Firstly, thank you to everyone who wrote lovely supportive emails and messages in the lead up to my exhibition opening in Sydney on the 7th, and since. Wow!
Driving up, I was thinking – What if it doesn’t work? By ‘it’ I mean ‘the hang,’ as painters’ say. See, I’d not seen all the paintings together in one space. When the installation came together, I was relieved and delighted. For the first time, my mind flashed back over the last few challenging years… I suddenly realised – I made it!
There have not been any other markers quite like this one. Tears of gratitude for the tenacity and love driving the pioneering spirit of Vanessa Bell, which I seemed to imbibe. Gratitude for this body of paintings and ceramics that took on a life of its’ own, inspiring the next idea, and the next, and carrying me along with it! My heart is in this work, more than any other.
Only seconds after Litsa and I stepped back to survey the installation, a delivery man walked in with a huge bouquet of exotic flowers from Mum and my sisters Melissa and Janie. Wow, what timing! More gratitude! The funny thing was that his smile was so big it was as if they were from himself 😉
Have you ever seen such an extraordinary bouquet? I haven’t!
Each painting of The Vanessa Series captured a meandering of ideas before taking on a life of its’ own. There are interconnections within the series, such as the twelve that make up #7 This Moment I Stand On above. These in turn, speak to others via palette and pattern.
While I could make many more, This Moment I Stand On is made up of different qualities of moments responding to Vanessa’s sister Virginia Woolf’s poignant enquiry:
“Now is life very solid or very shifting? I am haunted by the two contradictions. This has gone on forever; goes down to the bottom of the world — this moment I stand on. Also it is transitory, flying, diaphanous. I shall pass like a cloud on the waves. Perhaps it may be that though we change, one flying after another, so quick, so quick, yet we are somehow successive and continuous we human beings, and show the light through. But what is the light? Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
During the second year of working on the series, I walked in Vanessa Bell’s footsteps at Charleston – the farmhouse where she lived most of her life. Imagining glimpses of Vanessa through the cracks of all that I’ve seen and read, including her little bed, desk, painted wardrobe and bathtub, I wrote this poem. The structure is informed by ‘The Shape of Squares’ a delicious poem by friend and gifted poet Phil Norton.
Vanessa
The secret of green
The anticipated entry
The dignified glance
The hurried departure
The delight of stripe
The play of pattern
With glitches.
The quiet passion
The silent pain
Burnt lip rose
The love of lemons
Love of love
The spice of plum
Soft of pink
The brush of mustard –
Japanese screen-gold
Laden mantle
Painted plates, table
Pale flowers, cold fog
And a faint echo
Laughing.
What do you think when you walk into an exhibition of abstract paintings?
What does it all mean? or exasperated perhaps – Who has time to figure this stuff out? Just tell me what it means!
Schooling does not teach us to see. Plus, our times have made us consumers with a swift glance. There might be a temptation to give up on abstract/non-objective paintings because they don’t deliver immediately.
An abstract painting asks something of you – your thoughts, feelings, ideas, memories…There’s a famous cartoon by Ad Reinhardt where the viewer asks – What does that represent? And the painting replies What do you represent?
Consequently, the meaning is different for each beholder.
When people say things like – I don’t have time – that is the point of art exactly; to remember the time we speak of not having enough of IS the time of our lives. Years ago, I made a painting with that title (see below).
Because attending to art connects us to our inner experiences, it counters dehumanising systems. More on this in my free January webinar 🙂 A link to book follows.
Abstract art, or art of any kind, is about time. Not the kind of time that seems to race by with barely a moment to breathe. No. Art GIVES time. Here’s how it works.
When we engage with art beyond ‘it’s an x and it means y,’ our experience reaches across the divide between Chronos time – the time of relentless racing the clock and the deadline – to Kairos Time – open, expansive, beautiful, where there’s meaning and fulfilment.
Named for Greek Gods, Chronos is old and Kairos is youthful, playful and luxuriating. The Ancient Greeks were referring to how we think. Chronos is logical and ages us. Kairos creative, imaginative and keeps us young at heart, and given the neuroscience research, genetically young also. Deadlines cause stress, and stress shortens telomeres – little tabs on the end of chromosomes. Whatever takes us into Kairos time, reasonably has the opposite effect.
Both making art and looking at art can take us being from unsettled to calm; from Chronos to Kairos time.
Bob Nickas, author and renowned commentator on the arts wrote:
The painter of abstract life slows down perception at a time when the demands of visual navigation at best disable, and at worst deny, a complete mental involvement in the object of thought … Abstract painting can be its own subject, its own world, one that reveals itself slowly over time and may not look exactly the same to us from one day to the next. …Now, when the daily flood of images appears unrelenting, when millions of people across the face of the earth can lift up their cell phones and “Make a picture” in an instant … abstraction … can be seen as an antidote.
I’ve long been heartened by Nickas’ writing, and thought to bring a number of ideas together so you can discover 6 ways into seeing abstract paintings and experiencing art as an antidote. Would you like that?
Come along to my free webinar January 12:
“Art as Antidote” 6 ways of looking at abstract art that can open your mind AND help you envision your creative 2025
Will 2025 be the year you decide to experience the antidote, saying yes to the rich rewards of dedicating more time to your creative expression?
- Discover how to look at abstract paintings in 6 different ways
- In that more open-minded state, dream up what you’d love for 2025
- Stay online for Q&A
AEDT 10 am 12th January/ PT 3pm 11th January/ ET 6pm 11th January/ GMT 11pm 11th January
The Painters Pilgrimage Retreat March 19-24.
Built on my group course and solo retreat ‘Paint from your Heart,’ this retreat intends to help you experience the magic of painting. Expect small-group intensive teachings with practice and demonstrations, and time to paint (guided by prac guidelines or as you wish) on your own balcony. Ask your questions during your daily mentoring session so the teachings can be tailored to meet your needs.
Values of excellence, respect and beauty with balance of structure and creative freedom underpin this rare offering for 6 participants so you can:
~ Clear blocks with Creative Freedom Coaching prior to the retreat so you can start or re-ignite your painting practice with greater ease
~ Develop skills faster with guided practice and feedback
~ Uncover more of your style as we explore the elements of painting
~ Harness the power of colour and principles of composition
~ Gain confidence as you see what you can do
If this sounds like something you’d love, book a no-obligation complimentary mentoring session. There are 3 places left.
Wishing you a beautiful Christmas, gentle festive season & fulfilling New Year!
My heartfelt thanks to you for reading; for our connection. I’m always delighted to receive your thoughts and news.
With love & gratitude, Suzanne
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