Category:

Look Away

6/12/2014

Look away - don't get sucked into the commercialism and chaos of the coming festivities. Find a way of your own - to mark time, to celebrate your own special days - listen to the tides and the seasons. Know which moon is in the night sky. Step back from your online personas - allow yourself to just be.........THIS is what I am telling my artist self.

Again I am out of sorts with my world and feeling that my feet are not firmly on the earth. Time to think, to allow connections and sparks - time to breathe - a prescription for what ails me.

Here, above, is The Poem of My November - a slideshow of my daily paintings made during November 2014, with voice-over croaked through by myself. This is still experimental for me - and I hope that some of you will take time to play it - it runs to just under 2 minutes. All the art works are original paintings which are available from me.

Pilgrimage to the Dawn - daily painting - September 10th, 2014. By F. E. Clark.

Delighted that one of my favourite daily paintings from the last few months has found a new home. 'Pilgrimage to the Dawn' , above, is journeying to Spain as I write.

HAT STATUS: I may need to tie it to my person - my favourite winter hat has been AWOL several times this weekend and the snow is coming.

PAINTING STATUS: Just getting into my stride with these tiny 2.5" x 3.5" paintings for December - you can see how I am doing here. I am not sure what I will be making in January yet.

READING STATUS: 'The Living Mountain' by Nan Shepherd - this is fabulous - Shepherd lived not far from where I am, she walked in the Cairngorms and wrote this inspirational book. There was a short documentary about it (info here with link to iplayer at end) - which can be viewed for a while via iPlayer (not sure if you can view outwith the UK) - thoroughly recommend both book and documentary.

WILDCARD: I made my Christmas-might-reach-you-by-Easter-Cards - it was wild.

WRITING STATUS: Those cards!

COFFEE STATUS: Still one cup a day - best to make it count ;) is it cold enough to add a wee dram?

ENERGY STATUS: Spiralling.

F. E. Clark, December, 2014

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Lost in the Supermarket

13/4/2014

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Roll up, Roll up - 366 paintings for sale............photo by F. E. Clark.

Lost in the Supermarket - an energy shift and a wave of Spring sunshine, light in the evenings - we have been walking a lot these past few weeks. Gathering light and energy from the air and nature, getting stronger and storing images of colour and texture - to paint later.

I find myself with my 366-ish daily paintings, all now available for sale, wondering: Do people really want to buy these? Should I start an Etsy/Saatchi/Ebay shop? Should I sell at all? What on earth am I doing?

The only conclusions I have come to are these: I want my paintings to go to people who are delighted with them. I want the paintings to be one offs, I am no saleswoman - and, most of all - I want to paint.

Photos from my walks:

Belskevie Tower, by F. E. Clark.

Larch Flowers, by F. E. Clark.

Last Three Standing. By F. E. Clark.

Painting Status: Finishing off some pieces, 366 Daily Paintings offered for sale.
Hat Status: From Furry Hat to Hat-less - several times a day!
Writing Status: This is it..........
Reading Status: The 'tower of lovely books' is getting taller.
Wild Card: Delighted to not only have an Honorable Mention, but be on the cover of ArtAscent's Blue themed issue - Blue Moon and 2 daily paintings featured - more on this soon.
Coffee Status: Cutting back............

F. E. Clark, 13th April, 2014.

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Mr Tambourine Man

16/3/2014

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Digital collage - Daily Paintings, March 2014, by F. E. Clark. All 5" x 5", acrylic on paper.

Hey Mr Tambourine Man......here are my daily paintings for March 2014 to date. The March full moon - Full Worm Moon, Sap Moon, Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Lenten Moon - is shining in the blue sky today. Yellow daffodils, pink blossom, green growth, sunshine - Spring!

I am taking a break - as Mr Dylan sings - 'Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands, With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves, Let me forget about today until tomorrow.'

The only rules about the break are - there are no rules!

Sometimes the things we do to get going and keep going get in the way; sometimes we need to rest, breathe, become focused; sometimes we need to be quiet to see; sometimes we need to look long to hear.

Hat Status: a Spring hat is needed.
Painting Status: 16 days of March daily paintings complete.
Writing Status: hush.
Reading Status: travel light or with the tower of lovely books?
Coffee Status: taking my own supplies.

F. E. Clark, 16th March, 2014

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Rip it up and Start Again

2/3/2014

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'Squares', 2014, by F. E. Clark

Rip it up? No not quite. Start again? Yes. Over and over again......

