1. Marking things to return to is a good reminder that not everything has to be good or of quality. It's better to make a lot and discover something good amongst it all. Quantity is perhaps just as important as quality...
"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working"
2. The off-cuts and scraps that are left when stretching a canvas are too plentiful and beautiful to go in the bin. I found a hardback book titled 'Gee's Bend' in a charity shop on Skegness seafront, which changed my view on textile, quilting, craft, art, abstraction and geometric patterns. I plan to make a large, tonal piece from these scraps of canvas and linen, inspired by Martha Tuttle and the Gee's Bend movement.
3. Collage shares many of the same processes as quilting - both offer the maker a sense of satisfaction that comes from making separate elements come together, a puzzle of your own making. The pieces either work or they don't, thus removing some of the decision-making and agonising from the creative process. Collecting images torn from magazines and newspapers, I began to make hybrid creatures to use as a starting point for small paintings. More freeing than painting from a straight image, this process offers more creative licence, as the starting point is already 'incorrect'...
4. Lee Simmonds 'Into Yonderland' at Kristin Hjellegjerde, London Bridge.
A small exhibition in bold tones - this exhibition felt chic and concise. Dream-like scenes painted in atmospheric colours; Simmonds does not clearly distinguish the background and foreground, and so the eye can travel in whichever direction it likes, gathering information rather than following a narrative.
5. Bird skull, found on the beach in Inverness
6. 'Not Without My Ghosts: The Artist As Medium' Drawing Room.
Ann LisLegaard's drawings - made during hypnosis - were the highlight of this group show, connecting most strongly with my sense of what it is to 'divine' for ideas. Unconscious mark-making, creative freedom and a lack of inhibition give energy to Lislegaard's drawings, which form part of a neat experiment where Lislegaard found the images, icons, symbols and themes that are at the core of her work - and mind.
7. Anna Glantz 'Baby Grand' at The Approach
Painted 'at the onset of her thirties' these works are not motivated by the artists own complex personal history, instead they seem to be more experimental and referential - a collage of ideas and images.
The style, subjects and colour palette mutate from one painting to the next, with very few repetitions or motifs to connect them. A sense of serenity fill the gallery, despite the painting's surreal qualities, and despite the fact that the gallery is above a pub.
Kooky scenes, unanchored from reality, feel like imaginings rather than reenactments - each a passing thought...