Unravelling the Art Trail process

I am in the middle of a mammoth studio sort out and clean up. All in preparation for the North Bristol Arts Trail this weekend. It's been marked on the year planner (my security blanket) since this time last year, so there's no surprise that its upon me. And I've been working for it for the last two months.

And it has got me pondering... The process of getting ready for an exhibition in your own home is very different from preparing for a gallery led event. The most obvious difference being that its all down to you, the work, the space and the curation of the exhibition, and of course the manning of the event itself. You do it all, with the help of whoever you draw in to be involved.

I actually really enjoy the whole process, in particular the more reflective side of it all, considering the work, what I want to say or how I want I visitors to feel as they come into my home. It is a very vulnerable place to put yourself. But I think that's a good place. It encourages a quite brutal assessment of your work, what path you have been following and if there is any value to others in presenting them with your 'journey'...

And you have the opportunity to share with them the background to the work, the inspiration, what made you arrive at this point in time with this work on display. I hugely enjoy curating the space to reflect these things. It helps me unravel the days and weeks and months of work, distill ing the process down to a studio that's tidy for once and filled with current work, the important work, hung on the walls.

Mixed up in it all is the sometimes confusing question of whether or not visitors will want to pay for this expression of 'your' journey, does it ring true with them? Can they connect in any way with what you are making? And what value does it have to them? When a living needs to be made, it's not always a simple thing. In the end it's often advice from friends that helps to clarify this part of the job.

Coming at the end of the year, this weekend is a great way to process the last 12 months. What is the important work, how did I get here? What has poured inspiration in? What has sapped me of energy? What do I need to invest in next year? And over the next few days I need to listen to my visitors, hear them out and respect what they say, as they reflect back to me what they see and feel as they come right into my space!

What a very real privilege, one I don't take lightly.

I'll let you know how it all goes after the event! Here's a picture of my nearly ready studio...

 

Home and holidays

During one of those long insomniac nights recently I got thinking about home and holidays, as you do... I was born here in Bristol, grew up here, and now live here. My children have been born here too. And we love living here, for all sorts of reasons. One of them being that the lovely counties of Devon and Cornwall are easy peasy to access for holidays.

When I was growing up we had a caravan on a hillside site in Romansleigh near South Molton. My memories of that place are a bit other worldly... Country lanes packed with wild flowers, woods and streams to explore and incredible night skies. Pretty perfect in retrospect. And nearly always sunny!

Then I went to St Ives when I was about 19, a student at art college. It took me and my friends hours to get there on the coach. I still have a photo of me on Porthminster Beach, taking pictures of waves! Something about the place got under my skin. Since then on we have been many many times. Nowadays, after 24 years of family holidays, the prospect of needing slightly smaller accommodation again is around the corner. A new season. I like change, so that's ok.

More recently we have got to know and love the area around Padstow. Partly because of a brilliant gallery relationship but also because the coast is utterly beautiful around that little town. Especially in the winter time. I spend time there in January, a kind of retreat, on my own. It's time to explore the bays and beaches, also the inland winding lanes that may or may not lead to a cove or quiet view. For me it's a great time to breath deeply and have time to plan, imagine, and draw and paint. My camera comes too, and usually captures 100s of moments that will hopefully inspire in the coming months...back in Bristol.

Bristol. A safe place, a known place. Where family and friends are. Different to those holiday places. Its where the stuff of life and all it's ups and downs play out. Real.

If you breathe in deeply when away, on holiday... Then home is where you breathe out, where you live life and get ready for the next deep breath. Both make sense because they are both real. I can't imagine living anywhere else. I can't imagine holidaying anywhere else.

Well, apart from Italy. France. And those, as yet, undiscovered places.

“All of us, I believe, carry about in our heads places and landscapes we shall never forget because we have experienced such intensity of life there : places where, like the child that 'feels its life in every limb' in Wordsworth's poem 'we are seven', our eyes have opened wider, and all our senses have somehow heightened. By way of returning the compliment, we accord these places that have given us such joy a special place in our memories and imaginations. They live on in us, wherever we may be, however far from them.”

Roger Deakin