Time for renewal. Studio decluttering session.
Every Saturday I share my art practice over the past 7 days. I’m fascinated by artistic practice – it’s not just about creating art but the entire process. From influences and ideas to materials and skills, each artist’s unique approach shapes their work, making it more than just a finished piece.
It’s been a process of renewal this week. I’ve never felt such clarity in clearing my studio space. We all get attached to items as they often have sentimental value, or you think they’ll have some use in the future (despite never using them!) but I felt like 75% of everything must go to give me the physical and head space to move forward. This decluttering includes giving a lot of art materials and books to charity shops!
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Thank you,
Dearest paid subscribers,
Thank you so much for joining me in my art practice this week.
I’m still feeling unwell but I feel that I am over the worst of it. As my daughter is at the childminder a few days a week, mixing with other children, I’m seemingly picking up every cold going around. Having a suppressed immune system doesn’t help with that, but I’m doing ok and in good spirits.
Enough about ailments, let’s look into this week’s artistic practice.
It’s sub-zero temperatures in the UK now, no better time for a renewal. Out with the old and in with the new. I’ve had my art studio since June 2021 and it saw its first revamp in August 2022 ready for an open studio weekend, but now it’s 2024 and I’m clearing out the clutter ready for the year ahead and my artistic direction.
I felt a great sense of satisfaction in creating piles of recycling ready to take to the recycling centre and bags of items to go to charity.
Orange and blue is my new direction (with brown, black and white accents, as you know) so I’m going as far as getting rid of colours that aren’t on that list. I gave a load of nearly-full spray cans to a street artist friend and I’ll give the rest of the paints to anyone who’d like them. Of course, all of the primary colours are in for mixing up my colour palette.
Artist Dana Schutz inspired me a while back when she said that she spends a lot of time in her studio just mixing up paints. My previous art practice was fairly spontaneous, I’d have an idea about something I’d like to express and using a reference photo I would start painting without any planning. This included planning out any colour palettes, I loved picking out approximations and if I felt like it, painting a totally different colour to the reference photo. It was fun, it had a great sense of play about it.
In my new practice, I’m sure I will do this with my limited colour palette but I’m also going to mix some gorgeous blues, oranges and browns and store them in new pots I’ve purchased. I’m excited about the process of “inventing” new variations of my colour palette and storing them like a library. I may even go as far as writing the percentages of pigment added to each so I can recreate them if needed. It feels like I’m a chef making up my own delicious recipes.
Over the past 18 months, I prided myself on having a chaotic studio. Francis Bacon’s studio springs to mind:
As you can see, my studio is a mess. Nothing wrong with that at all, every artist has their way of working. However, I have a strong urge to archive all of my work from 2019-2023 and start with a blank canvas (literally and metaphorically) in 2024.
I’ve never been one to be super organised but I do want to create headspace for creating and storing new artwork, plus clear access to my paints for mixing new combinations (I will share some ‘after’ pics next Saturday).
As you can see in the video, a lot of my clutter has been added to my fellow artist’s studio next to mine (Adam Crosland) while I’m re-organising, for which I am very grateful. Adam and I had a joint exhibition in December 2023 and I wrote about it here.
I’ll be wrapping and packing up previous artworks and creating a drawing archive in one of my large folders. It’s a real cathartic week, a renewal 2024.
Orange and blue in my day-to-day life this week: My daughter’s toy stacking rings.
Thank you for joining me in my art practice for this week.
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Best wishes,
SLART
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