The 22nd week in the World of SLART and his art practice.
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Lesson learned re sound quality, don’t use my crap headphones as a mic! Apologies!
Author’s Note: Every Saturday, I share insights from my creative journey over the past week. Through these updates, I offer a glimpse into my artistic process, ranging from the influences that inspire me, and the ideas that pop up in my awareness, to the hands-on experience of drawing and painting.
Consider it like having a recurring opportunity to peek into the studio of an artist you admire, getting a regular glimpse into their creative process. While I don’t claim to reach the status of your favourite artist, if renowned figures like Jean Dubuffet or Lydia Pettit shared their artistic updates weekly, I’d eagerly follow along.
Stay tuned until next Saturday for another update on my artistic journey. Remember, the true essence of art lies not just in its final form but also in the captivating chaos of its creation.
If you are reading via email and this post is too long, you can read it here in Substack. Or download the app. I highly recommend the app as you can interact with me and others via Substack Notes.
Picasso Museum Malaga Proposal
I have these “hair-brained” ideas that come to mind and I execute them. I figure that these types of actions are better than deliberate whether to do it or not. These actions cause no harm, and the intention is to share my art! There’s still a part of me that thinks I do a lot of busy work, but I still take a lot of actions to get my work out there in the world.
So this idea was to email the Picasso Museum in Malaga, in Spanish, offering my artwork for loan for 1 year.
The lesson from this action is like I said before, it’s better to do rather than waste time mulling in it over. But also there’s another lesson, our doubting thoughts would say “They would never accept my work” preventing any action.
Perhaps I am naive in expecting anything to come from it. Who cares? I’ve heard that it’s hard to get work in art museums, but does it have to be? If you don’t try, you won’t know. Maybe it is hard, but if hard means that you don’t bother, nothing will happen.
Here’s a snippet from the email:
BLOOM exhibition set up
On Monday 3rd June, we set up the Bloom art exhibition at my workplace. We had a lower uptake of artists this time, many people who entered last time had at least one art piece done in the lockdown period of 2020/2021 and did nothing since. We had about 18 entries, all beautiful and diverse. Check out the video below:
This is my piece “I’m not afraid”.
You’re still an artist when you don’t create art for a bit
I’ve not had any studio time this week, I’ve been unwell again. I’ve not been well for the most part of this year, it’s a real wake-up call to start looking after myself. I feel like I need to be physically fit to make the most of my art, especially since having a child. I stress ate when my daughter came along and ended up putting on about 35kg within 6 months and it’s stayed at around 140kg since. The heaviest I have ever been.
I don’t feel bad about not having studio time, as I am still an artist, I’m still practising art even when I’m not actually drawing or painting. My life experiences and ideas are brewing all the time and transmuting into art.
Instagram and no stats
I can’t be arsed to share the stats this week. But here is the most viewed Reel. Substack stats are pretty stagnant. Every now and again, I feel annoyed at the ‘slow results’ but the main thing is that I keep on going, please do the same yourself. What separates us from the people who stop due to slow results, is that we keep going, be like water, be like a snail, and keep making those trails.
https://instagram.com/p/C71-JeGtRt8/
Sarah Hyland and Selina Gomez at my art exhibition
This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’ve come to love how ideas come in and out of consciousness, they happen when they want to happen and nothing is forced. [My mind just said, “Isn’t that an excuse to be lazy?”, “Maybe” I reply].
It’s a charity art exhibition, big, flashy, maybe a little cheesy, not too much, there’s people queuing to get in as it’s THE place to be. Selina Gomez and Sarah Hyland are hosts of the exhibition, their fame draws a big crowd, a who’s who of the acting and art worlds combined. All of my artworks sell, Kidney.org make a princely sum and I get loads of publicity, it launches my art career to the next level!
Why those two stars? They both had kidney transplants, like me.
Sarah Hyland on her two kidney transplants
Francia Raise explains how she became Selena Gomez’s Kidney Donor
Selena Gomez’s Extended Interview With Savannah Guthrie About Her Kidney Transplant
Thank you, writing all of this down makes it more real. My mind says “Why would these A-list celebs want to work with me” to which I reply “Of course they will, I am the new Jean Dubuffet and I have had two kidney transplants. Why on earth would they ever refuse?”.
Follow up with the National Gallery of Modern Art in India
Just a friendly follow-up with the NGMA. I did get a reply apologising for the delay, so I am confident she will reply again.
SLARTART.com website
As a person with a web background, I procrastinate on creating my own website. The website will be the lynchpin of my art in terms of information about me, my work and purchasing my work. So I came into work at 6:30am on Friday 7th June and spent 90 minutes working on my website before my workday began at 8am. I’m going to launch on 7th July. Substack will be my “blog” and I will link here from the site, like this.
Deadline 7th July. I figured that if I didn’t have a deadline, it wouldn’t happen! Well, it would happen, but maybe in 6 months! I bought a year with Squarespace, I want to make the most of it.
If you didn’t know, you can embed your latest Substack posts on your own website.
Here’s the code below: (Replace slart.substack.com with your own URL) you can also change the dimensions and colours in this section “width="100%" height="320" style="border:1px solid #EEE; background:white;"“
<iframe src="https://slart.substack.com/embed" width="100%" height="320" style="border:1px solid #EEE; background:white;" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>
<div id="substack-feed-embed"></div>
<script>
window.SubstackFeedWidget = {
substackUrl: "slart.substack.com",
posts: 9
};
</script>
<script src="https://substackapi.com/embeds/feed.js" async></script>There’s a great post on how to embed a specific post or note here.
$300k mural open call in Boulder, CO
I applied to this open call. It’s an exciting project open to international artists. My mistake was that I didn’t upload my mural work! But what’s done is done, I have uploaded some of my canvas art instead. Let’s see what happens!
UCLH Arts and Heritage Exhibition Proposal 2025
I had the sense to follow this up, as I sent my proposal in April and they’d say confirmation of receipt would be received. Let’s see what occurs, it looks like quite a bit of space for an exhibit.
I emailed Chris Pine for an interview
Did you know Chris Pine had social anxiety as a kid?
It gives me a boost to hear when people have overcome their crippling shyness, even more so when they’ve become a huge successes as an actor like Chris has.
I emailed his agent asking for an interview (as well as a publicist and a few others who support him).
Remember: If you don’t ask, you don’t get.
Check out the Chris Pine Episode of Tetragrammaton here:
My health is part of my art
As I mentioned above, I have been unwell a lot this year so I am taking it into my own hands. I’m getting some GP support for antibiotics and buying a daily greens supplement, increasing my exercise and fruit & veg intake. Food is medicine as someone once said. Any idea who it was?
I’m starting slow, but I can control what I put into my body to start with. I need my health for my wife and daughter as well as my art. All of these things are obvious, but we often need a motivating context to realise things.
Could you lend me your support on this? Even a small message of encouragement would mean a lot to me and be incredibly helpful!!
Thank you for joining me in my art practice for this week.
Best wishes,
