It’s all about the journey

“If I focused on the end product all the way through the ‘doing’ of the painting, or rated its importance solely on the impact of the ‘final product’ then something of the joy would be lost for me. I love the journey.”

Ihaven’t had any formal art training, but I did excel at art during high school, receiving multiple year level awards, and I also chose to do arts focused electives during my university studies. Attending life drawing classes, art sessions run by local community art groups, and painting with friends have been good motivators to keep creative activity a priority in my life.

I have loved the arts since I was a young child. My mother was very creative and dabbled in many creative and artistic pursuits – painting (watercolour, acrylic, oils, abstract, realistic, using different materials, techniques and tools), drawing, tapestry, ceramics, textiles, photography, drama, singing, music

– so I was surrounded by creativity and artistry and got to see art making in action all the time. Mum was a fundamental influence and appreciator of my artistic development and she fostered and encouraged my creativity at every turn. My parents valued my imagination and getting lost in the moment was a regular part of my childhood. I also remember my mum helping me to ‘see’. I think that ‘learning to see’ and ‘being present to what you are seeing’ is a big part of the artistic and aesthetic process. When I was small mum took time to bring my attention to things. She showed me that a flower wasn’t just yellow, it had orange and green in the centre, and the intensity of colour changed within a petal, and the leaves and stems included many shades of green.

For me, preparing myself for creative activity involves ‘paying attention’ - noticing beauty, taking pleasure in the colours nature puts together, noticing lines, colour, light, shadow and movement. It is about tuning in to the magic of everyday things. And this is long before I even go near a piece of charcoal or a paint brush.

To me, the creative process is nourishing. It is about feeding my soul, awareness of aesthetics, and being present and mindful in my daily experience. This isn’t always easy to do in this world of distractions and busyness, but it is something I am working on and trying to be intentional about. Taking photos, making sketches, keeping images that inspire, ripping out pictures in magazines that set off an idea are all things I find helpful for fuelling my own creative processes. I have a folder full of images that

I use and refer to for inspiration.

I love to draw and paint. I’d like to turn my hand to sculpture too sometime. My favourite subjects are faces and nudes. I have been greatly impressed by Italian artist Pietro Annigoni (1910 – 1988) and his charcoal/pastel portraits. I love how he melds rough with smooth, wild lines with luminous skin, photo-like sections with abstract contrasts. I have three of his portrait prints on my wall and they give me daily pleasure.

Whilst I get my inspiration from nature in terms of colours, lines, shapes, and contrasts, I have found that drawing or painting landscapes or seascapes or similar isn’t really my thing, at least it is not where my passion lies. Back in high school my favourite medium was pencil and charcoal and I tended to draw things in a very realistic, almost photographic way. In the ‘90s I was mad on Picasso and Matisse and experimented with colour – green faces, purple and blue nudes, orange bottoms... Actually I still am totally mad about Picasso and Matisse. I have watched the DVD “The Mystery of Picasso” many times. It is so wonderful and inspirational. I highly recommend it. It shows Picasso in the act of creating 20 paintings and captures him boldly experimenting with each piece, blocking them in with black, adding spots and patterns and lines, changing parts constantly, letting them evolve and morph into many different phases. Watching him work has given me a freedom as an artist to let go and just see what happens, to experiment, to not worry about the end, but to enjoy and explore the ‘doing’ of a work. I love how Matisse and Picasso were inspired by each other, how they had a go at so many different styles, genres and techniques. They were constantly testing ideas and approaches and looking at things in new ways, in new colours, in new lines, in new patterns…

I was passionate about pastel as a medium for a decade. Pastel is so fantastic for fast and colourful work. I think it is probably still my favourite medium. Since children have entered my life the cost of framing has been a factor though – and there is always the dilemma about whether a piece is worthy of framing or not – so I have embraced ready framed stretched canvas and acrylic paints. Oils frustrate me because I am time poor, impatient, and I like to work quickly. I don’t want to have to wait for something to dry. I also like to have a space and place already set up if I can. If setting up takes too much time I find that the opportunity for losing myself in my art passes me by. So, at the moment I am finding that acrylic on canvas is what I am doing most of.

I love working BIG. For me, working on big pastel paper or a big canvas is always best. (One day, I tell myself,

I’d like to do an enormous painting for the Archibald Prize competition). Working on a tiny canvas isn’t my thing. I also like to work FAST. On a good day I can do two paintings and be happy with them. Generally though I spend a day or an afternoon finishing the bulk of the work. Then I sit with it,

look at it for a day, or two if I really like it, tinkering a bit here or there. If too much time passes I lose interest. And if I do too much tinkering sometimes something of the original zing or magic gets lost. Knowing ‘when to stop’ is something I am still learning.

