If you have looked at my Pinterest page, you will see I’m inspired by too much! Often inspiration comes from a place, a song, written work, a feeling, not always something visible which is why sometimes refer to the quote 'to make visual how the world touches us’ by Merleau-Ponty, 1993. I used this to inform my Ba (Hons) work. However, I will narrow down a few: Artists and galleries Here is where I can refer back to the 'favourite books' blog post. Majority of my art books are about landscape art and I also enjoy looking at work by abstract artists and textile artists, especially sketchbooks. I follow mostly artists on Instagram, I love to see their process and keep up with galleries. A local library is also a good place for artist books. However, I also explore art outside of my niche and this is where I love my trips to London. Cornwall is great, but it’s good to see something more than the coastal art and the tourist market. I don’t usually explore politics much in my artwork however, in the past; I have written for the Punky Moms Zine and made work referencing the environment and wellbeing. I also have books on feminist artists and body modification and pinups. Walking Living in Cornwall it’s not hard to find somewhere beautiful to walk, although I live in a town, I’m only a couple of miles from the beach and there is countryside just down the road. I often take photos to work from or sketch somewhere outside. Getting out in nature is proven to be good for wellbeing, I know I always feel better after a long walk (or run) and I love to go nature spotting with my family. Music and books
I love music. I listen to it when cleaning, getting ready in the morning, in the studio, commuting to work, writing blog posts etc. One of my projects at University was to produce work in response to a book; the book I had was about music. I chose a particular instrumental piece I loved; it was challenging to make something from an inspiration that wasn’t visible. In the past, I have also made small landscape pieces and added cut out text from books to create the narrative.
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Motivation has to be my biggest creative challenge at the moment and many things contributing to it.
I haven’t been creating as much as I usually would; this is reflected in my Instagram feed. I’m one of those people who always say 'if I had time I would do XYZ…' and now I’m on furlough I do have the time. However, whilst writing I am also helping with an English assignment on the side, later on, it will be a different subject or multiple subjects as I have two children at home with me. My studio is less than inviting at the moment, previously I have mentioned leaking and the cold. I can wrap up in many layers but I can’t stay out there for long. I wouldn’t recommend a conservatory for a studio; it's hot or cold and plays havoc with my materials. I don’t have space in the house to move everything to a new area. Anxiety is one big cloud hanging over me at the minute too. Some days I’m happy to get in the studio and put on a podcast or some music to pass the time, the reality is that it’s hard to do that. Sometimes I think the anxiety is becoming borderline depression, on those days I tend to try and watch something on Netflix or read a book to distract myself. I used to run and do yoga which changed my mind-set; aiming to do that again is a positive step. I have many creative plans I really would like to make a dent in this year. Id be interested to hear what your creative challenges are. ‘It all works out in the end, you just got to deal with the rejection every now and again’ This is something I have had to tell myself several times. Nobody likes rejection but you have to put yourself out there otherwise you will think about the ‘what if…’ With such easy access to what people are doing now through social media it’s easy to look through someone’s Instagram or Facebook page and think that other people are doing better but you have to remember it’s only the highlight reel; not everybody talks about the not so great stuff. I’m guilty of that too because if something goes well for me I want to shout about it because I feel good and there’s nothing wrong with that. There has been several times when I’ve said to myself or my friends: ‘I’m a rubbish artist’ ‘Nobody would want to buy this’ ‘Why am I wasting my time?’ ‘Maybe I should focus on having a ‘proper’ job’ I haven’t discussed these feelings on my creative social media account or about any of the rejections I have had as creative practioner. There have been a few I have experienced but not many people generally talk about it. I submitted photos and an artist statement to apply for an exhibition where a group of people rejected the whole proposal, no explanation of why and it hit me hard. I know several people on that judging panel and felt embarrassed. I had worked towards this for nearly a whole year and without the reason of why it wasn’t good enough I felt I couldn’t improve or progress, I wasn’t sure what to do other than cycle through those negative thoughts and feel stupid for putting all my eggs in one basket.. However later on I submitted two of the paintings for shows at Tate Modern London and Tate St Ives and they were successful! I had some amazing feedback, one sold at the private view and the other one sold the week it was on display. If I had let those negative feelings consume my thoughts I probably wouldn’t have tried to get in the Tate Gallery as that is a big step up from a small town independant venue. Only a couple of months after that I submitted a painting for an exhibition which wasn’t accepted. I felt a bit low but I did better to reason with myself; I had submitted one large painting rather than a couple of smaller ones where the gallery may have been able to squeeze one out of the two in, I took a risk which was better than not trying at all and wondering whether it would have been accepted. I sat at the bus stop with my large painting wrapped in a bin liner (not very professional but the reality is that I don’t have the funds for archival wrapping and a courier to take it for me). As I walked through the door feeling thankful that it had stopped raining long enough for me to get the painting home, my phone picked up the Wi-Fi and I received a message; a commission request! I went through quite a roller-coaster of emotions that day! I found a book at work in our Wellbeing box (so grateful for this) which really helped me and I recommend reading if you can get hold of it. The book is called Ways of Being by James Cahill, Advice for Artists by Artists and covers the early days being a student, getting their first shows, becoming successful, inspiration and lots more through short artist quotes. I do recall a few quotes that helped me and reminded me to just keep going with my art no matter what is going on in life and how busy I am, just do something creative every day. For me that can be just a quick sketch, discovering a new artist and making a note to look up more about them, supporting another artist by buying a print or book, visiting an exhibition, discovering images on Pinterest that sparks a new project…anything to just keep going. It helps to remember that:
