It was with mild embarrassment yesterday that I noted my last post was in August. The cause of this embarrassment was mostly due to the fact that at the time I was using my own blog as a quick example to a student, upon whom I was pressing the importance of regular updates to engage with an audience. Whoops. Physician Heal Thyself. Fortuitously, I was also but a few brush strokes away from completing the fourth painting in the unexpected tangent that has been The Serenity Series and so today I felt I actually have something to post about. In my defence, September is always a very busy month (Yes, I know, we’re a third of the way through October) and so it’s been a genuine challenge to squeeze the painting in at all, let alone find time to write about it!
Yongzou Lotuses, Acrylic on Canvas, October 2014
| As mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been experiencing some bittersweet feelings about my current practical direction, which is quite removed from my previous work in a Social Practice discipline. The paintings of The Serenity Series are developed from the Peaceful Places collection of photos (still on display at the Earth Café) taken in China and Japan during 2013 and I really didn’t expect anything to grow from these. At the time, they were really just a way of recording my experiences, as is the way with much travel photography and I felt quite self-indulgent to be producing pieces that are not aiming to achieve some form of social purpose. At the last CRITgroup meeting, I found it useful to discuss my discomfort around working on pieces that didn’t seem to have this social function. |
Whilst I was pleased to know that others could identify with having experienced something similar, the fact that the origin of those preconceptions were questioned by others was also a reassuring point of view. Why can’t the act of producing a creative outcome be at the same time enjoyed by both artist and audience? Though I am yet to fully resolve this in my practice, the discussion has at least given me some motivation (permission!?) to carry on. This new painting is titled Yongzou Lotuses and is composed from photographs taken at Yongzuo Temple and pencil drawings made on site at Chong Shan Si Buddhist Monastery, both in Taiyuan, China.
The recent work has been part of a bit of a reset period for my creative practice, I think and this is something I always struggle with. Though I recognise it is perfectly natural for things, work, creativity, life generally, to reach natural conclusions or fallow periods, I find it incredibly difficult to not do something. Whilst I know that rest and reflection is essential for progression in many fields (here I am specifically relating this to my experiences of running and training plans!) that doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. I’m coming to the conclusion that this recent series of paintings is something of a displacement activity as much as it is an exploration of the photographic material; something creative to do while I rest my artistic muscles and store up some psychological glycogen to power me into a new socially creative phase. I do have some genuine ideas for this that are slowly coalescing around the edges of my consciousness. Needless to say they involve running, community engagement, art, and… well I’ll see if I can squeeze some cake in there too and hit all my favourite things in one project!
The recent work has been part of a bit of a reset period for my creative practice, I think and this is something I always struggle with. Though I recognise it is perfectly natural for things, work, creativity, life generally, to reach natural conclusions or fallow periods, I find it incredibly difficult to not do something. Whilst I know that rest and reflection is essential for progression in many fields (here I am specifically relating this to my experiences of running and training plans!) that doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. I’m coming to the conclusion that this recent series of paintings is something of a displacement activity as much as it is an exploration of the photographic material; something creative to do while I rest my artistic muscles and store up some psychological glycogen to power me into a new socially creative phase. I do have some genuine ideas for this that are slowly coalescing around the edges of my consciousness. Needless to say they involve running, community engagement, art, and… well I’ll see if I can squeeze some cake in there too and hit all my favourite things in one project!
| I do have one ‘Social Practice’ update of course, since my last post; the aforementioned invitation to return to the Hulme History Society to run a PlaceMaking workshop with some of their newer members who hadn’t participated in the project previously. There won’t be a physical exhibition of these images but you can see all the new contributions in the Hulme Revisited gallery. | 
|
Only Happy When I'm Running, Digital Illustration 2014
| As the boundaries between my passions continue to conspire to shift and blur, I have also completed some new illustration work for Up & Running. I was asked to produce some T-shirt designs for their own brand clothing range, Sub4. These haven’t been produced yet but I think I’m safe sharing one of the designs that won’t be used… It also illustrates one of the factors that is encouraging me to shift focus and plan some new projects to get people in cities interacting, exploring, creating and, of course, running! |
RSS Feed
