It always surprises me!

Last week I had the privilege of meeting a very talented young girl called Kaitlyn Palmer. At the age of 10 Kaitlyn loves to explore the use of tissue paper, pva glue, card and paint to create her own unique bear sculptures. I spent only a few minutes talking with Kaitlyn and was totally impressed by her passion and commitment to her art work.

As the heading of the blog indicates I am always surprised and impressed by our young artists talents. I was delighted when Kaitlyn brought this beautiful bear in to sit on our desk at the Gallery 2 space throughout the duration of the Basildon Art Trail. After talking to me in the gallery Kaitlyn went straight home and made this for our gallery. I wanted to share her talents with you in this blog and hope to see more of Kaitlyn's beautiful work in the near future.

Basildon Gallery 2 Bear

Kaitlyn proudly poses with her bear

Mother's Mask

When I was studying for my degree my tutor gave me some of the best advice regarding my art work - she told me that my art should be about what I love, what I know and what speaks to me. This is probably the most personal piece of artwork I have created.

Last summer after a two year battle my mother was diagnosed with terminal mouth cancer. After undergoing some major surgery and radiotherapy my mother gave me her radiotherapy mask and asked me to make a piece of art from it. Initially I just sat and stared at the mask. I wanted to create a piece of work that spoke of my mothers battles, support, loss of identity, loss of voice, hope, love, courage, love of tea and the terrible disease that is cancer. How do you get all of that into one piece? And more importantly create a piece that motivates and encourages my mother to keep up the fight and not focus of the dreadfulness if this disease. I continued to just stare at the mask.

After a few conversations and fun day out with my mother I decided that I needed to get to work. I think my mother was beginning to think the mask had got buried in the studio and would not emerge again!!!

I decided I would make a piece that emphasised the key issues that I felt my mother was going through:

1. the loss of her voice- by this I don't mean literally, after several operations and the loss of half of her tongue my mothers speech is not as clear as it used to be. This can be just as frustrating for the family as it is for my mother - especially when you are out shopping and the shop assistant talks to you rather than respond to my mother when she asks for something. It is as though people assume that she has no cognitive functions, I cannot imagine how frustrating this must make my mother feel at times.

2. the disfigurement of the surgery

3. the amount of medication my mother has to take

4. the amazing battle and survival of four major operations - averaging around 7 hours each

5. the support from her family

6. my mother love of tea

This is what I have started to make. It is not quite finished as I have to make another part to complete the installation. I hope that this piece shows people how strong you can be, how amazing the human body is and how above all, if you have the love and support of some good people, how anything is possible.

The mask - this is the mask in it's raw state. My mother was screwed down to a table for ten minutes at a time wearing this whilst undergoing her  radiotherapy

Side view of the mask

Back view of the mask

I decided to collect the backs of my mother prescriptions and link these together to make a thread that I could weave with. I used these to weave the torso and face part of the mask. You can see snippets of the medication name, dosage, name etc as you look across the mask

The two side patches and two top head patches have been weaved with bright coloured thread, representing my mothers four children and the support that they offer.
The bright lights shining around

The medal denotes the dates of the four major operation my mother has undergone with the Blue mouth cancer ribbon hanging underneath

As a result of the operation my mother has to feed through a tube however one substance that my mother has been able to hang onto is her cup of tea. As a child I would buy scraps of fabric and old cloths from second hand markets and make toys, and objects out of then. I wanted the tea cup to reflect this activity - something that my mother encouraged.

The mouth is slightly to the side, denoting the disfigurement from the surgery with strands growing out from it. This is  "Lucifer" , which is the name my mother has given her tumour. The black line that goes around the face, mimics the scar that has been left from the surgery

All in all I have tried to make a piece that reflects some difficult issues but that also has a hidden beauty to it, a positive message and a sense of pride of how
incredibly brave my mother is.

At my husbands birthday I got to show my mother the progress of the mask. As you can imagine this was quite emotional, but I was just as pleased as I was shocked, when my mother picked the mask up and put it on.

This year my mother is taking part in the Race for Life for the third time. I cannot put into words how proud and inspired I am by her. Despite all of what she is going through she will be not only raising money but sharing in the hope, courage and inspiration of the thousands of people that will be taking part. Please take a moment and have a look at my mother's sponsor page, https://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/susanhewett and if you can please donate, even if it can only be small amount. I know it would mean the world to my mother to know that she has raised money to support the fight against this awful disease. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog.

