Taste

A couple of weeks ago I was directed to this by another blog.




This really got me thinking...

Many people out there believe that having a good eye for appreciating other peoples stuff will make them a good artist. Its not about taste. Your good taste will only get you so far, and by that I mean maybe a toe in the door of being creative.

The work out there that's really great comes from within the individual who made it. 

At art school, in lieu of any critical analysis, some tutors would look at my work and then suggest I go to the library and look at 2 or 3 artists that they deemed similar to me. I tried to ignore what other people were doing. It can actually be quite dispiriting to see someone who is in a similar territory as you and has resolved the things that you have not. And very difficult to find your own individual solution once you've seen theirs.

Look at your own experience rather than your taste. Work inspired by someone else's will be just a dilute version of their work. 

Show people how you see the world. You have an opportunity to make something new, that no one else has seen yet! 

If you want what you make to live up to your ambitions, then work out what those ambitions are. What are you trying to say? How do you want people to feel when they look at your work? Keep this in the forefront of your mind and ask yourself time and again, what percentage of this are you acheiving? This way you stay aware of heading down a blind alley of churning stuff out for the sake of it. If you lose sight of what you are doing then just keep working and you will find a new ambition. 

The bit about making a great volume of work is very true. You move forward through doing, not thinking.  
It takes forever and if you're lucky you'll never quite get there. Its all in the chase!

Desperate Artwives

I have my pictures in this show. It opens on 28th June - my birthday! Unfortunately I won't be there for wine and nibbles, which is a pity as I'd love to meet the other women in the show.

Come to the Private View!

I am really excited to be chosen for it. This is the second show put together by Amy Dignam. The first show was reviewed favourably by Jane Martinson in the Guardian - here. There are a lot of very talented women squeezing time from the daily grind to make artwork as you can see on the Desperate Artwives website.

Mothers of course, aren't alone in this tightrope walk of the daily grind v artistic practice. Its difficult for anyone, beyond Art School to carry on making stuff. Time, space and money are all necessary. Essentially, this show puts the spotlight on women with a family making art and it is timely. Surrounded by lifestyle and craft blogs, sometimes I feel it would be easier if I just knitted and made toys for my children. It would seem, that its very acceptable to be a creative mummy if it is directed toward your children. I say this as my children are playing outside, whilst their dad is in charge for the second day in a row. I've got a deadline for next week...

I feel guilty, yet at the same time I'm pleased that I'm trying to get my career off the ground, something that will hopefully benefit my family. But this is not yet a paying job and right now I know that I'm letting people down. The people who mean the most to me. Maybe that's the difference between the Desperate Artwives and the other Desperate Artists. The emotional pull you feel as a parent is a particular context in which to make art.

Cyril Connolly famously said, "There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall."

I disagree. I could have got my finger out before I had children, and I didn't. For me they're my biggest inspiration.

I would say that the rubber gloves under the sink are an altogether more sinister opponent...

The First Big Weekend

I lived in London for 10 years, during which time I listened to much Scottish music on my mini disc player/ipod device on the tube. Trying to cling on to an idea of "Scottishness", I guess...

Arab Strap
Boards of Canada
Belle and Sebastian
The Blue Nile
even a bit of Deacon Blue

This takes me straight back to Dundee, 1996. Its a life I might have been leading had I not buggered off to Art School. Although we did our fair share of drinking and silly stuff there too.

This and the album its from are so badly produced, its actually good and I love those early Belle and Sebastian albums that sound like they were recorded in a church hall (and they were)...

It has been a "Big Weekend" of sorts. I'm up to my eyeballs in life, instead of making right now but I'll be back soon with more art type stuff. I'm getting stuff ready to make some actual pictures for frames at the weekend.

Until then, this could be some sort of 'on hold music'....

About Me (in progress)

"We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there's a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now. We arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought we'd have a bowel movement again. Our systems had stopped working, jammed with the odor of copy machines, Wite-Out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. We had compulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on a Saturday night was enough. But now that we live here in the desert, things are much, much better."

                                                                                                            Douglas Coupland, Generation X (1991)

In 1991 I was 18. I went to Art School, tuned in and dropped out - well not out of college but we  tried to tune out the corporate background noise and make some things with some meaning. I did well and left with a good degree. After studying digital imaging, film making and animation, I went off to London to seek my fortune and chain myself to a Mac.


For 10 years I worked freelance in the film and video industry. I've learned the language associated with being a designer and talking to corporate people. I met some great people and made some work that I'm proud of, but its not what I ever set out to do.

In the last 4 years I have had 3 children. My life is very different - dealing with the needs of a family and trying to remain a creative person. Its a challenge. I have more ideas and less time than ever, but time limit can be a good thing. When I get down to it, I faff less.


Most of what I've been doing is unfinished. I'm pottering but with a direction. It makes no sense to anyone but I can see some common threads running through it all - sometimes. Maybe this blog will put it in a context where I can see things a bit better.