Tag Archives: artists

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Wow, Dan at Empty Easel has included this blog in his 8 Must-read Art Blogs for 2008.

I'm hugely and immensely flattered to have been selected, especially since I'm in such illustrious company (please do head over to the link and check out the other blogs mentioned, they're all worth a look).

Here's what Dan wrote about me:

"Up all Night Again - This elegantly designed blog is authored by Kirsty Hall, an artist and art curator from the UK. Not only will you find frequent updates about her life and art but also some excellent articles for artists just starting out online."

OK, I'm blushing now...

Of course, I am not responsible for the elegant design - the credit for that goes to my talented web designer, Steve Taylor. If you're in the market for an art website, he does fantastic work and is very easy to work with: I highly recommend him. In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that Steve is a personal friend whom I've known for many years but he is also superb at what he does.

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Dan also encourages us all to make our own lists of Must Read Art Blogs, so here are mine. Of course, there are loads of other wonderful art blogs that I read as well but these 8 very different blogs are the ones that I absolutely wouldn't be without. My criteria: blogs that are updated on a regular basis and inspire me either visually, intellectually or preferably both.

My 8 Must Read Art Blogs for 2008

Dear Ada is one of my daily reads, she always has links to great artists and she's genuinely enthusiastic and insightful about the art she promotes. Since we seem to have quite similar tastes, the artists I link to on this blog are often ones I've seen first on her blog (so thanks for that, Ada!).

Cally Creates - I know that Cally thinks she hasn't been a very good blogger recently because she's been so ill but she's still one of my absolute favourite art reads. I love her photos and the way she writes about her own and other people's art is always real, honest and engaging.

Suzi Blu - I just love her funny, quirky videos on life, art and journalling: I find her 'just do it' attitude very refreshing and inspirational.

Making A Mark - I'm with Dan on this one, Katherine Tyrrell is a definite must-read for the depth of her knowledge and her considered articles on the art world and her own and other artists' work. Sit down with a cup of tea and a biscuit and enjoy her posts, which are often longer than the average blogger but well worth your time.

ArtBizBlog - Alyson Stanfield writes and podcasts about all aspects of the business side of art. I know many of us groan when we hear the words 'business' but Alyson consistently makes it seem both interesting and achievable.

Gaping Void is a consistently high quality blog from successful cartoonist, Hugh MacLeod. He's made a career out of drawing cartoons on the back of business cards but I like his writing too. His posts always makes me think and I like that he's coming at the world of art from such a different direction to me.

Ursula Vernon never fails to make me laugh. I've been following her blog on Livejournal for several years now and it's great to see her becoming more successful with every passing year. As talented a writer as she is in visual art, she makes very different art to me but I love her stuff because it's funny, well done and she's never embarrassed by the fact that her muse drives her to paint peculiar vegetables, cute but perplexed animals and wombats.

Le Divan Fumoir Bohémien - This is in French and sadly I don't speak more than a couple of words but it's never marred my enjoyment of this gloriously illustrated blog.

So that's my 8, anyone else fancy posting their lists? If you do, then Dan would like to hear from you.

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I've just discovered the sculpture and steel jewellery of artist, Megan Auman. I don't know how I've missed seeing it before because she's been mentioned by Cally, whose blog I read regularly.

‘Long Leaf Necklace’ - Steel jewellery by Megan Auman
Long Leaf Necklace’ by Megan Auman

Isn't this fab. Despite studying and making silver jewellery, I'm not much of a jewellery wearer but I'd make an exception for this. I particularly love that it's made from steel instead of a precious metal, that really adds to the aesthetic for me - the stark black against the white makes me sigh with visual lust. I've been playing around with lots of colour in my new art journal lately but apparently I'm not over my monochrome thing and honestly, I don't want to be - colour fills a certain place in my soul but black and white will always own my heart.

I had already noted the resemblance of Megan's work to my own drawings but I was amused to discover that she also did a smaller series of daily drawings in 2007. Megan also has an interesting blog that's worth a look - apparently she's going to be making a life size sofa out of metal, I look forward to seeing it.

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Lately it seems that most of my art conversations have been happening inside the computer. However, yesterday afternoon I was fortunate enough to meet up with artist, Camilla Stacey for tea and cake.

