Artist's Way

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide.

- D W Winnicott

I'm in the middle of revising my artist statement at the moment and so I found this quote very apt, as its a process I'm struggling with. Its a very un-English thing to be outwardly bullish about ones strengths. Its far more common for me to be self deprecating, than to stand back and say 'that girl did good'.

The idea of tension between two extremes made me think of this picture I did some years back. It was a form of therapy as well as reignited my passion for hand embroidery - where tension of the tread is key. Its not my greatest piece of embroidery (more pragmatic realism) but it hangs in my dining room non the less. More as a reminder to me of what can be achieved if you keep trying to communicate with the world. I was trying to capture something of the wildness of the landscape and its layers of complexity and as I worked it revealed those depths in me.

I think there is an element of Artistic tension in most of the creative people I know, they're driven to create and at the same time have to constantly push themselves out into the real world. It is hard sometimes to trust the work enough to expose that which we usually keep hide.

I say be BOLD this week and see where life takes you.