I got a present today. Not for a birthday, not for Mothers day just because I blog. Blogging has become a continuation of my art making. Not because what I write about is particularly artistic or new (and some would say uninteresting) but it keeps me being introspective with my work.
So here is my present. I gigantic cup. And how appropriate as I have been making tea bags in order to support my art practice amongst work and other things. The last few days I have been cutting up old gardening books, collaging, sewing bags, labelling and testing.
Most artists tend to fiddle. Sometimes working in a studio may not be about working on a painting – you just don’t have the right frame of mind to dip brushes so the fingers begin to wander, drawing, mulling over books or putting bits and pieces together.
We make and do. Cut and paste. Sew and stamp. Blog and think. So my mug is well suited, a typewriter on one side “I blog therefore I am” on the other. I can dangle my oversized, hand sewn, tag collaged liquorice and peppermint tea bag in it while I figure out what comes next.
There is always a tenuous link of some kind that leads to the next blog or the next painting, drawing. During another studio tour of works in the Wollongong City Gallery during last week, I saw works on paper and paper sculpture held in the collection. The most amazing fact was that I had purchased works by three of the artists on show. I had not intentionally set out to do this. They were works that appealed to me at the time I bought them but standing in the back room I realised paper was the common denominator whether it be print, painting or sculpture.
Sometimes paper can border on craft and at times I feel I skirt that border precariously with scissors and paste.
Either way I have been able to float my ideas in a giant cup full of artful tea.
