I struggled to come up with a subject for this first blog post. The last 12 months have been tough, with most of them spent indoors. Already quite wary of other people's germs, the coronavirus pandemic added a little more pressure than anyone would choose to live under.
Still, I was grateful for the quiet and cleaner city air we got to experience in the first lock down. The downside was, without people to watch and the freedom of walking through the city for inspiration, the first casualty was my creativity. Ideas soon dried up, my motivated waned to almost nothing and some days it was hard not to just stay in bed all day. Even my normally boisterous son became so used to staying indoors that it became a struggle to get him out for a little fresh air.
Still there were some upsides to staying at home. I participated in the #portraitsfornhsheroes initiative started by portrait artist, Tom Croft. My contribution of three colourful portraits was the highlight of my summer. And in September, hopeful that the worst was behind us, I enrolled on a Foundation Diploma in Art & Design. See, although I have been painting an drawing all my life, my work had developed a certain rigidity that didn't allow me to fully express my thought and feelings. My work is very intuitive and I tend to have an immediate response to any inspiration, which doesn't allow for recording the process to create and demonstrate depth and nuance.
Ans although I spent half the first term of the course shielding as infection rates rose around the country, the effect it has had on my art is already beginning to show. I have always been a moody person but rather than wallow in that darkness, I have learned to explore, record and create within it. I have experimented with materials I didn't think about or initially considered boring, and have been inspired by the talent, energy and creativity of my much younger classmates.
I intend to continue these explorations through 2021, and will share some of those trials on this blog. I just might end up in university, too. So, all in all, although the year was one I would've initially though I didn't care to repeat, its contribution to my growth as an artist has been invaluable, and for that reason, the end of the 202nd decade AD, is nothing to be sniffed at.
