Art is everywhere, except it has to pass through a creative mind.
Louise Nevelson

I’m a big fan of found art and accidental drawings. I spotted these beauties in Stokes Croft, which is one of my favourite parts of Bristol for its sheer creative anarchy.

Kirsty Hall: Found Drawing, Aug 2010

This door has been there for months. Originally painted with religious slogans, it’s slowly disintegrating to reveal its beautiful cardboard core.

Kirsty Hall: Found Drawing, Aug 2010

Oh how I wish I’d made these delicate drawings in glue.

Kirsty Hall: Found Drawing, Aug 2010

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It’s very definitely autumn now, as evidenced by the first proper mist of the season on Tuesday.

Kirsty Hall, Morning Mist, October 2009

This was the sight that made me run back inside for my camera! Isn’t this leaf just incredible – it looks as though it’s been gilded or sprayed with gold paint but it’s completely natural.

Kirsty Hall, Leaf Turning Gold, October 2009

The spiders really pull out all the stops at this time of year. I am always astounded when I go out in the morning to find metres of silk spanning entire corners of the garden – how do they even do that?

Kirsty Hall, Spider Web, October 2009

Kirsty Hall, Spider Web, October 2009

Kirsty Hall, Spider Web, October 2009

I’m currently doing Alyson Stanfield’s Blast Off course. It’s challenging and intense but I’m finding it incredibly revealing and useful. One of the daily lessons was about reconnecting with what made us want to be artists in the first place. Here’s what I wrote on the subject:

……………..

I’ve been thinking back to some of the ecstatic points in my life that made me an artist.

1. I would have been about 16 – 17. I was still in secondary school and we were taken on a visit to Glasgow university. I had some free time and went into the Hunterian art gallery, where I was utterly transfixed by a full size Victorian/Edwardian painting of a woman. I can’t remember who it was by – I think it was possibly John Singer Sargent – but I sat there for about an hour, totally engrossed in it, with tears running down my face.

2. Standing in the Sacré-Cœur in Paris with clear December sunlight streaming through the Rose Window while the choir sang in Latin.

3. Seeing Eva Hesse’s drawings for the first time – I’d always loved her sculpture but the subtlety of her grey-toned drawings blew me away when I saw them in real life.

4. Walked round a corner in the Pompidou Centre and being confronted with Cubist paintings by Picasso. I was in my early 20′s and had only been seriously drawing for about three years. I had seen them previously about two years before and been singularly unimpressed – at the time I liked the Impressionists and I thought Cubism was ‘modern rubbish’. However, when I saw them for the second time I’d done a lot more art history reading and I suddenly got it. It was a surprisingly visceral moment, like a punch to the stomach! It’s a moment that’s stuck with me because it reminds me that even if I don’t initially like or understand a piece of art, it’s always worth taking a second look because my understanding of the visual world is constantly evolving.

But my defining moment was when I was 18 years old, sitting in an English lecture at college and getting absolutely FURIOUS at the way the lecturer was completely pulling this book apart and remaking it in his own image. I found it so disrespectful, I was sat there thinking, “write your own damn book, mate!” and it suddenly hit me, “I don’t WANT to do this, I want to be the person MAKING things, not the person analysing other people’s things!”

Now I look back and I think, yes, THAT was the moment when I stepped through the looking glass!

………………

I’ve had many other meaningful encounters with art in my life but those are a few that stand out. Was there a defining moment in your life that took you down the path you’re on now? Have you ever experienced a piece of art that overwhelmed you with emotion? Please leave a comment, I’d love to hear about it…

As an artist, I get strange obsessions. Something about a material or an image will seduce me. I have an artist friend who uses the word ‘authentic’ to describe this attraction but I use ‘particular’. I’ll say, ‘that’s very particular‘ and I mean that there’s something about that object that is compelling and unique to me, something that draws me. I don’t always know what it is but I do know that these visual or tactile obsessions are what fuel my work.

At the moment, greaseproof paper is one of these things.

There’s something about the combination of translucency and opaqueness that I find utterly irresistible.

And when I finally got to it, the little plum & almond cake was delicious too!

‘I don’t know what you’re thinking of doing,’ said Pippi, ‘but as for me, I’m not one who can take things easy. I happen to be a turnupstuffer, so of course I never have a free moment.’
‘What did you say you were?’ asked Annika.
‘A turnupstuffer.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Tommy.
‘Somebody who finds the stuff that turns up if only you look, of course. What else would it be?’ said Pippi…’The whole world is filled with things that are just waiting for someone to come along and find them, and that’s just what a turnupstuffer does.’
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, translation by Edna Hurup

Isn’t that just the perfect description of what an artist does – I knew there was a reason that Pippi was one of my childhood heroines.

