From 13th March 2022 newletter.
I've entered the Void.
I'm piecing scraps of paper, notes, scribbles, rushed doodles, gathered in pockets and bag, stacked in a corner of the studio table. Ideas yet to realise, to consider, to get me back into where I was, what I've been thinking but unable to attend to.
There's been a gap in my studio making….A big gap.
Peaks and troughs, ebbs and flows of one kind or another are normal within a creative practice, I've learnt to navigate these according to their nature. However, I haven't made any paintings since last July (Somewhere to live with my family became THE priority, to get into the 6 year long renovation before winter really hits.).
This feels somewhat like an confession. And it is a painting space to re-enter…hence the Void. Gulp.
I’ve been through the plans chests, deep into the drawing archive. The drawings below are a selection ranging from as far back as 2002 until 2021.
And I’ve started putting layers of gesso ground onto paper and birch ply panel, to ready for working on.
But while renovating and grasping at the void while trusting that all will keep flowing, I’ve been listening to lots of books. I Really recommend this one:
Ninth Street Women: Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art, by Mary Gabriel.
It’s been a fantastic companion in the studio while I organise the space; fun and insightful.
It really is a remarkable account of life for those who became the New York School in 40’s and 50’s in the U.S., taking over from Paris as the epicentre of modern art. It’s told utterly in the context of politics, depression, war, American art tradition, the oscillating positions of women in society and the propaganda around this. It provides a much needed documentation and redressing of some of the major female Abstract Expressionists putting them in their rightful position, at the heart of the movement.
These women really led the way for where we are now and what an inspiration they are.