Camilla and I used to work quite closely together when we were both curating shows over at the Here Gallery, the artist-run space that Camilla was instrumental in founding. We haven't seen as much of each other lately because we're both taking a curating break and we live in different towns, so it was great to catch up over cheesecake and hot chocolate. The conversation ranged from our lives to our work and back again; we talked about whether I need to continue with obsessive repetition in my work and Camilla explained the rationale behind her latest ceramic pieces.

Photograph by Kirsty Hall of thistle against an orange wall

Close up photograph by Kirsty Hall of a thistle against an orange background

Because it's my birthday on Saturday, Camilla brought me these fabulous thistles - she said they reminded her of my Diary Project drawings and I can see what she means.

Having people who 'get' your work, whether in real life or in the computer, is such a gift for any artist and I am blessed to know many people with whom I can have these sort of deep conversations. I hope you all have real life friends that you can talk art and eat cake with.

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The Decorated Journal by Gwen Diehn is a book that focuses on art journalling.

Gwen Diehn book

The book is divided into sections, the first is an extensive exploration of the different materials used in art journalling including paper, pencils, paints, pens, glue and other commonly used materials. This section is, to my mind, the strongest in the book. It contains handy tables that show the advantages and disadvantages of different types of glue, a section on the paint colours you'll need to be able to mix a good palette, lots of information about the different grades of paper, explanations of the properties of various different materials and clear advice on what to buy and why. There's even a page on making your own ink and paint from naturally occurring pigments that you've gathered! I also like the way she emphasises investing in a few well chosen, quality materials rather than getting suckered into buying endless new products that are actually quite limited in scope.

In the second section of the book, Diehn describes different types of journalling. She categorises journals into 7 different types and provides techniques that she thinks are particularly appropriate for each. I wasn't totally convinced by her categories and most of the stuff I objected to occurred in this section.

The third section of the book is called 'Pages In Stages' and Diehn splits the working process into 'starters, middles and toppings'.explores how to work with the different levels of the page through techniques like layering, collage and using text. This is one of the shorter sections in the book since it's basically reprising things that have already been described in earlier sections.

The final section of the book deals with some basic bookbinding - Diehn is a big fan of making your own journals so that you can control the size and type of paper and she demonstrates how to make several simple handmade books plus how to customise existing journals and reuse the covers from old hardback books. I have several other bookbinding books already so there wasn't a whole lot here that was new to me but the information seemed clear and competent and it's obvious that it's something she's passionate about.

Although there is undoubtedly much of value here, this is not a book that I can wholeheartedly recommend. The main problem I had with this book was Diehn's tone, which I found overly lecturing and didactic. It's very clear that she feels there's a right and a wrong way to do things - for example, she assumes that paper buckling is always to be avoided but personally, I've found that buckled paper can be an interesting design element on a journal page rather than a problem.

Sure, it's important to learn 'the correct way' to do things and I can understand her desire for 'good practice' but I also felt she could have recognised that art journalling is an expressive, experimental and free space for the artist, where the rules don't always need to apply. It's not that what she says is necessarily wrong - I agree with many of her opinions - but the way she says them invariably seemed to get my back up. Reading her words made me feel as though I was back at art college again. This isn't surprising since Diehn is a tutor at an art college but I didn't find it at all helpful or inspiring. Since I'm currently trying to unlearn quite a few of those art school conventions, I don't need this approach. I took particular exception to her saying things like "you have to earn the right to draw the details": I think that's a staggeringly unhelpful thing to say to anyone, whatever stage of drawing they're at.

In addition, I wasn't particularly blown away by the journal pages shown; they often seemed to fall into a particular style and I felt there could have been a lot more variety. There also frequently seemed to be a disconnect between the illustrations and the text and it was sometimes hard to work out why a journal page had been selected to show a particular technique or idea.

However, many people might find her 'voice of authority' reassuring and comforting rather than invasive and irritating, as I did. If you want a book that tells you to 'buy this colour' and 'don't do that', then this would be a good book to invest in because, despite my personal reservations, there is a huge amount of good information in here. In particular, if you're new to art or art journalling and want to know about different materials and to be talked through the basics, then this book has a lot to recommend it. I just didn't like the feeling of being talked down to but I'm well aware that this may be my personal hang-up. Certainly the book gets generally positive reviews on Amazon.com and elsewhere.

