My Artist’s Journey – Turns Out it’s All Been About One Thing
2018 has been a year of discovery and transformation for me. It's been a truly wild ride and one I could never have forseen back in January. So much has changed ...For example, I used to think my work was about landscape. Now I know it’s much more than that.I used to try to paint what I saw. Now I try to paint what I feel.I often found painting frustrating and stressful. Now I find it joyful.What brought all this about? I decided to find out who I really was and what I really wanted to say with my work.Art is always an exploration. Unless the artist is creating commercial works designed to sell to a certain audience, he or she is engaged in a journey into the centre of the self. So you may start out painting one way (in my case it was representational paintings of dry stone walls and hills), but you soon find yourself wanting to do more, learn more, understand more.For me this meant working to understand what I was really trying to communicate. Why was I painting? And why was I so fascinated with landscape?As many of you know, I took the amazing CVP course and I found a wonderful coach and both helped me dig deep to find my voice.The truth is that when we start out, most of us don’t know what our real style looks like. You may have thought that an artist’s style emerges easily and naturally but the opposite is true. It has to be painstakingly uncovered. You have to strip back layer after layer of crap that has been covering who you really are. You have to get past years of conditioning, and you have to forget all the roles you play in daily life - and all the people you pretend to be just so you rub along in the world - you have to get to your core. Most of us don’t know who that is, but faced with a blank canvas and a desire to paint honestly, we have to find out.Over this last year, I’ve done a lot of painting and a lot of thinking and a lot of writing to get to the place where I can finally express my own authentic voice.It turns out that the North Yorkshire landscape is still my inspiration, but it’s not the fields or the walls or the sheep that I am passionate about – it’s the feeling of space and freedom. It’s the joy I feel when I am surrounded by wide open space or the wild expanse of the moor. It’s the deep, resonant connection that I feel with this place.I want my paintings to come straight from my heart, so that when the right person sees one of my pieces – a person who feels exactly the same about space and freedom and wild scenery – she will not just see the painting, but also feel it. She won’t have to live anywhere near here, or even know this landscape in order to have this reaction, because she will have her own place that makes her feel the same way.
And because my work is now coming from the deepest parts of me, it finally brings me joy. I absolutely love applying paint. I am fascinated by the effects that come from layering paint over paint and then sanding back or scratching in before painting back over and then removing again. I get completely lost in the process and hours fly by as if they were seconds. Each painting evolves over weeks or maybe even months, but I never resent the time. Every second that I get to do this is a privilege.This year has been an amazing journey and a revelation. All this time I thought I wanted to paint the landscape, but it turns out that I simply wanted to paint joy.I will be showing a selection of my newest works in November at the Gallery at the Art Shop in Ilkley (Hawksworth Street). If you know when you’re going to be there, drop me an email and I will be happy to meet you if I can. And if you’d like to follow what happens next, please sign up for my newsletter or follow this blog (top right hand corner of the page). I have so much exciting new work on the way and I’d love to share my progress with you.