Tag Archives: artist

I am yet to make my best work

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I’ve really been through a stage of some sort this past year. Reflection, depression, sorting, connecting, ending, searching. At times it has been very distressing, and other times it’s just traveling along side my day to day, silent but present. I wouldn’t know what to call it, perhaps that’s something I can do when I’ve moved further away from it but whatever the last 12 months was, I really feel like now I have turned a new page.

P H E W

Perhaps this is what happens when you quit something that has been all consuming. I stopped drinking a year and a half ago and my life is SO different. May not look like that on the outside, I appreciate that – but who I am and how I relate to me and the world is very different. I’ve had to learn, though, that I cannot fill up all that space with just work. Art needs its own time, it also needs time off and just a few weeks ago I finally stopped. Well, I did a small thing here and there but ultimately – I stopped. Right at that point I started up teaching and really had to check myself to make sure I didn’t channel my bitterness about ( my ) Art to the teenagers I am to teach and guide. ( PS young people are the best people ) That was a great opportunity for reflection on myself, my Art and ultimately my disappointment with my own practice.

I’m lucky in that I know some pretty great people. I really feel like I have friends and a community around me that cares. I really feel held and able to let go a little and bounce back when I can. So thank you to everyone for the chats over coffees, teas, lake walks, train commutes, openings, emails and ( bloody ) facebook messenger. Thank you.

Last week I went into my studio for the first time in a month and pulled it completely apart. I’ve sorted, scrubbed, taken apart, given away, thrown out and moved things about. It’s a completely different space. I felt like I was suffocating here in a weird way and now it feels light, ready and hopeful.

I’m drawing again, I’m motivated again and I feel like I am yet to make my best work – which really is the best feeling.

Short Film by Marianne Latham

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Marianne Latham contacted me as she is putting together a documentary about the nude in art. She was interviewing people in regard to the Benalla Nude but others as well. I really look forward to seeing the full doco! But she put together this short of me – I feel really humbled that Marianne wanted to come into my space and ask me about my work and my thoughts. It’s also rather timely as well – because I really need to write a new artist statement soon and this ( plus another interview I did, which is not yet online ) have really got me thinking about what is important to me in my work.

still-three-lily-mae-martin

Thank you Marianne!

Working, thinking

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I feel like I have been drawing this drawing forever. Which is utter nonsense because I only started it last week .. perhaps the week before.

But I’m at that point where even though I work and things get drawn and it’s evolving – I feel like it isn’t going anywhere.

Perhaps this is the danger of focusing all of my time on just one artwork. Maybe this is why I ( usually ) work on many artworks at once. Because if there is just one work then I think about that work. I think about it while I’m working on it, I think about it when I am packing up from working on it, I think about it at dinner time, I think about it while I’m showering, spending time with loved ones, changing a nappy. I think about it on trains and in cafés and I think about it while I am trying to sleep. Which is the worst because with no other outside influence I think about it in a hyper-realistic state. I note the textures, the way the ink takes hold of the paper, the layers – I feel myself drawing it.

So then I am doing all of this thinking and feeling and it’s taken up so much of me it almost feels like it is going to implode. There’s too much and when there’s so much information and feelings it’s almost like I’ve experienced this artwork completely and then I think, well, I don’t have to finish it. Because I’m kind of lost to it and what’s the point anyway.

So this is the point I photograph and upload it onto this blog to say look, I’m making things and something is happening – even if my tired brain, eyes and hands tell me otherwise.