'Lived in' Exhibition April

Music and painting titles.

Lately, I’ve been really enjoying naming work after song titles or lyrics…its not necessarily going to become a permanent habit, but for now I really love the way connecting a painting to a song can enrich the whole experience for me.

It's been the way with a few paintings that I’ll be working on it, knowing roughly what I want to say in the particular concept but not really being able to verbalise much….when I’ve ether listened to a song or a song has popped into my head and a light bulb has gone on….like “ah that’s what I was trying to say….you took the words right out of my mouth”, from there on in that song has become a sort of theme tune to the painting.

With ‘More than this’

The title comes from a Peter Gabriel song

This is a favourite of mine…although the song itself doesn’t really speak about the subject matter of my painting, I felt the title summed it up nicely.

‘Precious Things’

You’ve just gotta love a bit of Tori!

Admittedly, I’m not always sure I know quite what she’s getting at but I do love her delivery!

Maybe I’ve got the complete wrong end of the stick but to me 'Precious Things' talks a lot about how hard it can be being a girl, growing up and stepping into womanhood in the world we live in….

In my painting, I was very much thinking about this and about how we parent our daughters.

‘Gold Dust’

Another Tori!

This song is just so beautiful.

Memories of our own childhood mixed with that of our children, trying desperately to hold onto them.

The line that sums it up so beautifully for me is.

“How did it go so fast? We’ll say as we are looking back and then we’ll understand we held Gold Dust in our hands."

Pure Imagination

Following on from my last blog, here is the second painting of my lovely friend Chiara.

Finishing this painting has been hard, I think in some ways I didn’t want the experience to end.

I’m not going to say much…I don’t feel like I can.

I’d just like to say a little about the title.

It was inspired by something Chiara’s boyfriend, Charlie, said about her and the impact she had on his world.

Its comes from the song ‘Pure Imagination’ from the film Willy Wonker and the Chocolate factory.

While painting this, his words and this song have often been stuck in my head.

As often the way, the painting took on a life of its own and Chiara became very much a Gene Wilder/Willy Wonker kind of character.

To me it feels as though she is intensely staring out from the painting, inviting you to share in her magical world with her.

I feel so blessed that I took her up on that offer as many of us did.

'Half don’t come here…….so I do.’

 Have you ever had a friend who was like a rainbow of light and colour?

A feisty ball of energy, so stylist, so beautiful, wonderfully creative, completely loyal, totally encouraging and supportive.

A natural comedian, someone who could have you in stitches without even trying.

Yet someone you could be completely real with, stay up all night just talking.

Someone intelligent, strong minded yet compassionate beyond belief.

A friend who invites you in to share with them their wonderfully unique world.

A friend you find yourself talking proudly about so often, almost boasting about them to others, boasting of how blessed you are to have such a wonderful person in your life…..

This is Chiara.

I had wanted to paint Chiara for a long, long time (for obvious reasons)

We had talked about it many times before and being so supportive and encouraging she was very happy to star in one or two of my paintings.

So in May when she came down for one of her flying visits I was so pleased and excited to finally have her sit for me.

I do have to say though, even though we had discussed this often, I did spring it on her this particular day in May.

So after a bit of “I’d have worn more make up if I had known it was going to be today!” And some “Oh come on, you look amazing and I actually prefer not to paint too much make up”, we got to talking about how we’d go about it.

I’d been thinking a lot about the direction I wanted to take my work in over the next few years and how I might want to approach certain subjects.

Chiara was always a great person to talk to about these things; she had studied at art school and worked at the Tate for many years.

We decided that she were to be portrayed (quite rightly so) as a strong, confident, dynamic woman!

We had great fun with the photo shoot, if a little funny and awkward at times and off she want back to London.

Going through the ideas I chose three photos to work from for two paintings.

Very excitedly, I told her of my choices and explained my ideas but rather frustratingly I knew due to finishing off other work and my children being off school for the summer holidays I wouldn’t be able to start painting them until the beginning of September.

I saw Chiara twice more, once in London in July and once when she came down in August.

