On my table today, originally uploaded by gilfling.

prov-e-nance

- noun

1. place or source of origin

This week, I haven’t spent as much time in the studio as I would have liked but when I have been there, I have loved every second. I wanted to give myself a new challenge this year in terms of creativity and I am feeling increasingly drawn to the idea of working with lino prints and wood-cuts. This is a challenge as my artwork and drawings can be quite sketchy and often depend on soft graduations in tone and texture as well as loosely drawn lines. In my mind, lino prints are defined by quite bold and graphic shapes whilst wood-cuts can involve more texture and graduations in tone. I am only beginning to research other artists work, inspirations and techniques so have alot to learn. (More on that in my next blog post)

So where does the word ‘provenance’ come into all of this? Last week I showed this photo of The Victory which my great-grandfather made before I was born. He carved and made many model ships, some in glass cases, many more in bottles, every detail created with his own hands.

A few years ago when I was teaching myself how to carve with leather, my dad gave me my great-grandfathers carving tools which you can see in the photo above. The wooden handles are worn so smooth with years of use, the blades a little rusty and in need of sharpening, the edges worn down. They have been sitting in a box, unused for around 4 years but I often look at them and think of my great-grandfathers hands working away on one ship or another as he did in his shed at the bottom of the garden. My father has a photo of him somewhere that was used in an article in the local newspaper many years ago. Next time I am home I shall have to make a copy to show you.

My family has an interesting story, possibly not one to be told here but my great-grandfather was an incredibly talented craftsman. His son (adopted) was also a talented artisan, moulding and remaking ships badges as a hobby. His son (my father) is also an incredibly talented artist and craftsman who has over the years in his spare time worked on leather carvings, wood carvings and paintings. My father retires next year and I am really hoping that he will get back to creating with all the skills that he has. So with these carving tools that have been handed down to me through 3 generations of men in my family, I have also been gifted with a passion for art and craft and the skills and desire to create every day for all the rest of my days. The source of that passion lies with the gifts and talents of my great-grandfather and the crafting of those ships; the worn down handles and blades of these tools; and perhaps even further back in my family than I know. I will always be grateful for the origin of my creativity.

Hand-bound journal. Perfectly Imperfect., originally uploaded by gilfling.

Perfectly Imperfect….Just Like Me….

I have spent my first proper day in the studio today (apart from the big clean up a few days ago) and it was so good just to pootle and ‘do’ with only a vague idea of what I wanted to achieve. I am so excited to be taking another e-course with the wonderful Misty Mawn. It suits me perfectly for this time of year. I have less pressure to make work for stockists and shows and I can make time to create whatever I want. Today I made a couple of hand-bound journals in preparation for the e-course and I am really looking forward to working in them!

Along with continuing to create and make for a living, this year I also want to make more time and space for just creating for the sake of it…for me. Whether that is sketching, journalling, book-binding, knitting, sculpting it does not matter. I never, ever get tired of making things with my hands and my imagination. It never feels like a chore. I am never, ever bored.

Although I have created hand-bound books that were carefully cut and measured with the intention of using them as sketchbooks, I always open them and feel the fear of spoiling those carefully measured pages as soon as I start working in them. This journal is as rough and imperfect as can be. The straggly threads that are knotted on the outside remind me of spiders legs or bare, tortured tree’s on a snowy landscape. I can’t wait to fill those pages!

Pretty lights, lighting the way, originally uploaded by gilfling.

‘The Victory’ – hand-crafted by my Great-Grandfather. The most treasured thing I own.

These lights were up for Christmas but I think I shall keep them there. They look so pretty at night.

A sketch a day – January 1/31and 2/31, originally uploaded by gilfling.

Last year I began the year with a sketch a day. Just a wee drawing in my small moleskine, often drawn just at bedtime with sleepy eyes and fuzzy thoughts. Sometimes they took just five minutes, sometimes as many as twenty.

I managed this pretty consistently for the first months, fizzled out, returned and then fizzled out again. It was a really interesting exercise. Often I thought I was just rehashing the same ideas and images over and over again, never really visualising anything new. But looking back at these tiny black books filled with ivory and grey dreams I see how precious they are. They are like a stop motion film of my thoughts. I have taken them to a couple of shows and placed them on my table and people love flicking through them and seeing something new.

So I am going to return to this lost habit and see where it takes me. I aim to do a lot more painting this year and these tiny sketches help develop ideas that may or many not reappear in larger artworks. Scanning each and every page became a little laborious last year and as a consequence I have many pages that I have not shown. You can see those that I did, here.

So this year with the help of my new lifeline - my phone and instagram, I shall instead take a photo of each 2 page spread and perhaps show the best ones in my blog once a week. Some turn out better than others.

I am excited about giving myself a creative challenge every month this year partly inspired by one of my favourite artists Cathy Cullis who has written the most excellent blog post about creative challenges here. I think I will change it up a little every month and sometimes a month will have daily challenges and sometimes weekly. I am hoping the daily sketch will be something I can continue throughout the year but I am going to make January easy for myself and also make it my daily task for this month. I will be looking for ideas for February! Cathy is making a hand-bound artists book a week for January so I am quite tempted by this idea.

