Advent

Another year has almost flicked by and I’m now reflecting on an amazing year that’s been both fulfilling and enriching. Honestly, as I grow, the years speed up. I’m sure I can’t pack anymore stuff into the year. Physically and mentally, I just couldn’t!

2024 was essentially, a time for building confidence with myself as an artist about to embark on a Masters in Fine Art. All the preparations and visits to and from Aberystwyth University was worth all the hard work I put into making this 18 year goal a realisation. I’m already thinking about my future aspirations after graduating, but know that the reigns have to be pulled in! I’ve also enjoyed observing the emotional and academic growth of my two daughters since they began their new secondary school at the beginning of the year. I’m in awe of their tenacity and love of their subjects. They’re also brilliantly fluent in Welsh too! More on my own learning of this beautiful Celtic language later. It’s also been a great year for connecting with other artists in my local community too, and I’m lucky to have met some great people I count as good friends.

We’re two days away from Christmas Day, and in our non-religious household, my family and I enjoy the celebrations very modestly. Because of our strong ethics on mass consumption, there will be few gifts which are thoughtfully bought. I’ve requested a simple handmade gift or card, and possibly, a rescue plant. Unfortunately consumerism has been infectious, especially when I lived in the US. It’s only when I started to realise the detrimental effects on the environment it had and not to mention on my mental health it was having. My personal quest to priority spend only, and buy in thrift/charity shops where ever possible. This ethos and shift in lifestyle change became ingrained into my mindset. Instead, if finances allow, I will treat myself with a plant or something else for the living environment around me. It’s my way of recognising my own failures, and returning what I’ve taken from Earth’s valuable resources in my previous life.

I’m excited for another year of giving back to the Earth, and more gardening escapades and studio work in 2025.  

The Earth & I Project

Deconstructed Reality. Graphite Pencil on Paper. A5. 2024.

Half-way through the 2023 project written about in an earlier blog, I started explore ways of representing cell-like structures and other organic forms in my work. I began integrating unconventional objects, such as plastic twine, metal wire and natural elements throughout some of the pieces. Essentially, this activated my interest with integrating found materials and plant fragments into collage and drawing.

The project is still ongoing, but I’m dipping in and out of it while I develop my portfolio. Using recycled textiles in my work continues. However, I am still considering ways to expand ideas and use of different materials. I’m eager to raise an awareness through my art by incorporating my own experiences and emotional responses. Additionally, I want to retain my authentic voice while exploring various to use various collage and drawing techniques. I continue to natural and synthetic elements from the land. My intention is to unite all of these elements with natural and synthetic materials in my artwork. I find myself frequently returning to drawing, and have been combining different techniques with collage and found materials. This is how I can continue to incorporate stitched and woven elements into my art.

My Academic World

Many aspects of learning has always been a struggle throughout my primary, secondary and undergraduate education. I struggle with note taking, reading and processing information, all of which are essential elements that make up my academic studies. As a recently diagnosed neurodivergent adult, it was no surprise when one of the conditions I have is Audio Processing Disorder (or rather, attribute). It means that I have difficulty understanding languages and processing words. This is how I refer to all the learning differences I was diagnosed with. Essentially, my learning and processing world, is a visual one.

Much of my research at Aberystwyth University requires a lot of reading and note taking, which I find incredibly challenging. If it wasn’t for the invaluable help of the university’s Accessibility and Inclusion services, I would have had difficulty studying for my masters. The team helped me find an Educational Psychologist to perform diagnostic tests and they assisted with my Disabled Student Allowance (DSA) application, which enabled me to receive adequate technical and study skills.

I am sure many other artists and creatives alike can attest to having some form of learning difference. Everyone learns and processes information differently and most have some varying degree of neurodivergent characteristic. During my diagnostic testing, I was interested to learn that in one of the tests, I performed high on a scale of 1 in 1000 people solving the problem correctly and quickly. The testing was an exhausting five hours in length, which was split into two sessions. As tiring as it was, the entire assessment was in depth and fastidious.   