On September the 4^th Chiara was in a road traffic accident and was taken from us.

No words can even begin to describe how heartbreakingly devastating this is.

Chiara had such a huge impact on so many people; she’s not someone who could be easily forgotten.

It would be more than fair to say that she was favoured by many and favourite to many.

She meant so much to me; we’d been friends since doing our A-levels together.

She helped me on my journey to becoming me; she is and will always be a big part of who I am.

She never once let me down, she was always there, always loyal.

To quote a mutual friend, “she was like a beacon of light”.

I really hope she knew just how much I treasured having her in my life.

I decided it would be the right thing to do to carry on with the paintings exactly as planned.

It did cross my mind that I should maybe go back through the photos and try to find a smiley one or something, but that didn’t feel right.

It seemed authentic and true that I should carry on as planned.

It felt like unfinished business, like things weren’t quite over yet.

With the suddenness of her going and not being able to at the very least even say goodbye, continuing on with these paintings has been a way of feeling like things hadn’t quite finished.

This is the first (I'm still working on the other)…..

It goes without saying that painting this has been an extremely emotional time, like a heartbreaking privilege of sorts.

I know she was so excited to see them finished, she texted me in June asking how it  was going, telling me to hurry up and get started as she needed a new facebook profile picture.

There would have been times when it was going well, that I would have sent her a work in progress shot.

And having finished this one now, not being able to show her is so hard.

When we talked about the concept of this particular painting we talked about names,

I remember Chiara joking about something along the lines of “Twice the Chi fun”.

The name for the painting came to me whilst listening to a song by her all time favourite band Reef:

Please take the time to listen…..

This song has been a real comfort to me since loosing my lovely friend.

I don’t want to sound trite but sometimes it even feels as though she’s trying to comfort me through it.

So I have named this painting after one of the lines in this song…

‘Half don’t come here…….so I do.’

Yes, there’s a bit of a pun in there. I’m not ashamed, I like a good pun.

But really, Chiara did not do things by half, she lived life to the full, she didn’t come in half measure and we all loved her for it.

I miss my wonderful friend more than words can say.

I love you Chiara... so, so much.x

Introduction to blogging

So……here goes.

I wanted to write a little bit of an introduction to this blog, to talk a bit about me, my work and what I might want to use it for.

I have been thinking about starting an art blog for sometime now, but I feel a number of things ‘fear’ being one have held me back.

Also, the thought “will anyone even want to read it?”

If you know me you’ll know how important my art is to me, how much passion, hard work, thoughtfulness and integrity goes into in, with a quiet belief in the work and myself that says “I may be far from there yet, but I believe I’m on the right track”.

You will also know that I am some what of a worrier. I worry that not being particularly academic I will not have the skills I need to put down in words all that a certain painting means to me and that this blog will then only serve to cheapen my work.

You will probably also know that I have a slight complex about that fact that I didn’t go to university. At the time in my life when I could have gone I didn’t. I then wanted very much to work on song writing and musical things with my then boyfriend now husband. I had my first child when I was twenty-three and my second when I was twenty-six. I don’t regret a thing! I just don’t feel that at this time in my life I can go of to art school. I need to be here, being a mother and a wife.

With that, I worry about my technique and all that is not technically correct about it.

The last six years or so have felt like my learning alternative to going to art school…

I am learning, just a lot slower than I maybe would have had I have gone to uni.

That said, I would not rule it out and will go to private lessons and classes if and when I can.

Facebook has opened up a big world of art that I might not have otherwise known was out there, I learn something new everyday... and for that reason I love it.

On the other hand, it does sometimes serve to make me feel less than, for that reason I struggle with it.

I wear my heart on my sleeve; I am truthful…sometimes too truthful. If you ask me how things are I’m likely to tell you and in great detail! I’m then sure to come away feeling slightly awkward about the whole thing.

I do so much worry what others think, I know I shouldn't…this is a battle I very much want to overcome.

My aim with this blog is to have a safe place (safer than facebook) to put down a few words, thoughts and feelings about my work, maybe from time to time the odd work in progress shot too.

I hope that you’ll come back and visit.