‘What sort of things?’ asked Annika.
‘Oh all sorts,’ said Pippi. ‘Gold nuggets and ostrich feathers and dead mice and rubber bands and tiny little grouse and that kind of thing.’

Yesterday, I turned up these images of my dill plant.

Kirsty Hall: Dill, July 2009

Kirsty Hall: Dill, July 2009

Kirsty Hall: Dill, July 2009

Today I turned up: several hours of art time, some thoughts that turned into art journal pages, my original Puffin copy of Pippi Longstocking, the first hint of ripening on one of my tomatoes and a quite unseemly amount of chocolate. No tiny little grouse though.

What small wonders have you turned up today?

Simple household tasks can take a lot longer when you’re an artist. Shelling these beans took about an hour because I was compelled to document the process as I went along.

Kirsty Hall: Broad Beans, June 2009

Although they’re edible, I couldn’t leave these little triangles on because they were spoiling the symmetrical aesthetic of the beans. Sigh.

Kirsty Hall: Broad Beans, June 2009

I don’t even particularly like the taste of broad beans but I am always utterly seduced by their waxy pale green.

Kirsty Hall: Broad Beans, June 2009

I wish you could have heard the crisp snapping and stroked the soft furry insides of the pods.

Kirsty Hall: Broad Beans, June 2009

Kirsty Hall: Broad Beans, June 2009

Last Tuesday, the weather was so glorious that we took the opportunity to visit our beloved Virtuous Well over at Trellech. The joy of working from home is that you can occasionally take a day off in the middle of the week and go for day trips when it’s quiet.

And what a delight to sit in blazing sunshine having a picnic surrounded by this!

Kirsty Hall: Welsh Meadow, June 09

The colourful rags were still on the tree, although there seemed to be less of them than last year. But perhaps this mass of green and yellow just made them less visible.

Kirsty Hall: Welsh Meadow, June 09

I left a small offering beside the well.

Kirsty Hall: Small Offering, June 09

Afterwards we walked over to visit the stones – one of these days we’ll manage to visit the unusual, historical sundial at the local church as well.

Kirsty Hall: Broken Bird’s Egg, June 09

Kirsty Hall: Broken Bird’s Egg, June 09

Kirsty Hall: Broken Bird’s Egg, June 09

Kirsty Hall: Broken Bird’s Egg, June 09

Kirsty Hall: Faded Hyacinths, April 2009

Kirsty Hall: Faded Hyacinths, April 2009

Kirsty Hall: Faded Hyacinths, April 2009

Hyakinthos was a handsome young man from Greek mythology who was loved by Apollo, the sun god. After he was accidentally killed by a discus, the intensely fragranced flower grew up from his blood and Apollo named it after him.

It doesn’t surprise me that this flower should have an association with death; as these ones were fading, their intoxicating smell turned sickly and almost gangrenous.

Apologies for the lack of posting – as you may have guessed from my last big post, I’ve not been too well. I also got stuck in a cycle of perfectionism, the sort where I think, “ah, I absolutely must blog about such and such a thing next but oh dear, I can’t until I take some photos or do some more research or until the planets are in the correct alignment!”

Sometimes I just get caught up in these mental loops and stay there until I realise that I’m stuck and do something to free myself – in this case, writing a very different blog post to the one I had planned. So here, to loosen me up and hopefully to inspire you, are two very different but connected videos about the nature of inspiration.

First of all, here’s Susan Boyle performing on the reality TV show, Britain’s Got Talent. Unfortunately, embedding is disabled, so you’ll need to pop over to YouTube to watch it.

Secondly, here’s a longer address by writer, Elizabeth Gilbert on the subject of genius, inspiration and creativity. It’s twenty minutes but it’s well worth your time.

I found this touching in a very different way – much of what she spoke about was deeply familiar to me as a creative person and I just loved the two anecdotes she relates. I’ve never been sure where I stand on the whole muse concept but I’m sure that we’re all familiar with the ‘where the hell did THAT come from’ sensation when we’re making our work.

I found this video on Denise Carkeek’s excellent Melancholie Dreams blog. It’s well worth a visit and do make sure you check out her wistful and haunting ceramics.