Emerging in Materials

Painting is calling me. Ive dipped into it here and there and have developed a style thats still emerging in some respects. Im going to carry on and maybe this will be its own thing or become built into sculptural assemblages. Im trusting the process and have collected a lot of drawings in sketch books as well as inks on scrap paper to build upon it. From these preliminary sketches I can make quite deliberate painting choices.

Im also still rag rug tufting, which offers me so much in so many ways, my mum always gives me bags of her old clothes and it gives me something to do with it, transform it into something of comfort. She's also been giving me old wood sacks for the wood she uses on her log burner, which is something that gives her and my dad comfort and warmth.

I have been offered a new studio which is great, slightly smaller but on the ground floor which suits me better, as I carry large items in and out of the building all of the time, I will also be near the wood work studio. It is the end of an era, Ive been on the balcony at Spike for about 9 years. Its time to move, change of one kind can sometimes lead to change of other kinds.

In some ways I have had a hiatus, yet, things are always ticking along, I cannot stop making things. Im always journalling, and collecting objects if nothing else. Mid march, I will be moving and certain something fresh will occur.

Another emerging thing for me is pain, I have a few chronic pain conditions which I beleive is always quite present in what I make, and it seems to have come to a head. As the rest of life settles down, and I have little to distract me its just me sat with physical pain. Im used to it, I have had it for decades. I wonder if I consciously look more closely at what is quite apparent in my work, what form it may begin to take. Acceptance is the key to everything.