Hello, Art Lovers and Seekers,

It’s the start of October already, we have finally moved on from the heatwave and the kids are back at school, college and Uni, I’m delighted that mine have both left school. No more phone calls and detentions, hurray! One daughter on an apprenticeship and the other is at uni …. Phew. Okay that feels like an age ago, truth be told I swapped September for October, and yes it has taken me a month to actually send this.

So for now it is time to reflect and replenish - to focus on me - well my art that is.

I’ve taken a year out and now I’m ready to return. I didn’t plan not to paint, Iife gave me other obstacles and I just found myself needing the space, so I let it be. It felt okay to let it go and take time to heal and grow inside.

THE TOP 10 THINGS I learnt on my time out.

The muscle memory of painting in a signature style is easier to break using different materials, somehow using the same ones takes you straight back to the comfort of your familiar ways.
Changing your mindset can shift your process towards success. Yes I told myself to embrace my mistakes but it’s recognising them as gifts and opportunities that has truly made a difference. In a painting a mistake or bad part gives you a challenge and quite often it becomes the best part, giving depth and difference.
Creativity doesn’t switch off - although it helps to feed it, in thought and action. While I wasn’t painting I was writing, a lot and strangely found that the writing process informed my painting process. Einstein came up with the theory of combinatory play. I’d like to think that these two creative acts feed each other.
I’d like to write a book. I have the idea, the structure, the name and format, which came to me in writing - doing the work, and yet now I have it, all but written down, it has retreated to the top shelf at the back of my mind. Maybe that’s ok too, because now it is time to paint and it’s all part of the same story.
I need to get on and make some bad art. I’m still on the edge of something different in my art - no amount of thinking will get me there, I just have to go in there and do the work, it’s the next step to finding the gold.
Habits define who you are. Do your habits serve you? What is the 1% you can do (or make) that can lead you to where you want to be? The habit changes I have made are: I get up at 6:15, 4 days a week and do a half hour weighted work out on zoom. Every day I go for a walk 7:15 for at least an hour, sometimes I walk more, my steps on average are between 15-20,000 steps a day. This has become non negotiable for me, I do not think about it, I just get up and do it, and four months in I feel great. Although it has nothing to do with my art as such I see it at the core of my mindset and confidence, to trust that I can do what I set out to achieve. Hello Marketing & Sales…..( !st and 2nd book recommendation below.)
At 50 it’s about time to break free from fear, & what everyone else thinks, what’s expected and let’s not care and do it anyway. Find our people - Just do the work - Make the art and Sell it, let’s see it as part of the same thing, selling doesn’t have to feel cringe or yuck, it can feel great - as can your artwork for someone else, maybe it makes them feel good so why wouldn’t we give them an opportunity to buy?
RESISTANCE, Ugh, this is HUGE. I am recognising that the best way to start to move forward is to lean in to what I’m resisting, the clue is right there - I’m not sure why, but it’s a tell-tell sign, so here’s to everything I’ve avoided all year. The interesting thing too, is when you just do it, it isn’t quite so bad. So much less energy than avoiding, who’d have thought. (Check out book reccomendation no 3 below.)
Value - How do we value ourselves? Our art? We are the best experts in our art work, we created it out of nothing, we understand it better than any gallerist or curator could ever do. If we aren’t confident and sure in our work, how can anyone else love it or invest in the idea, if we can’t ourselves. Our work is precious and the value in price is given as an opportunity for someone else to enjoy the work, for it to evoke feelings or memories that give comfort, understanding and connection. They can invest in themselves and as artists we are helping them do that.
Success - How do we measure it? How many sales? How much money? How many exhibitions? I guess it’s all relative and in the above questions it is all externally dependant which I’m sure isn’t great. So yes all of the above is great and yes wouldn’t we all love to have it all - but I’ve come to think in my success is in actually doing the work. The time clocked up in the studio, writing newsletters, producing podcast episode writing a book - okay I’m not there yet, but where the energy goes and focuses, it soon starts growing, so that’s where I’m starting.

My Top 3 Book Recommendations

That helped me to take a step forward from this list:

Art News: The Love BuG Samarivan

I had a little play in the studio and tried something different, reviving my illustrative style creating a Samarivan, in collaboration with Sarah Graham who asked 180 artists to create their own Samarivan, providing us with yellow highlights of the windows and edges of the van. There was an exhibition which ended with an Ebay auction to raise money for the Samaritans.

The Love Bug Samarivan

The Samaritans Charity works hard to ‘raise awareness of how we can create a world where fewer people die by suicide.’

I was very pleased to support such a great cause.

Watch out for:

I’m very excited for the brand new Ceri Hand podcast ‘Extraordinary Creatives"‘ Ceri is an artist Mentor and coach, she shares weekly tips on ‘Beat the Block’ her weekly newsletter and invites subscribers to incredibly insightful monthly zoom interviews and talks behind the scenes on art and business and everything in between, so I’m sure this podcast will be just as fabulous, for all artists and art lovers. It’s released tomorrow!