25 Feb. Higher Horizon Art Club, bit of destruction, and a happy customer.

Ripped some old art apart to replenish my canvas stash after helping with the Art Club as Uni Ambassador. I assisted with mono print and callograph this morning.

 

Some of the students work

Received a photo from Kite who gifted her mum a print of Sand Hills at Christmas. She's had it professionally framed -really nice to receive this and confirms that I'm receptive to selling art.

REFLECTION

Spoke to hubby about what he thought anchors my art practice ( I've been thinking along the lines of women/ female experience/family) 

Interesting to hear his perception of my work

Painting is a way for me to say (or not say something)

I get validation when people recognise what I'm trying to depict in the image and that instigates conversations- (art before theory )

He's not really into the contextual side and is an avid believer that people just get different things from art anyway. 

and..Ian Moods' talk really pulled me back to painting and reminded me that it's what it's all about.  

The more I think about what connects my practice, and the more I think about the Thatchers Children exhibition and that working-class people aren't becoming artists and are underrepresented, the more I think that I'm just painting from experiences -My experiences are around being female, a woman, a mum inside a family, from a difficult background.  experiences of me and the people I know being invisible, insignificant, unable to climb a social hierarchy and

                                                             it's as simple as sharing a relatable visual.

Maybe my practice is as simple as picking moments in photographs.

I'm relating to more than a broad generalisation and I'm stamping my own experience into my artworks.  The paint and the marks are important because they help me to take an image and say something about it. 

I do need to keep the conversation broad but I realise that I can do this with a photograph - as Berger points out, only the people that witnessed the photo know the actual circumstances, so I could pull from all kinds of photos, read, deconstruct and recreate the image and be happy - as long as people recognise with a sentiment or humanity that I've identified in it. 

   Real-life human moments - genuine candid family moments that resonate with people like me - not people that have monopolised the art galleries for the longest time with pretentious portraits of their wealth and standing in society. Not a massive statement that I can write a manifesto about. 

Maybe I just feel I want my experiences to be represented - like shouting into a cave to see what comes back.