I had a great day last week. Delphina hopped on a train to Woking and we went to see Sophie Ryder at the Lightbox. It was an interesting exhibition. I think both of us were most interested in the sketch books and research materials on display just outside the main gallery. The actual pieces were incredibly impressive but not really 'my cup of tea'. There were a couple of prints and one wire fish that I particularly liked!
It was very interesting to see the breadth of working methods and materials. Huge sculptures, enormous watercolour drawings and paintings, wire figures, flat wire pieces that appear to be drawings at first glance and more.... It was interesting that despite the breadth of subject and material it all held together very well, you could tell that it was one artists work. I felt the only real anomaly was that fish; I really loved that!
Delphina and I had a wonderful day together. She came to the house, saw my press and we ended up getting out my sketchbooks and sharing lots of making chatter. It was really reassuring to have a good natter with a course mate. We talked about the course and progress etc., but we also talked about just artistic lives in general and how we approach things as a whole.
I felt very enriched afterwards. I'm envious of the people on the course who have artistic partners. Their conversations must be amazing, and having someone to bounce ideas off who really 'gets it' from the inside must be wonderful. I can completely understand why artistic movements emerge as artists socialise and share ideas and critique each others work and spur each other on (I'm thinking of the Impressionists especially). Delphina and I did talk about times when this can be a bad thing, when one person is too reliant on the other's point of view and when the conversation isn't equal. This is a good point, especially when an artist is finding their way and is more impressionable. Looking back I have been lucky enough to have received some wonderful advice from artists in a teaching capacity in the last 4/5 years. But it was also a couple of comments from my Mum (and art teacher) in my teenage years that made me decide against pursing art when I was younger. She was recounting that a teacher told her that if you weren't sketching daily then you didn't really want to be an artist. For some reason this comment stuck with me and rather than starting to sketch daily, or questioning whether this really was a valid point of view I decided that I wasn't good enough or committed enough and therefore wouldn't be capable. It wasn't this idea alone, but this certainly had a big impact. It does prove how important the power balance can be in a conversation sometimes.
Looking back it seems a bizarre point of view. I'm sure there are some teenagers who might draw obsessively but not that many surely?! My mum has since told me that she didn't sketch daily and so this comment made her doubt herself too (she studied fashion at Saint Martins in the 1960's). I wish that part had sunk in when I was younger! I did sketch, not daily but in fits are starts, all the way through university and beyond.
Delphina was pondering the maker/artist and brand/person debate she has with herself and this separating also stems from conversations with someone she looked up to. It was really interesting to talk this through and see the effects that other peoples opinions and comments have on us. It makes me wonder what else I have done/not done in my life due to the influence of other people.
I have realised now that I've been creative all my life, I have sketchbooks charting university and beyond. I remember always ensuring I had one with me to record holiday memories when we camped in Scotland, and Mum gave me a lovely little new one to take on our honeymoon. I've made clothes, for myself and the children; I gave my Dad a Jackson Pollock inspired mess for his 50th birthday that I had the best fun creating and which still hangs in his study. It seems inevitable to me now that given a tiny chance I would turn to something creative and wouldn't be able to stop. While I do feel a certain envy of the younger artists on the course who have been living a full creative life straight out of school, I also recognise the wealth of other skills I've acquired along the way.
It does mean days spent in company like Delphina's are all the more exciting - I feel I've so much to learn!