’t know if you don’t try . There are lots of things that are shared in the world that come from someones wild idea , every book , music piece of art starts with
“I wonder if this could…?” and just like that in pours the light, reflecting out to the rest of the world and out there some one else picks it up .
Brilliant! Thanks for sharing it all!
Such a necessary reminder. This piece is so beautiful, cheers to your bravery in seeing it through!