I'll be back....

That's the news. This blog will return. Soon. Very soon. And I've achieved some of my goals. But still suffer terribly from sarcasm. See you soon!

Pricing

The BBC’s recent excuse for a show ‘Show Me The Monet’ (if ever an idea was generated by the title arriving first, that’s it) was a sort of Dragon’s Den meet School of Saatchi. Artists showed their work to a panel of (supposed) experts, and looking directly into their cold dead eyes, named their price.

The Artdragon’s then said yes. Or – more usually, no. One candidate was still studying at the RCA. With a knowing sneer indicative of: “We’ve got a right one here,” the host introduced the first challenger, who had set his price at (wait for it…) £50,000!

Wow.

Asked to justify this, he said unabashed words to the effect that he was an excellent artist, would one day be hugely famous, highly collectable, and art-lovers should snap him up. Then came the silence. The panel were aghast. They all said no, but you could sense that they admired his spirit, even as they spluttered a refusal.

I like that attitude. Pricing work is always so hard. I have been asked to put a price on my work several times, and never know what to say. How do you value art? The more beautiful it is, the more you can pay? And does size matter? Apparently, it does: larger pieces make more money, unless they are too big, in which case they might not sell at all.

Do you take into account the time taken to make a piece of work. If that was the case, then some of my text embroideries take months. So by that logic, I should sell for shed loads of money. It’s also hard to time how long something takes. My hand-tinted photomontages can actually take ages to make, as I layer the colour gradually, wait for ink to dry etc, but I suppose they do not look expensive (whatever that means.)

Funnily enough, I understand that some artists adopt gasp-inducing pre-emptive pricing as a ploy to avoid selling work, because emerging artists need the money, but do not have much work to sell. Tricky. And then you’ve got galleries taking a hefty slice - I’ve seen commissions of up to 40% being mentioned.

Artists must aim at their market level, that is, if nobody’s heard of you, they won’t pay loads of money for a small, rough sketch. Oil paints are really expensive, but if you cover a massive canvass, how can you cover your outlay?

When I had work in an exhibition, I had to settle on a price, just in case one of those desirable sticky dots might be placed on my work. What a nightmare: the medium was photomontage hand-tinted with ink, pastels and even felt pens. The paper was thin and exactly A4 size the frame was plain and basic. I grabbed a number from the air – no harm done as no offers were made. But what if someone actually wants to sell or buy my work?

I’m going to have to sort this out, ready for the day when my genius is recognised. 

Wrapping

I’ve been dying to do some wrapping. I’ve long admired the colossal work of Christo, and (ambitiously) that’s what I want to try next. I dreamed of wrapping entire buildings until they billowed with silk, but reality bit: my plan was flawed as I would never gain access to a bridge. And so - there being no Reichstag readily available - I had to settle for wrapping a chair.

Before beginning, I asked my friend James, who reminded me about the practice of wrapping by choosing an excellent shrouded object as his facebook profile picture. I asked for his advice, but it’s a library shot of a statue being transported, although he does have a wrapping qualification, albeit to do with conservation. Neither of us know much about, or have shown any prior talent for rapping (getting that gag out of the way) and so I will wrap alone.

I am currently on the road, and in preparation, borrowed some toilet paper from my pensione (which is like Fawlty Towers relocated to Hoxha’s Albania) and brought out the muslin I am using later to sew on. FYI: you should be grateful you aren’t my sherpa – I packed a rucksack full of art-supplies which makes me walk with a stoop.

There was a chair in my ‘pensione’ (I am shuddering at the horror, the horror of that pensione) which was crying out for a fresh lease of life as an art object. I was contemplating its undeniable and majestic serenity when a cheery ‘HOLA!’ intruded. It was the cleaner, who graphically and effectively mimed ‘do you need any more bog-roll?’ and in reply I gesticulated: ‘I’ve plenty thanks for asking.’

But that chair looks lonely. Perhaps I am anthropomorphising a chair, but it does suggest a past life. The varnish is chipped and yellowing. The plastic cover is worn. The toilet paper doesn’t look right; too obvious and clumsily symbolic. Muslin is the way forward. I mummify a sad old chair, which sits in the sunbeams blazing through the window. We have both been in better places.