If you need some more positivity, inspiration and reasons to keep on with your creative practice visit my Creative Help & Inspiration Pinterest board, save them to your phone, laptop, tablet or pin them to your own boards! Chasing numbers and social media burnout had been on my mind for a few days and it’s not the first time either. Years ago I had a creative blog for 3 years which I stopped writing. Originally it was called ‘Not Just a Mummy’ when I first started college and changed it to ‘Canvas and Thread’ when I started to establish myself as an artist. Then someone decided to use that as their website name without clearly doing any research. I didn’t have the time or energy for it anymore when I was in my last year at university and I felt it had run its course. I was so caught up in tracking the views and promoting and then my dissertation zapped all my time. I’ve have had so many different art accounts to promote my work I struggled to keep track of where I was and which I had updated. It was always about the numbers game, it wasn’t all that enjoyable when it started to become about the numbers and less about the engagement so I just cut my losses and deleted the blog which I do not regret doing. Although I am obviously blogging again now sometimes posts will be read when the subject matter is relevant to the right person at the right time and therefore I don’t beat myself up about the numbers at the end of the month. I now mostly use Instagram; it’s a brilliant way to share visual snapshots of my work and studio. I also like to be able to see what other artists are up to and what galleries are showing. Why the Burnout? I was following nearly 1500 people on Instagram but seeing the same 10 -15 accounts all the time. The algorithms were only showing the same few accounts based on my usual clicks, likes or views whether that was in my feed or the stories across the top so it was a bit like a vicious circle; I am only seeing the people who I interact with the most but who has time to view every single account so you don’t miss anything? I became fed up, it was the same on my personal account too and I stopped using it so much. This week I have cleaned up my Instagram social media and it is now working much better for me and I do not feel guilty for what I have done! Where had I gone wrong?
The benefit
What about other social media? I use Pinterest A LOT! As a visual person it just works for me, I have my boards of inspiration all sorted according to categories I want and I have my own work on there too. Anything not art related I keep private. I don’t see it as a social thing so much as I don’t look at the follower feed often or chat with anyone. However what I did find helpful was to follow individual boards over whole accounts unless you like every topic someone has created a board for, I found myself spending a lot of time unfollowing every board I that wasn’t my niche. Many people follow the odd 1 or 2 boards of mine rather than all of them and that is absolutley fine and Pinterest now promote ‘boards like yours’ which is helpful. Again it comes down to organising what you want to see. On Facebook I have an art page that has just over 500 fans, I share my blog posts there and a few images and promoting of exhibitions I’m in. I don’t rate Facebook very well as the statistics tell me that my reach can vary from 0 to less than 100 and they continuously try and get me to pay to reach more people. I can only assume they are purposefully not showing my posts so I pay which I refuse to do. Another artist I know did this and they found the unpaid reach was getting worse and got into a habit of having to pay every time when sharing. I am debating whether its worth keeping this account. I used to have a Twitter account with the first blog, I followed everything creative that was local to me but the feed moved so fast I missed a lot and my posts were missed by others. Different accounts work for different people and there may be platforms out there that are great and I haven’t discovered yet, maybe what works now won’t work in the future. Regularly reviewing what we want from them seems to be the way to go before we burn out trying to keep up with them all. A mantra is not something I chant to myself out loud every day or stick on my fridge (if that works for you that’s great) but something I created on my Pinterest board because I found it helped to see a positive image sometimes, just to remind myself that I can do this; I can create and I can allow myself to enjoy it. I found that my creative mantra board (now renamed as Creative Help & Inspiration) is one of my most popular for re-pins by other pinners, they’re also good if you want to start being creative but you are feeling hesitant. I will admit I have a lot of days where I am anxious, I panic and ask myself who do I think I am trying to convince myself and other people I am an artist even though I have an art degree and I have exhibited and sold my work. I have days where I have so much to do (working 2 jobs and being a parent) and I moan I don’t have time to create so why bother. Then I have those days where I have so many ideas I write long lists of what I want to do but when I actually have a day off I struggle to do them, yeah it’s pretty exhausting being inside my head. So this is when I look at my creative mantras board and pin some new stuff and it really helps, I need that kick up the bum sometimes because those ideas aren’t going to come to life by themselves and I allow myself to get up to my elbows (and ears) in paint. Other things that I find help kick start my creativity though giving me a mood boost are:
Blog Photo by Dana Vollenweider on Unsplash |
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