Into March 2014 with a show of the Northern Lights, then a New Moon, and cool, bright sunshine - and here I am beginning my daily painting again. I am not sure if it will be a week, a month or a year, this time - just one day at a time for now.

I have had several enquiries about how I paint and some requests to see work in progress (WIP). Dipping in and out of newsfeeds and other online sources, I am impressed by beautiful WIPs - clean lines, artfully arranged brushes and paints - clear progressions to finished works - and I wonder at them.

Thinking of my own work brings to mind the well used phrase - 'If I was going there, I wouldn't be starting from here'. I shamble in - splatter in, layer on, scrape off, sand down, cut into - any one piece could have had several incarnations, before I stop. Images flit in and out of my mind, some alight on the surface of the work I am making...... I am messy, I have paint in my hair and on my clothes, my studio is chaos, my desk hidden under layers of the detritus of making - it's nae bonnie and I am no expert.

Another well used phrase here in the North East of Scotland - 'Fiels and bairns shoudnae see work half deen' (fools and children should not see work half made) - although in this case I secretly wonder if children and fools - or the child and fool in all of us - might understand best and accept and not judge until something is finished.

Still, I will not be WIPing anytime soon.

Daily Painting - 1st March, 2014. 5" x 5", acrylic on paper, By F. E. Clark.

HAT STATUS: Torn between - feeling the sunlight on my head and staying warm.
PAINTING STATUS: Daily painting and more finished pieces
WRITING STATUS: Still seeking my tribe. Morning pages, blogging and lists.
READING STATUS: The stack of gorgeous books to read is growing again :)
COFFEE STATUS: Nothing to report

F. E. Clark, 2nd March, 2014.

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Bring Me Sunshine

16/2/2014

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Bring me sunshine - I have been infusing my imagination and paintings with the remembered warmth and light of the sun. Living vicariously through paint, I have made a short series of small paintings - Seven Suns & Two Trees - you can see them on my website here.

I journeyed south for a visit to Edinburgh - arriving with paint under my fingernails and mud on my boots, like a wild country person. Headed to The Fruitmarket Gallery, The Scottish Gallery, Greyfriars Art Shop; spending all my money, not on whisky and beer - but paint and brushes.

Louise Bourgeois's (1911 - 2010) Insomnia Drawings at The Fruitmarket Gallery - pieces which were made during a period of insomnia in the mid '90s and 'rescued' from the bin by the artist's then assistant. I was rather horrified, imagining all work I throw away - expecting it never to be seen again, but Bourgeois agreed to the exhibition. Also, fascinated at this insight into the artist's thoughts displayed in - red biro, gouache; sets of three, pattern - all framed and arranged in chronological order around the gallery walls. Then, upstairs - Bourgeois's larger 'I Give Everything Away' drawings - visceral and hard to look at, but fascinating...

David Cook's exhibition 'Savage Tranquility at The Scottish Gallery - fabulously think paint, scenes local to the North East of Scotland. Then a wee step down the street to the Dundas Street, Greyfriars Art Shop, where I had to stop myself from buying ALL their paint.

Edinburgh skyline - castle & sky stealing the show. Photo by F. E. Clark, 2014.

Saturated with looking at other artists' work, walking around Edinburgh's streets, carrying my precious paint - I realised that against the Gothic skyline - the sky was stealing the show - beautiful and cold enough for the snow that came later, I could not take my eyes off it.

HAT STATUS: Very glad of my winter hat
PAINTING STATUS: Sunshine wanderings
WRITING STATUS: Completed a very short piece for this month's Deeside Writers - must practice reading it aloud, apologies to anyone who got turned off by the theme I set!
READING STATUS: Miffy the Artist by Dick Bruna
COFFEE STATUS: The best cup of coffee we had in Edinburgh was served by a lovely cheerful waitress at Ryan's Bar.

F. E. Clark, 16th February, 2014.

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I Walk the Line

2/2/2014

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'Map of January' by F. E. Clark - digital collage, my 12th month of daily painting, all paintings 5" x 5", acrylic on paper.

I Walk the Line - well, I have been for the last 12 months - a small square painting per day. I am not sure if this practice has been the red thread to lead me into or out of the maze of creativity - perhaps both. This daily work has led to fabulous things for me.

What is next? I don't know.....YET.

