I’ve blogged before about my decision to take this year off from selling my work, to play with no outcome in mind and see what happens. Giving myself the space to heal from the emotional and physical exhaustion of losing Tony. I said I’d revisit the decision if it felt right.
I’m not ready to start marketing and selling. I am ready to start thinking about making a body of work – what might the theme be, do I want a limited colour palette, work on paper or canvas, what materials to use? Not making, initially anyway, just thinking and getting clarity about my goal…
It’s good to be at this point, to know I have some emotional space already. It took two years to get to this point after Mum died, and Tony’s only been gone six months. I’ve thought a lot about why it’s quicker this time. It’s certainly not about the depth of love. I think it’s because I’d been there before and knew how to look after myself better, knew how and when to seek support.
In the meantime, I attended the ‘Sum of all the parts’ exhibition opening at Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth. I have three small landscapes in pale wooden floater frames in the show. It’s a group show with some fabulous work.
Left Bank Art Gallery has a member’s exhibition coming up, ‘The sum of all parts’. I’m entering 3 20x20cm paintings floating in 30×30 wooden frames. It’s the first time I’ve used the floating frame set and love them.
I’m a messy painter so covered all the wood in painter’s tape before I picked up a crayon or brush. It stayed clean, so was worth the effort.
The process I used for the works was my standard semi-abstract process; paint, collage, more paint, more collage, mark making, (rinse and repeat) and final touches.
I’ve been reading colour theory books and testing some limited colour palettes. I settled on orange, deep violet and sap green for this trio. I’ve also been playing with red violet, blue green and Indian yellow.
The advantage of a limited palette is really understanding what the colours can do. Once you settle on one or two limited palettes, you can buy those six colours in all the materials you like – acrylic, watercolour, ink, oil pastels, crayons, pencils… You get the idea!
Working with so much blue around them was disconcerting!
I’ve just has 12 days away, staying with Alan in Hokitika. I wanted a break, Penny & I needed to get some work done on our joint exhibition, and it made sense to go while Tony’s resthome is in lockdown. I spoke with Tony a couple of times every day, and he seemed to cope ok. Because the pandemic is still having a big impact, I took short leave and worked 2 to 3 hours a day, and I’m pleased I did – the technology worked fine and it was good to stay on top of decision making.
I fancied some art supply and clothes shopping, so we stayed in Christchurch instead of heading straight back to Hokitika. It was the first time I’d shopped at The Drawing Room – lovely shop with some different supplies and great service. Clothes shopping – say no more! We also went to Orana Wildlife Park and had a good look around. The Gorilla is incredible, you can sense the contained power & strong personality. I walked 9,000 steps, which is the most I’ve done since my second total knee replacement and was ok for it
Penny and I spent an afternoon working out which pieces of art felt finished, deciding what pieces belonged together and what walls they’d go on in Left Bank Art Gallery. It’s a lot of decision making, and we got through it well. By the time we’d finished, we were both feeling positive about the exhibition. We’ve decided to have an artist talk on the final day, and I’m going back down for that.
Alan took me up the Taramakau River in his jetboat to do some Salmon fishing. We got 3 Trout strikes but didn’t see any salmon. From talking to various people, it seems there have been almost no salmon this season in the whole region which is a bit concerning. I love going up the river because it’s so peaceful and the view always inspires new art.
Penny and I also has lunch at Monteith’s in Greymouth, which I love – although it was very busy and a lot of people on the coast aren’t careful re masks etc so that concerned me a bit. Alan and I had dinner with friends two nights in a row, visited his older neighbor, and spent an evening with friends finalising Tahr hunting trip details. For me, that was a lot of socialising!
As always, I’m grateful to have had a good break; rest time, art time, a bit of shopping, and nowhere I needed to be in any great hurry.
Tasmanian DevilBearded DragonThe Gorilla ❤ Up the Taramakau RiverFarm dogs never get patted lol!Testing out artworksSelecting books to exhibitI love the colours of the region’s rivers
I spent today “working large” with Penny Kirk at Left Bank Art Gallery in Greymouth. It was amazing! I had so much fun working alongside Penny – we use similar colours, and even materials, but have very different processes and outcomes. The opportunity to work at a much bigger scale was great; I haven’t worked at this scale since my last year at The Learning Connexion in Wellington.
Tomorrow I’ll try to photograph the finished works and share them. In other news, Tony had a better day and has enjoyed doing his paint by numbers. He’s not feeling 100% tonight but that’s nothing new…
I’ve had terrible internet problems for the last 10 days, just as we upgraded our printer and pc (we lease them for the newspaper so have to change every 3 years) and it’s been a *nightmare*. It seems to be fixed, thank goodness. It’s even used up a lot of my art time, which is never good for my temperament 😉
So now I am back to creating art, including journal pages to help me remember everything I am learning as part of Dr Duc Vuong’s Leap Year Challenge.
I’m teaching a Dylusions art class in Greymouth in early April and have been busy putting class packs together – I’m excited about it and hope others are too. Bookings can be made through Left Bank Art Gallery.
Cath Sheard Art 