So much changes and evolves in the span of a decade. Curiosity lead me to look back at where my creative path has wandered since 2009… (catch part 1 here)
2013:
Mixed Media – Installations – Site Specific Art – Nest Building
Around this time I was exploring more of the cross over between my digital art and all the new skills I was developing in art school – digitally collaging images in photoshop, printing, then collaging these into art journals with more layers of drawing, printing, painting, buttons, beads and stitching on top. Bits of everything.
This is “nen nen ju shin ki“ – the relief collage I made for my second year project.
Art mirrors life. For all that was complicated and complex in my art, that chaos was mirrored in daily life. I’m looking back now and seeing it as the whirlwind it truly was.
I moved house right at the end of the school year, so my end of year show set up and nesting merged into one continual process of painting walls and shifting heavy stuff about, which took up most of my summer.
First step was bringing some necessary color to the new home!
Back to college at the end of the year, I started work on an installation for the spinal unit at a local hospital featuring a series of 16 portraits, all collaged from hand cut screen prints.
2014:
Animation, Word Drawing Installation, Graduation, Textiles.
I reached my final year at college, and my final major project was an enormous (over 20 feet long!) word drawing which ‘poured’ down the wall around a projected video animation / sound collage entitled “In Other Words”. More about this another time.
After college ended, nesting was front and centre of my attention. I’d acquired a gelli printing plate and was experimenting printing onto textiles to make soft furnishings with a mishmash of dying & printing with hand & machine stitching. And a LOT of colors. Obvs.
I began a gigantic (formerly floor length curtain) wall hanging. That’s still a work in progress, another story for another time. Multi-layered and colorful, but most importantly, really fun to make. Currently it looks like this
2015:
Online Learning, Collaborating with Nature, Video making, Altered Book.
Throughout 2015 I filled another art journal – this time at the rate of a page a week.
In January I enrolled in Connie Solera’s year long ‘IGNITE’ program, to learn about teaching online & mentoring. I published my first eBooks. Through this program I also met a group of women from around the world who I know will be lifelong friends.
In the summer I made a hanging sculpture from ivy and this video of it dancing in the woods.
As you know I love to sew, and play around with ideas. The idea came to make these funny little animals from scrap fabric. I made a big family of them for my friends, so most have flown from my nest. The last of these ones now live on my bookcase, awaiting the next generation to be stitched into life.
2015 is also the year I began playing with altered books and collage, and made my first (of so many) flip through videos.
2016:
Mentoring, Teaching, Travelling, always Learning.
This year I returned to the IGNITE program, this time as a peer mentor for a new group of students. In August I travelled to Washington and spent a week with some of the women I’d worked with online last year, I don’t have words to tell you how much I enjoyed being in their company and sharing creative time with these fabulous friends.
I taught my first online class about color as part of 21 Secrets, and began planning what was to be a 2 year project based on this to begin in 2017.
This is the first time I’ve looked back at these sketchbooks for a while – they’re filled with ideas I’ve gone on to develop without realising. Isn’t there something magical about the process of making sketchbooks and art journals, and in looking back years later.
These ideas are seeds I planted back then, which are now starting to bear fruit.
to be continued …. come back for the final part tomorrow!
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