For a long time I just ‘did’ a painting or a pastel drawing, and for a stimulus I might have used a photo or picture, or a real person standing in front of me. In the last few years I have spent time being more intentional, using the artistic process to work through emotions and life stages – losing my mother to cancer, grief and loss, reconciling with my child self, accepting my cup of life, managing transition, turning 40, being a mother…

I try to do a self-portrait every year as a way of reflecting on my life and keeping track of what I think and feel now. I have also spent more time researching other artists and thinking about how they use the elements of art to convey particular moods or meanings. Thinking about the meanings I want to convey has become much more important to me.

Seeing the Howard Arkley exhibition set me on a journey of experimenting with a more stylised stencil looking approach which I have enjoyed. This has been fun as I normally am quite wild with my brush strokes. So now I am finding I want to stretch myself and experiment. Seeing other artists’ work is always a motivator. I get so much from visiting exhibitions and art shows and seeing the work of others.

A few years ago I joined 10-week class of a dozen people. It was just great to become part of a group of artists and to see how everyone’s ideas progressed and changed and developed during the term. It also helped me see a range of techniques and approaches, and to consider new possibilities for my own work.

An artist friend of mine Raquel Redmond has been using photography, computers and projectors as part of her artistic process.

Her work has inspired me to play with these technologies also. If I have a digital image I will play around with colours and perspectives, zooming and cropping on the computer. I have also bought a cheap overhead projector and use OHT film to project large possibilities onto my wall and sometimes onto my canvas. Once I might have thought of this as ‘cheating’

but now I see it as part of the experimentation and planning.

I have also discovered that the end product isn’t so important. It is finding that ‘flow’, that space where you lose track of time, that is the fix. It is the energy that comes from being creative and making meaning that matters. I don’t want to start off with set expectations about what my final piece will look like. I love that it evolves and that the creative process is often mysterious. Sometimes I have painted something a particular colour simply because that colour is the colour I have the most of! I do love to use bold colours and certainly am not in the camp that says ‘the only colour skin can be is ‘skin colour’’. I’ll try orange, purple, blue, red and bright, luminous yellow!

Don’t ever be discouraged if your final piece looks different from what you thought it would. Being open to ‘whatever happens’ during the creating of a piece is actually important and freeing. Watching Picasso certainly teaches you that! One of my favourite sayings is ‘let whatever happens be ok’. I also don’t think you should destroy any art work. Sure, paint over it if you like, but everything you do is part of your learning history. I get pleasure looking through old folios of work and remembering the journey. (I still have stuff I did thirty years ago in high school!).

I do want to get into the habit of taking photos of whatever my

current project is at its various phases and stages. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes I am unsure about when to stop. I often wonder if I should have stopped at the stage before the one I just finished. My husband often tells me to ‘stop right now, that is great’ - but I usually keep on tinkering. I guess I grapple with loving the raw, unfinished work where the essence of my meaning is strong but thinking that it is still a bit ‘rough around the edges’ and needs to be more painterly. This could also be me still transitioning from the very realistic style I used at high school to the more open approach that I aim for now. My friend Sue tells me that she used to think that her final work wasn’t as good as the version before, but after taking photos at various stages she now has proof that her final version is always better than the previous version or stage. I’d like to be sure about that too. I am thinking I might do two paintings of the same thing at once, stop with one, and continue with the other, and get feedback and see which one resonates with me and with others.

I’m a life-long learner. I love to look back over old artwork, remember where I was in my life, how I was feeling, admire the parts I like, and learn from the parts I don’t. I like aspects of most of the paintings I do, but this doesn’t mean I will hang them on my wall. Not hanging them on my wall though doesn’t lessen their importance in time. If I focused on the end product all the way through the ‘doing’ of the painting, or rated its importance solely on the impact of the ‘final product’ then something of the joy would be lost for me. I love the journey.

I was prolific, and got a bit popular, in the late ‘90s and had several exhibitions. People were buying my work and commissioning me to do work. For a time, this changed my approach and the freedom I had previously felt for my work. I became worried about other peoples’ perceptions, and at times had to alter what I did to please the buyer. I mulled over what to frame and what to not frame. I did enjoy getting my framer to experiment with framing mats, colours and borders! I had held ideals about painting and producing art for a living, but these experiences helped me see that for me, placing pressure on myself about the end product changed my whole experience of the art-making and the creative process.

Letting go of these concerns and returning to the joy of the creative process was a very important step I had to take. I think my work is better for it. Now I paint for me.

People still want to buy my work, but this isn’t why I paint. Of course, having people respond positively to my work is always great. I won the trifecta at the Captain Cook 1770 Art Festival in 2010 where I got a ‘highly commended’, won the ‘People’s Choice Award’ and sold my painting on the opening night. So, I can’t lie, there is a buzz when you get acknowledged, and money in the bank is nice. However, the part I love most is the joy

I feel when I devote time to being creative, to making meaning and losing myself in what I am doing.