I borrowed this book from the library and while I'm glad that I've read it because I did learn some interesting new stuff, I was even more glad that I hadn't bought it or added it to my Christmas list because personally I would have been disappointed. That said, I'm sure that many people would find it invaluable but I'd advise getting it from the library or checking it out in a bookshop before you buy to make sure it's right for you.

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Last week, I was lucky enough to be a recipient of a beautiful hand-bound book by Kaija as part of the Paying It Forward exchange. I've been putting off blogging about it because a) I haven't been able to get a decent photo of the book and b) I wasn't sure if any of Kaija's other recipient's read my blog and I didn't want to spoil anyone else's surprise.

However, since Kaija has just blogged about it, I guess it's OK to go public about it now.

My book was beautifully wrapped...

Book 01

And unsurprisingly, there was much squealing when I undid the ribbon to discover this...

Book 02

Kaija took much better pictures than me, you can see the stitching and the image properly on her photograph.

My book from Kaija
Handbound book by Kaija, photograph by Kaija

Isn't that stunning! The book opens completely flat, which is very helpful in an art journal and I love the image of the bare tree and the way the stitching goes into the cover. What you can't see in the photos is that the pages inside are also brown paper - Kaija somehow miraculously knew without being told that I adore notebooks with brown pages. I may be visiting Australia in the spring for my brother's wedding, so I have decided to save this very special book to use as a travel diary.

I can't even begin to describe how fantastically well-made this book is and how wonderful it feels and looks in real life. It's way beyond my own very limited book-binding skills and I'm quite in awe of her talents. I can only suggest that you all head over to her Etsy shop and indulge in one of her very reasonably priced treasures.

Now I just need to get my own exchange items out to my three Paying It Forward recipients; Kim, Liz and Tina. I have started work on my items but it'll probably be at least another couple of weeks before I get them in the post; I'm never quick about these sort of things.

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I think I just fell a little bit in love. Suzi Blu is a cute young art goddess who makes short videos about art journalling that she puts up on YouTube.

I just love her quirkiness and her passion. She's done lots of videos - there's a list here - and I'm having a happy evening working my way through them.

OK, I have a BIG confession to make. All through college, I kept immaculate, beautifully presented and very professional A4 sketchbooks. Looking up at the shelves above me, I see fifteen of them in an ordered line, their spines labelled with the dates. They're almost identical - always portrait style and usually black, with a couple of patterned ones when I couldn't find black ones.

Not for me the messy, spilling out at the seams, arty sketchbook barely held together with bits of string or rubber bands. Although I adore that style when I look at other people's journals, at the time I just couldn't bring myself to be that messy. Instead, my sketchbooks closed tidily on pages filled with perfectly aligned, neatly trimmed images and printed or carefully handwritten thoughts on my art. It's slightly odd because I'm certainly not a naturally tidy person - maybe I was searching for a safe space within the chaos?

I spent a lot of time on those sketchbooks. I kept huge boxes of trimmed photos that I regularly culled from magazines and I would spend happy hours sorting through them looking for just the right combination of images that would show where my inspiration was coming from. I patiently selected the photos that showed my work to its best advantage, as well as the 'during' shots that documented the process and lined them up and taped them in. I added documentation from exhibitions I was involved in and analysed what I could have done better. I went through hundreds of rolls of my beloved double-sided sticky tape. I thought of my sketchbooks as works of art in their own right and they truly are. When I reread them, I can see that they are wonderful objects, as well as being useful documents that accurately chart my artistic process through the years. I'm justifiably proud of them and I love to look up at that neat line of them on my bookshelf.

But... but... but...

I got out of college and my sketchbooks sort of ground to a halt and then stopped almost completely. Every so often I'll pick up the current one, write an 'it's been far too long since I've written anything in here' entry, post in a couple of pictures, write down a few ideas and then guiltily ignore it for another six months. I think I've filled nearly two in the last five years - me, an artist who once went through a sketchbook every three months or so! It's pitiful and it's been weighing on me a lot recently.

I'm sure it's no coincidence that my sketchbook use tailed off when I started blogging - a lot of my writing energy undoubtedly went into my online journalling instead. In addition, no longer being in college seemed to take a lot of the 'people judging me' energy out of it. There just wasn't the same drive to do my sketchbooks that there had once been.