Wrapping is like dressing an artefact in different clothes. Wrapping bestows an object with new layers, making the viewer look afresh. When hard edges dissolve, we seek clues in an anonymous bundle of covers as our preconceptions are seen at another angle. What’s angular and harsh becomes smooth, and unknown.

It’s impossible to look at objects wrapped in muslin and not think of mummies, those vainglorious attempts by pharaohs to become immortal, a visual echo I appreciate, along with a remembrance of crepe bandages. I wish I could have placed the chair outside to record the entire process, but think the hotel would have objected (anyway: my room was four flights up with no lift.)

I think I will return to wrapping objects, but ideally with more space, and better materials. I knew that length of muslin would come in handy, although I have yet to use my value pack of J-cloths. Give me time people, as I might be heading to Berlin, and the Reichstag beckons.

Watercolours

If I ever require brain-surgery, I want an expert surgeon to operate, not some chancer who’s decided that hacking into my head might just work out: well, they gave plumbing  a go (only had a few leaks) and now they plan to crack open my skull with a teaspoon.

That said, despite my lack of formal training, I want to paint, perhaps because of some childish vision of knowingly wielding a palette whilst frowning and wearing a beret, as that’s what proper artists do, right? Oils are expensive and require some technical knowledge with regard to palette and under-painting (note to self: try the internet stupid) so for now, watercolours it is. Unfortunately though, whenever I hear ‘watercolours,’ my mind produces words like damp and insipid.

Watercolours are often a childhood point of contact with art materials: remember those cheap tin boxes with a memorably pungent aroma? (They also smack of art clubs and pictures of cats and posies.) Asking around, few of my art-school trained friends were taught how to use them. Perhaps that’s why they have rejected watercolours, having been captured by the conceptual art pixies and led down the path of installation, performance and artist films. (NB: I shall try them all in the future.)

But I like watercolours. I bought a box of mid-range paints ranging from jewel bright to the earthy tones I reach for elsewhere. I do not buy a beret (not yet.) The ‘artist quality’ paints are punitively expensive and therefore beyond me, but I notice that they are brighter, truer and denser in tone.

My first attempt at watercolour painting is defeated by - of all things, water. An unexpected deluge drenches both me and my first effort, but at least teaches me a lasting lesson: paper must be suited to the medium i.e. it mustn’t crease, or break when sodden. My friend Youngjoo approves, since she insists that great artists must suffer. I am not tortured, just a bit soggy.

I find that watercolours do not lend themselves to life painting, but seem to suit landscapes. I also discover that they dry rapidly, do not blend once applied (mixing in the palette doesn’t work for me - I end up with a puddle of ugly thin mud) and you can’t build up layers of colour.

Beside the sea at Troon, I find a view where the sea meets the sky and there are hills, but the dreich weather makes everything look like a large mountain of sludge. Youngjoo points out that I am using broad sweeps of colour, painting shapes directly rather than creating an exact likeness. I like that. In my craziest, most outlandish, deluded, unreasonable and ambitious dreams I can paint like Rothko. Truthfully, these are my first ever dabbings. I’m just sticking paint onto a surface, but as the rain inevitably falls, and the painting expedition retires for a fish supper, I decide that I love painting. And that I like watercolours. And that berets do not suit me.

Life Drawing

A life class is no place for self-consciousness, prudery or sniggering (that said, one model is so uninhibited she re-enacts the terrifying scene in Poltergeist where the kids are terrorised by a giant vagina lurking in the toy cupboard.)

Life classes (or rather, permission to stare at naked people without being arrested or shunned) are exulted by artists as the very basis of representative art. When I first began to draw the human form, I was drawing stick people. I hadn’t picked up a pencil with intent since I was twelve, but was pleased to be sketching the legend that is Jeff the life model (he’s shaved so to facilitate our drawing his dick.)

Everyone has their own technique. Some people are life painting. One smart alec is using a laptop, while another is making collages out of ripped paper and elastic bands. The models run through poses: some with props (one actually puts a bag on her head) while others lie on the floor (not moving is tiring, and lying prone must be a blessed relief.)