Because my degree was studied in the USA, it involved an insane amount of academic study, including core subjects; English, Science, Modern East Asia, American History, European History etc. Amongst these I had to take the core art subjects, such as Design, Sculpture, IT and so on. The educational system was dramatically different to what I’d experienced in my native UK. What was supposed to be a four-year course of study, turned into a six-year marathon. Educationally, it was the most intense test of endurance I went through.

When I have any written word in front of me, it becomes a mass of text which I often have to read over and over, until my eyes begin closing! Falling asleep while I’m reading is a common trait of mine, which can be debilitating at times. However, depending on my mood, I embrace this momentary lapse in the day! I have ADD, which means I am easily distracted. I need to do any academic study in either a quiet room, or have calming classical sounds on in the background while I’m working.

I love books, and have a great collection of science and nature based paperbacks and hardcovers. Some are vintage and first editions. As a collector of artist monologues, art history, with a specific interest in women’s art history, and books on art criticism, I Have ceased collecting because of my slow pace of reading, and my philosophy on global mass consumption. More on this subject in a future blog!

2023 Work

November’s Daily Dialogue (details 9 of 30), 4.5" x 5.5" each. From the series, A Year Commemorating the Earth & I, 2023. Ongoing.

At the beginning of January 2023, I started a project that challenged me, my process and tenacity. My goal was to create a daily dialogue between myself and the materials I use in my art. My intention was to use only repurposed textiles and unconventional objects within each piece. The alternative items such as found littered plastic gradually made it’s way into the pieces later in the year. I didn’t know where this was going to lead me, and goodness knows what possessed me to begin such an undertaking! It may have been my obsession with hand sewing, which developed during my health crisis in the US. My husband gifted me a book Christmas 2018, “Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art (2015)” by Claire Wellesley-Smith shortly after my diagnosis. My love of this simple yet powerfully enriching practice of sewing thread through a piece of cloth was borne out of a need to connect with something tactile. So began a year long journey, documenting fragments of my daily life, observations, and experiences.

During my treatment and the problematic years that followed, I found solace in hand stitching, with no particular aspiration to make a finished piece. The focus was on my health and my practice as an artist was put on hold while I healed. It’s only now, that I have felt ready to push myself as an artist. Essentially, my visual vocabulary went into deep hibernation since I graduated with an undergraduate degree in 2006.

Hand sewing daily continues as an important part of my creative process, and since beginning this series, my work has evolved and become more refined in terms of subject matter and colour palette. Drawing has also been deeply rooted within me, and it’s the foundation of my art practice. Sharing my work with my daughters and involving them in my creative process is really important too. For me, art in any discipline, is about sharing ideas, processes and involving the community. It should be available to all.

However challenging this 2023 project was at the time during it’s creation, it allowed me to develop concepts that were laying dormant for so long. I now have the problem of solving the display of 365 pieces. Originally, I was going to lay each month onto a large piece of calico fabric, so there would be 12 months hung. I am still unsure that this would be the best way to show these and whether or not I should frame them individually. There is still work that needs to be finished on this project before I decide on the displaying issues. For now, I’m still enjoying the process, and learning more about myself and my artworld.

The Garden

View of river bank “Glan Ceirw”/Bank of the River, from our back garden in North Wales. December 2024.

Gardening is a huge part of the creative process for me. I need to be in it, physically and emotionally. My family and I are fortunate to have a garden big enough to grow a modest amount of edible plants and ornamentals, and we maximise its potential every year. I am also growing plants to use in my work. Creating my own pigments from the ground, making dyes, printing from various materials, and using other natural materials is essential to my sustainable practice. Collecting found objects littered in the landscape are often threaded into my pieces. Using unconventional materials strengthens the awareness I want to raise about the climate crisis, and how plants are dramatically effected by environmental degradation.    