Don't get me wrong, I've never stopped writing down my ideas - I have a little notebook by my bed where most of my art pieces start and another notebook in my handbag to catch the ideas that happen when I'm out of the house and I treasure both of those. I also write ideas on my computer if that's where I happen to be, keep a card index box of 'art ideas' on my desk and for the last two years I've been doing a series of ink drawings in an ever increasing pile of A5 cartridge pads.

But those well documented, bright, shiny and oh-so-acceptable sketchbooks - er, not so much! I'm kind of embarrassed about it and I feel guilty and cross with myself. But when I think about sitting down and taping in photos, writing about what I've been doing, trimming photocopies and images to fit the pages and lining everything up perfectly - well, my heart just sinks. It feels overwhelming and impossible and it's time to admit it; something that once brought me genuine joy and satisfaction, now just fills me with dread.

After watching Suzi's videos, I thought 'enough already, I've got to do something about this situation'. So I picked up the mostly unused moleskine sketchbook sitting next to my computer and let rip with some black goache, white ink pen and a couple of my beloved Inktense pencils. Wham, two pages of art journalling done in about half an hour and boy, do I feel better. No, it's definitely not my perfect and pristine sketchbook but it's obvious that the old way isn't working any more, so I need to try something new.

Our 'shoulds' can really inhibit our art; they stifle the flow of creativity within us. Yes, it would be nice if I could keep making those beautiful ordered sketchbooks and I probably 'should' but it's far more important that I keep my art going. On the first page of my new journal I wrote in coloured pencil "It's time to get messy" and it is. Perhaps one day those pristine sketchbooks will be right for me again but for now, it's time to let them go.

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Last night I pottered over to my friend Camilla's private view at the Here Gallery. Unfortunately I got there quite late, which meant that I missed seeing some friends but there was a silver lining because I got to go to the pub with Camilla and a few people afterwards.

The show is called Abracadabra and features work by three different artists - Cindy Jaswal, Claire Platt and of course, Camilla Stacey. It's a fun little show and well worth a look if you're in the Bristol area. Interestingly, the show came about after the artists met through the internet - yet another example of how artists can find and develop art opportunities online.

Camilla is showing some of her series of reglazed found porcelain figures against a background of hand made wallpaper. She hunts for little figures in charity shops and then re-paints them with gold lustre glaze and then re-fires them. The glaze seems to make the figures heavy and sometimes slightly melancholic because it's not a bright gold but more of a dull, thick colour that seems to pull the light into the figures rather than reflecting it. She also had a set of white figures in varying states of decrepitude that she'd cast in plaster. She gave me a little head with a missing nose, which I'll be putting in my cabinet of curiosities. I hadn't seen this work before, so I was interested in how it was coming along but I was sad that Camilla hadn't shown any of her excellent drawings.

Camilla Stacey
Camilla Stacey - Virgin Mary

Claire Platt trained in Bristol but now lives and works in London. She's showing a large group of her embroideries, drawings and ceramics based on human anatomy. I liked these a great deal, they're shown in a big group and I love the way they work together. A lot of the pieces have gold thread, are encrusted with sequins or are shown in mirrored or gilt frames - it could be tacky but somehow it really works.

Claire Platt
Claire Platt - Installation View

I was a bit naughty and bought myself an early birthday present - one of the most abstract drawings (you can't see it clearly but it's the little blue rectangle on the bottom left). Claire, if you happen to read this, I'm thrilled to have got one of your pieces but both Camilla and I think you're drastically underpricing your work!

If I'd had the money, I would definitely have bought one of Cindy Jarwal's exquisite ink drawings too. Sadly, although they were very fairly priced at £100, they were just a bit out of my reach - one of the downsides of being an artist is that although you'd happily buy art, you don't usually have much of a budget for it. I'm not showing Cindy's work in this post because she asks that people don't reproduce it without permission but you can see more of it on her Flickr or her website and it's gorgeous so I strongly encourage you to hop over and have a look. Her style reminded me quite strongly of my own Diary Project drawings, so it's not surprisingly that I liked them so much. They were my favourite things in the exhibition and I may just have to go back and see if I can buy a piece in instalments. I don't buy that much art - usually just one or two pieces a year - but I know that I'll absolutely kick myself if I don't get one of these.

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Here's a little something for Halloween!