Have you set yourself any creative tasks/challenges/goals for 2012? I would love to hear about them.

Thank you as ever for your comments!

x x x

Done! Just some paperwork to sort out and I am ready to begin work … Tomorrow., originally uploaded by gilfling.

Happy New Year to you!!

I have spent a bit of time on each of the first 2 days of 2012 cleaning up the terrible mess that my studio was left in at the end of all my Christmas shows. I feel so much better now and ready to start work tomorrow.

I am not really one for making new years resolutions such as lose weight/excercise more blah-de-blah as these always get broken practically before I even start. Instead, I see life as a constant work in progress – I take faltering steps forward and sometimes steps back and sometimes I vear off the path altogether only to find my way back eventually.

So in this year, as in any other, I want to continue to work hard and develop as an artist. I want to use my imagination more and create work that is from the heart. I want to spend more time with those I love, venture out into the unknown and enjoy the comforts of home. Most of all I am wishing for health and happiness for myself and those I love. Not New Year’s resolutions but the start of the year is always a good time to just remind myself of my life’s purpose and my long term intentions.

I have lots of little projects in mind for the coming year and lots of challenges I want to set myself in terms of my artwork – I am gradually making a list.

I would really like to blog a little more consistantly this year instead of starting off well and drifting off into nowhere as the year goes on. So I am thinking ‘short and sweet with a picture posts’ will appear more (thanks to my new phone and instagram app) and the odd more thought out post appearing on occassion and when I actually have something interesting to say!

So I wish you Health, Peace and Happiness for you and yours – I hope 2012 will be a great year for us all!

x x x

My 2011 in pictures, originally uploaded by gilfling.

1. 1 1 11, 2. janek, 3. 26 2 11, 4. A moment in time, 5. Wildflower mouse, 6. Ola, 7. Once Upon a Time, 8. Fragments Brooch, 9. 4 2 11, 10. Rosalyn, 11. Aubrey, 12. drawing/sketch, 13. Marcel, 14. Wildflower rabbit, 15. playing with monotypes, 16. Celestine, 17. Ilya, 18. What might have been…., 19. Milo – retaken, 20. new painting, 21. WIP wednesday, 22. Aliena, 23. 28 1 11, 24. alexei, 25. playing with monotypes, 26. Marek, 27. 30 1 11, 28. WIP wednesday, 29. Lottie, 30. Fragments Brooch, 31. ink bottle 11, 32. sketchbook pages, 33. Introducing… Wilfred, 34. fragments of nature, 35. new painting, 36. Tomas – retaken

Hello friends.

Although I have not been blogging regularly towards the end of this last year, I still wanted to write a bit of a round-up post just to say good-bye to 2011 – always a good thing to do when looking towards the next year and the exciting  possibilities that lie before me.

My first blog post of 2011 came at the end of a difficult period, very soon after finishing treatment for breast cancer and although it was difficult to see through the haze of post-radiotherapy fog and exhaustion, I had high hopes for the year that was to come. I have not been disappointed and have been so grateful for the opportunities that came my way and for the progress I have made, particularly in terms of my artwork.

One of my aims was to spend less time on the computer and more time making art and although I have not been able to paint nearly as much as I had hoped, I have worked in a completely different medium in the form of sculpting clay and out of that my quirky and whimsical characters have taken shape and  become my signature work.

I began a sketch a day before bed-time and although this only lasted for a few months rather than the year that I had hoped for, it has given me the chance to get lots and lots of ideas down on paper for to be developed into other work now and in the future.

I wanted to spend more time in my studio and push my work in new and unexpected ways.  The clay characters were ideas that I had bouncing around my thoughts for such a long time (2 years perhaps?) and I finally got to bring them to life. I love them and the response to them has far exceeded my expectations.

I hoped to exhibit more and in 2011 I took part in 5 group exhibitions and exhibited at 7 well-established craft fairs (an increase from 4 group exhibitions and 1 contemporary craft event in 2010).

I began 2010 blogging regularly whilst recuperating and taking time off from work for the first few months of the year and the blogging decreased and tailed off in the latter part of the year and mostly during my busiest period of November and December. But that is fine, I was working hard!

I lost a friend and mentor, won my first award for my artwork, taught my first workshop in 2 years, didn’t update my website anywhere near as much as I should have, fretted about the precarious health of our house bunnies, celebrated my first year of marriage and my first year since my cancer diagnosis, took time out, learned to knit, lost one-and-a-half-stones in weight, went on a couple of camping trips, spent time with friends, carried on through the horrible post-cancer hormone treatment (still ongoing), had the most ridiculous accident and wondered what the future might bring in terms of the timing of my diagnosis and whether we will be able to have children.

In so many ways this has been the most incredible year and as this blog is mostly focussed on my artwork in terms of my progress there, it has been my best year yet. There are so many things that I am grateful for and even with the up’s and down’s of things that go on behind the scenes that I do not tend to write about here in any great detail, my life is good and I am a happy soul.

So we shall see what 2012 will bring! One of my main aims this year was to spend less time on the computer and more time in the studio and as a result I have not been able to keep up with the blogging world as much as I would like. But I continue to be grateful for and appreciate every single one of you who take the time to glimpse into this wee corner of my world to see what I am doing.

