I must confess ...

I've always struggled to make work for other people and at Christmas when I had a (not so) genius idea to make people pieces of work for gifts, I had a few too many epiphanies about the state of painting in attempting to do so. And, I must confess ... I don't think I can paint anymore! There, I said it. "Oh, but you can, your work isn't that bad!", I hear you say. But really, I can't and it's okay. It's actually quite a relief!

When I got back in the studio after Christmas I realised that I haven't actually been 'painting' for quite a while. So, when I tried to paint canvases in a conventional sense, it just didn't work. Instead I've been making paintings and making 'things' (and unmaking them as well) that reference paint and question the status of painting such as book-paintings, textstallations and paintsculptstallations rather than painting paintings ... if that makes sense. And instead, my work is all about deconstructing and re-thinking painting in new ways such as through drawing, stitching, collaging and challenging the boundaries of what painting is and phallocentric structures embedded within painting. Its also about exploring alternative spatialities about and with paint in some sort of in-between space or outside of painting ... but not actually painting in the sense I though I was or what people consider painting actually is!!! Phew!

When I got back into the studio, I had a right old paint/make-o-rama and worked on a massive piece of Fabriano paper about 2m x 1.5m which I've been creating in dialogue with a large mind-map the same size on the opposite wall and also created a framed piece (which I did actually give as a gift). Already it feels much easier; knowing that I am using paint to draw and make marks in a deconstructive and performative approach and I feel much more confident being experimental.

I guess this is just the beginning in a new stage of makingness so the only thing that can happen now is to develop and hopefully in some interesting and surprising ways. So, just watch this space. And that's a warning!

I've been working this week on something called The Sketchbook Project which is a fab project where you get sent a Moleskin sketchbook, fill it how you like and then send it back off where it goes on a super duper tour around the US. After all its travels, it then lives at the Brooklyn Art library where you can become a member and loan out the sketchbooks just as if they were library books. Genius! I started to fill mine in after Christmas and it looked pretty crap, so ... I decided to unbind it and take all the pages out and then add in pages made from canvas, newspapers from different languages and pages of different books. I've had to work quite quickly to make the deadline, but sometimes you get surprising results from working quickly and with a little pressure. I'm actually quite pleased with the little blighter ...

Anyway, it's been an absolute age since I last wrote a blog post. Not because I had nothing to share, but because I had too much!! I don't want to go back and share it all now, after all the moment has passed and it would be extremely boring. However there are some things I'd still like to share. The first are images of some fantastic work at Festive Flair which was a contemporary craft fair held at the Light House in Wolverhampton before Christmas.

Above is the beautiful work by fellow blogger Hen's Teeth and below are images of lovely work by She Thought Beautiful Things ... who are made up of the equally lovely Katy Magor and Jo Davis.

Secondly, as some of you may know I am currently betrothed and with forthcoming nuptials, I asked six of my creative friends to make my wedding invites. They could do whatever they wanted and they could all be different as well. My lacklustre photos don't do them justice but here they are ... in all their wonderful eclectic sexy creative glory! Jazzy!

Pieces of Aberdeenshire by Georgina Barney

Pretty, pretty, pretty invites by my sister Corinne

Drawn and sent all the way from Vietnam from my brother Laurence

Beautiful printed and embroidered pieces by Katy Magor

Super sexy collages by Georgie Macbeth

Hand-made conceptually embedded paper by Rachel Marsden

Show time!

I love this time of year as it means I can look around the different degree shows! The highlight for me this year was visiting the MMU BA Embroidery degree show; not only was the work really exiting but also because my sister Corinne had her work exhibited and it looked freakin AMAZING!!! I am so so proud of her : ) She created a collection of books, which explored storytelling and narrative based on fantasy and the sinister inspired by Greek myths and mythical creatures. The books include layers and layers of text and drawings where vintage fabric and old books are collaged and embroidered together.

There were also two large books which were made from fabrics and had been both hand and machine embroidered, even all of the text had been hand sewn!!  They were so beautiful and really nice to touch as you go through the pages and read the text.

There was also a lot of other Embroidery work that I loved ...

Colleen Friel

Jennifer Kenworthy

Jenny O'Donnell

Lauren Steeper

BA Illustration and Animation work above ... not sure who the work is by though!

I also had a look around the BIAD BA Fine Art show at Margaret Street, which is where I am currently studying for my PhD. The buidling is an amazing listed Venetian Gothic building that was built in the 1880s. It is so beautiful and unusual that it is always nice to see work displayed in there ... there are turrets and spiral steps so you always seem to stumble across more work. I like the fact as well, being from a Fine Art background myself that there is so much Fine Art work all located in the one building! Two of the highlights for me were Lauren Chase's paintings and also an paint-installation by Lucy Hingley which as well as looking really interesting, explored the performativity of paint itself where the paint was constantly dripping to create random compositions of paint that were constantly changing and evolving.

Lauren Chase

Lucy Hingley

Although I've been teaching at Stafford College for three years now, this academic year was the first year that I've been teaching on the Foundation Art & Design course. I loved the Foundation work and thought it was a real highlight of the College show this year. As I hadn't been at the college in the last couple of weeks to see the show being installed it was really nice to see it in an exhibition context.  Although there are loads of pieces of work that I loved, I have included some particular faves below (sorry for not including more!!) ...

Rebecca Bubalo - going on to do BA Fine Art at BIAD

Samantha Lippett- going on to do BA Illustration at Brighton

Eve Cotteril

Emily Gwynne

Rosie Millar - going on to do BA Embroidery at MMU

What seems to be really intersting as well is that all of the images that I've chosen to put up are by females ... I don't know if that's a coincidence or if they have a sense of femaleness/non-phallocentricness that I seem to have engaged with. Hmmm. 

I had a great surprise yesterday morning when the post arrived ... I've been sent a copy of the Interrogation: Walsall publication that has been written by Anna Francis!

I took part in Interrogation:Walsall last September at the New Art Gallery Walsall where I did a project for the Interrogation:Callaboration strand with Rachel Marsden and it is really ace to see ourselves and our intervention documented in the book! I thought it really contextualised what a great experience we had and also brings together all the different elements that made up the project as a whole. It really made my day to receive it : )