Luke Chueh's paintings astound me. Glancing at the thumbnails, I thought they might be overly sweet and sentimental - ha, nothing could be further from the truth!

Luke Chueh - 15 Minutes of Fame
Luke Chueh - 15 Minutes of Fame

Obviously many of his paintings - with their cast of sad bunnies, worried chickens, disturbed monkeys and world-weary teddy bears - explore horror and the darker side of childhood. However, what takes his work up to the next level for me is the expressions on his characters faces; there's such pathos there but described with such precise and retrained economy. There's always been something a little tragic about cuddly toys and he exploits this to the full, but his twisted, and often very silly, sense of humour usually stops his work from becoming maudlin. On a technical level, I love his pared-down palette of sombre colours.

Luke Chueh - Monkey Grinder
Luke Chueh - Monkey Grinder

His work is sometimes available as prints from Munky King and he's definitely on my list of 'artists whose work I want to own'.

Luke Chueh - Squid
Luke Chueh - Squid

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Having seen the Paying It Forward idea on Artist, Emerging, I immediately wanted to join in, so I headed over to the people Deanna was making things for and was delighted to discover that Kaija from Paperiaarre still had one space. So I'm her third person and I consider myself very lucky because wow, just look at the gorgeous books she makes!

Kaija

Kaija

I've done a little bit of very simple book binding and it's a lot of fun but I've certainly not made any as luscious as this. She also makes very beautiful handmade brooches.

Anyway, it's now my turn to pass it on.

Pay It Forward (via Kaija, via Deanna, via Mrs Eliot and so on)*

Here are the rules:

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Pretty straightforward huh, I agree to make and send something to the first three people to comment, who then make things for their first three commenters and so on. OK, have at it, people...

EDIT: Even though it looks like I've got three responders, one of them is my partner and he doesn't actually want to take part - he was just responding to the question of who came up with the term 'paying it forward' - so, there's still one spot available.

* I've tried to find out who originally started this idea but haven't been able to follow the thread of connections back far enough. Does anyone know who should get the credit?

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Joanne B Kaar is a Scottish artist who works with fibre and bookmaking. In 2006 she completed a three month residency in Durness in Sutherland, which she documented in a fascinating blog.

Joanne B Kaar - Sango Sands
Joanne B Kaar - Sango Sands Seapapers

During the residency she made a series of books from handmade paper, often using local materials. Some of these books were subjected to pretty harsh treatment like being buried or thrown in the sea! It's amazing that they've survived as well as they have - it's easy to forget how robust paper can be as a medium.

Sutherland is a place that is very dear to my heart. Most of my childhood holidays were spent in Achnahaird in Ross and Cromarty and every holiday included a day trip to Lochinver in the neighbouring Sutherland. Although it was very close as the crow flies, it was an hour-long drive on a narrow, twisting and often terrifying road. I've just checked and according to the AA it's 16 miles yet takes an hour and 8 minutes - that should give you an idea of just how bad the road is! It was worth it though - not least for the annual visit to Achins Bookshop in Inverkirkaig - apparently the most remote bookshop in the British Isles. I always saved most of my holiday money so that I could splurge on books and I still remember the feeling of deep contentment that walking out with a bag of carefully chosen books gave me. I also have fond memories of standing on the pier in Lochinver watching the fishing boats unloading and sitting on the seafront eating homemade pies from the incredibly good local bakery.

Durness is a lot further up the coast and not somewhere I've visited but Joanne's photographs of the area, with all their Highland familiarity, certainly brought up plenty of nostalgia. I love living in Bristol and feel very at home here, but so many of my creative roots lie in those summer holidays in the Highlands - long days spent damming little streams with my brothers and cousins, building complex sand sculptures with my Dad, riding invisible horses, grinding down sandstone in an attempt to make pigment (I used to pretend I was a neolithic cave painter!), patiently drawing for hours in the caravan on rainy days and writing bad poetry once I was a teenager. For several years now I've been needing to reconnect with those roots and I know that I absolutely must make a trip to the Highlands soon because the feeling is getting quite desperate. While I don't really subscribe to the idea of a 'muse', I have learnt over the years that it's not a good idea to ignore particularly persistent creative cravings.

Where do your creative roots lie? Is it a place? A feeling? A particular smell? A certain kind of pencil or the feel of a fresh sketchbook?