I hope you have all had a wonderful year and wish you well for 2012.

I am now going to spend the weekend tidying my bomb-site of a studio so that is fresh for a new start in 2012 and whilst doing that I will be dreaming and imagining all sorts of good things for the new year to come.

x x x

Aubrey, originally uploaded by gilfling.

Hello again!! Blogging two days in a row after such a long time away….you can tell I am still bedridden! I have so much to do and yet I am being forced to stay still and rest, which is not me, at all. Tomorrow I am going to try some sculpting and see how I get on…

In the meantime, I thought I would try and catch up on telling you of a few things I have been up to in recent weeks. The show I exhibited at, last weekend was Holmfirth Art Market and was a really wonderful day for me in terms of meeting previous and new customers and chatting to folks about my work and inspirations. These events are always tiring and hard work but the contact with people who show an interest in what you do is so gratifying.

The wonderful Fiona from The Art Markets recorded a podcast with me the week before the show and asked me some really interesting questions about my work and inspirations which really worked my brain! So much of what I do, I just ‘do’ so it is interesting for me to have to think about the ‘why’s’ and ‘how’s’. I can’t for the life of me work out how to embed it into my blog but if you are interested in listening then you can find the interview here.

Thank you so much for all your good wishes regarding my accident – I really can’t believe how incredibly kind and supportive folks have been towards me and I have had so many lovely messages and offers of help that I feel quite overwhelmed. So thank you.

x x x

Lustre, Nov 2011, originally uploaded by gilfling.

Again…. so, so very long since I have blogged. So easy as it is to get out of the habit, to worry that I am boring you, repetition of the same old, same old stories.

But I am back and we shall see what I have to share…………. I have been so incredibly busy these last few weeks (months?) and really I have been on a one track path, just working, working away and preparing for all the upcoming shows of this season. I have taken on a lot this year, my busiest ever and now I have 2 shows, a showcase and one exhibition behind me and 3 shows, a showcase and an exhibition looming ahead which is exciting if a little scary!

I am naturally nervy whilst preparing for shows and exhibitions, but this year has now been made a little more stressful by way of a fall down a flight of stairs in a coffee shop 2 days ago which resulted in a trip to accident and emergency and the diagnosis of at least 2 fractured ribs and possible sternum fracture – and more bruising and aches than I care to mention!!

Tis a long, long story which I won’t bore you with but needless to say it all leaves me in a bit of a pickle. This is the 3rd consecutive year of disasters during my show season. Two years ago saw me running from show, to shop, to hospital, to p/t job whilst Mark was quite ill in hospital for several weeks – last year of course I was being treated for breast cancer so was only able to do one show (disastrous when I am a self-employed artist depending on the income) and now this year!! With all the money I have paid out to do the shows I can’t afford another year of calamities!

Luckily I have the best friends in the world. I put out a call for help on facebook last night and I have been overwhelmed with offers of help from friends and strangers alike. I have been bed-bound the last 2 days and any movement leaves me in agony (goodness knows what my neighbours must think of the screaming every time I have to get out of bed) and with my next show only a week and 2 days away (and 2 more on the consecutive weekends after that) I was in a panic about how I would manage. But folks have offered to drive me, carry stuff, unpack, set up and man my stall and I am so, so humbled and grateful. The artistic community is a generous one and there is always that sense of ‘we look after each other’ and never has that been more clear.

So the next show is pretty much sorted and I will be trying to sculpt away in my sick-bed (the only place I can get comfortable as the slightest movement leaves me in agony) and hoping that I can get up and about in a few days to do a little sewing of mice and rabbits and melancholy girls.

The photos’s above were taken at my first show of the season which was the brilliant Lustre in Nottingham. It was my best show ever and I was overwhelmed with the response to my work, so thank you if you came to visit, purchase or even just to say hello and show an interest in the things I create. It makes it all worthwhile!

x x x

Mosaic Monday 10th October 2011, originally uploaded by gilfling.

1. Fibre artist and Embroiderer – Jane Siddal, 2. inner part, 3. Needle felted Pawdling Bunny By Barby Anderson / Baby Barn Owl by Helen Priem, 4. Untitled, 5. Gang Shot, 6. Painting 10-10-11 F, 7. Untitled, 8. natural order /color, 9. Pig Cupid , 10. calm/ Windstille, 11. Critters, 12. Studio | my new migration painting

It has been a wee while since I have created a mosaic of my favourites from flickr but here we are once again – so much beautiful work – it never fails to amaze me.

Wishing you a great start to your week!

x x x

awaiting arms, originally uploaded by gilfling.

Hello there. I am so behind at blogging all the works in progress I have on the table at the moment, but here is one, just to let you know that I am here. I am spending alot of time in my studio these days and I am so happy to do so. Life stuff is happening. You know the kind…. head hurting, heart-aching, covered by a cloud, weight on my shoulders kind of stuff. But I shall plough through it as is my way…. it feels foggy and blurry, but finding my way through and keeping on creating are my two main goals in life at the moment.

I shall see you on the other side.

x x x