As a novice, I am concerned with proportion, scale, and realism, although I don’t aim with hyper-realism (I couldn’t even if I wanted to.) With me – if a drawing looks vaguely like an earth dwelling creature, then that’s a bonus. Mostly, I want to capture and express some sense not just of the body, but the personality in front of me, as opposed to a cold but accurate replicant.

Penis. Nobody says it, but we’re all thinking it. Before I attended my first life-class outside of the Institution I Decline To Name (I don’t want to tell tales) I noticed that drawing willies is a hobby common amongst those who frequent the pub above the room where classes are held, because there are loads scratched freehand on the tables.

Now I know that I can’t draw a dick to save my life.

One model is older than the others, some of whom resemble the young protoganists in Hollyoaks: smooth and free of creases. They seem to have amassed no backstory. This particular gentleman is draped in a white sheet, and to me he seems somehow heroic and wise, like a good philosopher shortly before he’s forced to drink poison. Those around me say I have gone some way to communicating this.

I have learned this much so far: I don’t like charcoal, as it makes drawings look like people have a false black wall around them, and that I like using colour. That I go over outlines time and time again to build up layers of colour, and that I don’t like the fast poses (I can’t see too well, and need to adjust to what I presented with.)

A man who has been watching me work leans across and asks about my training and background. I have neither: am fresh to drawing and also am untrained. “Well,” he says. “You’re not wasting your time are you?” Which, considering that just months ago I was drawing stick men is a massive compliment.

An Innocent Artist Abroad - Part One.

Do we actually need an art school education? Must we be taught to paint? How long does it take to learn a new artistic skill? And is there any fun to be had in trying? Since taking up visual art, I have experimented with life-drawing, described myself as a Dadaist (sharing their love of photomontage and embroidery) and obsessively painted abstract watercolour landscapes. I’ve even shown work in actual, proper galleries.

You might cynically decide that I am a chancer evading the awkward silence accompanying the phrase: “I studied art,” that I should do my foundation and get poor and grubby like everyone else. I have some basic experience, having recently graduated with a useless research masters from an institution I decline to name, but mine is punk art, currently text embroideries: as Sid Vicious might have said, just get some fucking thread and do fucking stitching. A friend sent a fools-guide to cross-stitch, after which came extravagantly foul language as I sewed my first text based samplers.

For subject matter – how about death and misery? I have written about housing, and realised that conversations overheard on the balcony of my former home might be informative. Eavesdropped dialogues involved murder, suicide, drug dealings, and infidelity. I copied down the heart-rending graffiti found in women’s toilets: “I’ve just been diagnosed with bi-polar. What my gonna do!” I got funny looks when edging closer to capture accurately some surly, mismatched couples speaking in cafes: “…but then, my mum was only fourteen when she had me.”

My first embroideries were completed in a mist of blood oozing from my now pricked-to-the-bone fingertips, sorrow, growing enthusiasm and some surprisingly positive feedback (from certain others there was also beard stroking and bile but let’s ignore that.) I’ve enjoyed some success. At the time of writing, this stunned but proud chancer has a diptych showing at the beautiful Bury Art Gallery, a drawing shown by invitation in Edinburgh and been featured in a book – all just one year after my debut.

Over the next few months, I shall try everything once and then maybe again: performance (boy, do I have plans for that) a wilfully and spitefully languorous artist film, painting pretty pictures of cats, displaying appealing found objects,  watercolours, life-drawing, causing critics to say: “…call that painting? My toddler can do better than that!” along with installation, and sound work (my first attempt with the latter involved my friend Sara screaming into a microphone so ferociously that my nose melted) and even the cranium-grinding bane of every artist’s life – proposals and applications.

My life will become a conveyor belt/smorgasbord/tasting menu of artistic experience and practice. I will share my success and failure with you all, ascertaining if technical skill, art-school life and the assistance (shame and vitriol) of those notorious and punitive crit sessions is necessary, or indeed desirable. And so the adventure begins. Pass the turpentine and strap me in.

(Note to self – do not drink the turpentine.)