We have passed the dark moon of January, Imbolc and Chinese New Year. Here, where I live in Scotland, the earth is saturated - flooded - water pours down, boils up through the cracks. Heron, ducks and geese are making use of the flood lochans in the fields below our cottage. The snowdrops in my sodden garden are blooming. There is light in the sky still, sometimes after five o'clock.

I prescribe myself: a walk each day, a 'clean' diet, sleep, more music and dancing, time to read. Maybe I shall fold a thousand cranes, maybe I shall paint.

'Whisky Moon', acrylic on box canvas, 8" x 8", 2014, by F. E. Clark.

'Whisky Moon' - above - is my January art trade - with fabulous Irish band - Redroom - we are enjoying playing their lovely red vinyl debut LP here. This painting will be transiting its way across to Ireland once the varnish is dry.

During January I also took part in an Artist's Swap Box Project, arranged by Creative Communities - where artists were paired and asked to send each other - a shoe box of goodies - I was very luck to be paired with another painter - Sara Yasmin Khan - who sent me the most thoughtful handmade gifts. This was a great project to take part in and I thoroughly enjoyed deciding what to send to Sara.

HAT STATUS: I have heard tell, of a genuine storyteller's hat - which I may be lucky enough to borrow - my quest continues. Meanwhile tying my hunter hat on for fear of losing it - with these wild gales.

PAINTING STATUS: Going larger :) watch this space. My February art trade is with Angela Collier - a photographer who displays her work in the most gorgeous way - who has requested - a not green piece with muted colours.

READING STATUS: 'Until I Find You' by John Irving - enjoying this great long tale - and, do you know what a Rose of Jericho is?

WRITING STATUS: The January Small Stones challenge is complete, and has left me wanting to write longer pieces now. Did I really say I would facilitate the next meeting of my local writing group - the Deeside Writers??

COFFEE STATUS: After a rather lukewarm, weak coffee, in a café with plastic furniture and televisions on the walls, I reflect that sometimes it is the company, rather than the coffee that makes a 'coffee' an occasion to remember.

F. E. Clark, 2nd February, 2014.

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Do You Remember?

5/1/2014

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'Do you remember the time we went to Lunan Bay to see the sunrise on New Year's Day?', photo by F. E. Clark.

Do You Remember - do you remember the time we met for coffee and a catch up?   Driving up the tree lined avenue to the beautiful country house hotel, that funny bar man with the bizarre delivery?   The log fire, pretty china, and the gorgeous green wing-backed chairs? Do you remember being caught unawares by the flash of the wedding photographer's camera? Do you remember being thrown out by the hotel manager as we had been let in 'by mistake'? Do you remember the way the guests looked at us - faces ugly against their beautiful clothes?  Do you remember our cars being blocked in by the piper and having to walk around the hotel grounds until he piped the bride in? Do you remember walking up the horse track, into the woods - in inappropriate shoes? Do you remember them letting the guard dogs out and hearing them bark and howl through the forest?   Do you remember fording that small river, crossing the ravine?   Do you remember the snipers - wasn't it fun??

“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”   Nora Ephron.

Do you remember the time I said that this blog would now be being published fortnightly-ish? Well - Happy New Year everyone.

There is a power in marking, in remembering, of breathing life into our own mythology.   A power in creating our own rituals - 5.30am start for a road trip to see the New Year's Day sunrise on the beach anyone?   One beautiful cup of coffee a day, though you make it yourself and use a cup and saucer? A new notebook? A luscious tube of paint?

Sometimes there is no one to hear or bear witness to our lives.  I wish for all my readers that you do not experience such a time, but if you do - then I hope that you will find a way through, a life line, a way to be. I hope that you will find strength and community from others - those who look you in the eye and really see you, or from the work of authors, artists and musicians - but most of all strength from within.

Hat Status: Still searching for a 'story telling hat' - any suggestions welcome.

Painting Status: 12th month of daily paintings well underway. A 'red' painting for my January art trade with Redroom imminent.

Writing Status: January Mindfulness Challenge well underway - short pieces of observational writing - I am posting them on my writing blog - Scrying the Moon.

Reading Status: The tower of lovely books to read is teetering.

Coffee Status: A good cup of coffee is a delight to me - we were served a lovely cafetiere of good strong coffee at Season in Banchory, Aberdeenshire, recently.

F. E. Clark - 5th January, 2014.

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Look Away

Lost in the Supermarket

Mr Tambourine Man

Rip it up and Start Again

Bring Me Sunshine

I Walk the Line

Do You Remember?

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