I've always had a curious mind. That's the artist in me and the lifelong fascination with biology. Much of the work I am creating now will be my personal exploration and deeper engagement with nature, pollution, and its effects on all life forms. I'm particularly intrigued to learn more about the language of plants and how they communicate within their own communities. Learning how they respond and connect with other living organisms will be part of my research too.

Drawing

Library of Automatic Drawings, Books 9 - 15, 2020 - Present. Ongoing Project.

I was awake at 5am this morning. By 5:30am, I was clasping my diary with eager hands, and began producing some automatic drawings. Usually, this is a ritual I have been undertaking for nearly ten years, but at night before going to sleep. The practice sometimes involves closing my eyes and drawing without any preconceived ideas about the subject being drawn. It’s a process I’ve really enjoyed since embarking on this ongoing project. The anticipation of revealing the marks and lines made afterwards is always exciting. I’ve always been lured by the unexpected in my work.

Home 1

Lichen, North Wales, UK. Digital Photo. 2024

August Garden. View of Wildflower patch with fruit trees, vegetable and cut flower beds and greenhouse. 2024.

As someone who’s moved about and lived in many dwellings since early childhood, I have often felt displaced and unsettled.

North Wales has been my santuary since 2020. After living through cancer and being diagnosed for the second time only a month after the first treatment, I realised that I needed the comfort of being back in my home country. I was living in New York at the time but I felt a strong urge to return to the UK. A year after the treatment finished, my family and I embarked on a highly stressful and messy transatlantic relocation…smack bang in the middle of the Pandemic.

Nature has been a constant in my life. A friend that I’ve turned to in times of need, wellbeing and reflection. There are no judgements. A primal and unadulterated bond between myself and the natural world around me is a symbiotic connection that continues to nourish my existence.

Living in the rural countryside has it’s challenges, and our humble farmhouse that’s centuries old is in need of a lot of repair and improvement. The garden is major project too. We’re converting it from a small patch of field to a useable area of land for growing ornamental plants, seasonal fruit and veg. It’s a modest life we live, but it’s honest.

This truly is home, and I belong here.

Entangled

Web and Prey, North Wales, UK, digital photo. 2024.

Many of my artworks derive from sketched and photographic studies I make daily. I am particularly drawn to naturally made entangled worlds.

After a challenging start to the week at university, I’m happily back at home for a few days. Like so many, I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which often wreaks havoc on my mental wellbeing. My feeble therapy lamp is no substitute for the real daylight that I need, and I yearn to be outside in the garden.

The past several months of weeding, planting has produced many rewards, and several losses, due to crazy amount of rain we’ve had this year. Slugs and Snails were in their element as they chomped away through ornamentals and edibles we’d sowed, planted and nurtured from seed. I desperately hold on to the few hours of daylight as much as I can. My once soil stained hands are eager to prepare for the season ahead. Winter Solstice promises the transition into a new year filled with hope for a better harvest in the garden and more focus on my studio practice.

I need the small interludes from nature everyday to keep me grounded.

New Project

Cell 1 (from plant cell series), Plastic Packaging, Plastic Twine, Scorched Repurposed Fabric, Handmade Charcoal & Thread on Cloth. 2024.

This is the first of a monthly series, which started at the beginning of the semester in early October this year, and will run through to the end of my MA Fine Art course at Aberystwyth University. This my intention for now. It may change. I’m certain that some of the materials I use will develop over the course of time as I become more deeply involved in the exploration process.

There’s a continuous stream of ideas that permeate throughout my awakened state, which are difficult to translate onto a two dimensional surface at times. Thank goodness for my sub conscience, where some of these ideas can often develop from a dream.

Since the first of this cell series was created, I changed the timing of the project from creating a weekly piece to a monthly one, mostly because of the time aspect. Three months into this task, I have the urge to increase the size and change the shape of the pieces as I go further.