Digging Deeper

I want to talk about what I mean when I say “digging deeper” with the Artistic Journey membership.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Over the past year as I’ve grown as a painter, I’ve also grown a better understanding of who I am as an artist and what I want the whole of my art practice to look like. 

Previously I’ve often questioined, “Why am I doing this?” 

It’s never been enough to me to be satisfied with making artwork that will hang on people’s walls. 

Of course it’s a joyful thing for me when I make that connection with a buyer and know they’ll have my art in their home and hopefully when they look at it they’ll feel happy or uplifted or thoughtful, but, when I’m in the studio struggling to paint it can feel pretty empty when you stop and look around and the world is burning. Literally. 

So what I’ve realised over the past year is that if I want to do this long term I need something to balance out the lightness of making artwork for homes. 

The Unbearable Heaviness of Deep Thinking

This leads me to the second part of my art practice which is based on less commercial but often more engaging social issues. 

I’m still formulating what some of these are but here are some examples of the ideas that I’m currently letting simmer and starting to work on in baby steps. 

Over the next two or three years I’d like to focus on mental and physical health as part of my art practice. I already do this to some extent through my courses with Cambridge Community Arts, but I would like to expand on what I’m already doing. I can see this happening quite simply through walks & drawing & painting activities to help people get outside and get creating and when doing so improve their mental and physical health. This ties in well with the first side of my practice as I’ll also be out in the landscape soaking up the goodness, but it’s deeper in meaning. It brings connection not just with the outdoors, but also with people. I love the chance to deepen how people connect with nature through art and with art through nature.

Then as part of a longer, much bigger undertaking I have an idea around my own health and endometriosis. This is something I think will require me writing to get big project funding. I have ideas of working with a museum or exhibition space to create artworks based around endo, uteruses, periods, menopause...I see myself engaging with other artists to create artworks as well as gathering stories and encouraging engagement from the public. I see myself creating paintings around this issue, while other artists might do textile, video, spoken word, etc…. It includes a vague notion of people walking into and out of a knitted womb!

These two ideas are deeper than just creating beautiful artwork for walls. However, I love creating beautiful artwork so I can’t just abandon that area of my practice. I need to understand them both and to understand when to focus on each one in turn.

The Yin and The Yang

In short, for me to feel whole:

I can’t just do pretty.

I can’t just do deep thinking.

I need both. 

I need the lightness of the first to help balance out the depth of the second. I need the depth of the second to help balance out the lightness. 

I’ve discovered this through diving deeply again and again into my intentions with my art practice and myself as a human.