shameful abandonment of blog

Once upon a time, working in France as an au pair, I was worried about not making art for a whole 6 months. Would I still be an artist? Would I forget how to do it? Would the ideas dry up without an outlet and then not flow again, like a dammed stream finding a new course...
Now, without the pressure to produce REF-able outputs and get them listed by a stupidly tight deadline, continuing to produce outputs - or as I like to consider it, to make art - is not slowing down...but the pressure to conform to a particular way of working, reflecting, surrounding the work in a specific language of interpretation and contextualisation is now relaxed. Going back to making art for the sake of it, the joy of it, still finding it the main reason for getting out of bed in the morning, not tied to a timetable or agenda; the only difference is I feel more free to experiment. BUT - I don't feel compelled to write up the experiments.

hills...gardening...shed...inspiration...linoprint

On the other hand, writing up is the reflective process that ensures we that learn something from those experiments and identify a useful place to explore and experiment next...rather than wandering self-indulgently in ever-decreasing blobby circles.
SO - why have I shamefully abandoned this blog? Because the garden needs me, to dig and weed and help it grow radish, spinach and courgettes. (developing muscles, the joy of tiredness caused by digging up and planting) Because the hills need me, to appreciate their beauty and peacefulness, (the joy of quietness, beauty, challenging gradients), because I did some commissions (stained glass, picture book, illustrations) and because actually making art is the most fun you can have, most of the time. So, I am trying to get a balance between physical exercise , thinking, creating and finding time for socialising, collaborating, learning.. Lord, Im even thinking of taking up running. So many ways to be happy...busy...so little time... So - apologies to my Reader for abandoning you, and to my academic hind-brain for leaving you to reflect by yourself. I will try harder.

a christmas without art...

away from the computer, away from instagram...will I cope? This year I did not haul my desktop computer (NO apologies for my preferred tool not being a slim fold-up tablet with voice input, auto-white-balance and coffee grinder) across 10 counties, nor even bring a "project". (Flashback to my mother's panicked phonecall of many christmases ago demanding that I set her a knitting project, in dread of being "stuck in the house for 4 days with nothing to knit"). Instead I thought, a refreshing break, with visits, conversation, crisp winter walks and maybe funnelling creativity instead into hideously difficult cryptic puzzles. But somehow being drawn in to making christmas hats for the aunties, and customising a ragdoll from the elements of a toy-in-a-tin kit. Redesigning the rooms. Problem-solving garden layouts...almost as if being an artist were the natural state...
Sketchbook untouched, but that is nothing new. Nowadays my drawings happen on whatever paper I can grab - including the white space of a newspaper advert if that is all there is to hand - and are binned as soon as they have made it into a film...or pasted into an ideas scrapbook for future consideration. Similarly preparatory sketches for films. I don't do pencil tests, but I do try-it-and-see, and then draw-over-the-top-of-the-old-ones-til-it-comes-out-right. Sorry, anyone who might be hoping my old work will one day be worth millions. Ghosts of old tutors clutch their heads in hands, horrified by the lack of life drawing, the lost art of making beautiful marks in graphite sticks that capture energy of the moment, blah blah, yes I never really got drawing from (still) life. No patience. Not enough room for messing about - observational drawing, so useful but so much less fun that doodling a man with a spaceship growing out of his head or a dog doing aerobics. My serious colleagues tutting over the necessity to make numerous studies from life before starting the project-in-hand, while I always wanted to just plough in and start the building (yeah, painting is building. If you do it right). BUT...animation has done what years of actually filling sketchbooks and painting from life couldn't, free me from the tedious compulsion to make everything "realistic". From the thought that the beauty of the shape of a hand or the line of a cheek is necessarily any more beautiful that the joy of red and purple, unconstrained by realistic representation.

So, if new year is a time of reflection, I propose to reflect on this: Freedom. Experiments unconstrained by timescales, must-do film festivals or REF submissions. Mucking about with ideas, stories, shapes and colours. Fun. And a quiet belief that it will come to something, will end up being time well-spent and resolve itself. Not into a "message to the world" but a small voice that will bring a challenge, a question, a new idea... and a moment of joy to the little slice of the world that engages with it.
Happy New Year to anyone who is reading this, and I hope your year will bring you a challenge, a means to funnel your creativity, and some joy.

Virtual gardening

Soundtrack for The Slow Lane is done, and the finished movie has gone off to some festivals for rejection. Updates completed to the website, to create pages for the most recent movies and , oh yes, re-link every single page to the blog via the OTHER menu. (which I forgot about) Yes, this is why style sheets are a good idea. (ask your Mum)

It's beginning to feel very much like the website is redundant, and that the blog is as much information as anyone would be bothered to read... But for me it's important to close the projects, to reflect, to tidy my virtual desk and get ready for the next idea. Digital projects that are infinitely copiable, tweakable and clone-able can sometimes feel like they are always in flux, that it isn't necessary to commit to a single, finite version and move on. But I believe it is. Let the narrative find its natural ending, its most expressive face and then frame it.

Then, move on to the next project which right now is some "virtual gardening" with added magic realism. It's an idea from the thinking stone, and a tiny bit metanarrative-y, investigating the nature of the animated world, where things can become other things quite easily, seamlessly and without the need for stunt-shrubs.