Live, Laugh Love - Working title

This weekend I have spent some time working on sculptures for the A127 art trail in September... yes I know, time is ticking!!! As I have often mentioned I love working with paper and I am especially interested in the quality of newspaper as a sculpture medium. For these pieces I am experimenting with the paper bowl technique used at a recent workshop for Access Art in Cambridge. I want to explore how these units can be manipulated and linked together. The idea that something that is easily discarded, thrown away or used to line a cat tray can be made into a thing of beauty, appeals to me. For the first time in a long while I am not sure where these pieces are taking me. I have ideas of the basic forms and am enjoying watching the pieces manifest themselves, grow and take on their own form. There is a lot of autobiography in my work and sitting writing the initial thought process evokes a personal response to life situations that I face at the moment. I use my art work to explore emotions, relay observations and discuss issues faced in day to day life. I am very lucky to be part of an extremely strong and close family, who unfortunately are facing a brutal battle against Cancer - My intention for this series is to explore family bonds, emotions, fears and hopes. This series is titled "Cell story" , the piece pictured below "Live, Laugh, Love".

 A series of units made ready to be worked on, these units are made

with rolled pieces of newspaper spiralled together

 Black acrylic paints has been used to bond the paper together and help to keep the form of the sculpture. PVA glue can work just as well.

 The three sections of the sculpture start to take form

 This is the general idea for the finished piece in it's raw form. The rolled newspaper produces a stunning finish to the sculptures which I think I will explore in additional sculptures.

The three units with their undercoats of white acrylic paint.

 I am still planning the final design for which I am planning a trip to the Tate Modern to have a look at some of Fiona Rae's, Jasper Johns and Chris Ofili's work for inspiration.

The Big Draw part 2

Day two for me on The Big Draw, the sun was shining and Aviva Square was buzzing with potential budding artists. Our task today was to run the Drawing Stall. A brilliant project with a very simple idea: do a drawing and exchange it for another drawing on our stall. No money swapped hands, the only currency we took was peoples drawings. On our stall was a range of fruit, veg and traditional London tourist icons such as the London bus, telephone box, tube etc. People were encouraged to select their item or items, or even draw some of the stunning surrounding architecture using a wide range of materials. Drawing materials available included pencils, coloured pencils, charcoal, felts and chalks. I was really impressed with how many people jumped straight in and used the felts. I am not sure if we were just lucky enough to have lots of confident artists at our stall or if felts offered that instant mark, that memory of childhood and called to people to explore what they could create using a medium that - lets face it is not know for it's blending and colour mixing qualities. Over the course of the day our stall was very busy and filled with some gorgeous art work made by families, couples, groups, children and of course The Drawing Stall team, Sarah, Bea and myself.

 Anyone seen a pencil?

 Can you spot my spelling mistake - never mind, this chalk pavement drawing did the trick and enticed people to join in the activities put on at Aviva Square

 This stunning drawing was completed by an actor, we had a really interesting conversation about how therapeutic art can be - how as adults we don't allow ourselves to spend five minutes a day taking  break from our busy lives to relax and concentrate on us. Drawing, music, a good book all offer us the chance to escape from our busy lives and escape to a different world. We should all make a conscious choice to find 10 minutes a day for ourselves - everyday -without fail - what do you reckon?

 An amazing drawing completed by one of our young artists, love the life and colour in this piece

 Sarah's Warhol style bananas - needless to say these didn't last long be fore they were exchanged for new drawings

 One of Bea's amazing sketches, I love her mark making, use of line, colour and intricacy. A beautiful mysterious drawing

 A member of the public drawing a fantastic picture of a marrow. I was really impressed with how everyone picked up the felts straight away and didn't shy away from colour, no fear of "what if it goes wrong - I can't rub It out". I think a lot of people found the activity liberating.

 Towards the end of the day I decided to make some origami shirts and draw on these - how seductive do these look?

 Other activities available as part of Sundays Big Draw included `Put yourself in the picture`. Passersby were encouraged to draw themselves or the architecture on large piece of paper taped to the boardings. We are so used to drawing on a small scale this was an excellent opportunity to people to think big. One lady stayed for nearly an hour completing a large scene - drawing the crowd around the square. Now tell me what would that lady have down if The Big Draw had not been there. Being creative is such a rewarding experience and this July's Big Draw highlighted how easy and accessible drawing can be, if you can give yourself the time.

 The drawing tours were very busy, with large groups taking time to walk around the local area, take in the architecture, learn a bit about perspective and explore mark making.

 In the marque there was a fantastic activity where you could make a mini sculpture inside a matchbox. There were very intriguing and completely addictive. How amazing do these look?

 Anish Kapoors sculpture served as a beautiful looking glass reflecting the cardboard city built by all ages from all walks in life.

In Diagon Alley oops I mean Leadenhall Market artists showcased there work as part of the art fair and even created some works on site.

Overall I have learnt that I love drawing outside, I love watching and inspiring people explore their drawing skills and surprise themselves, I enjoyed being part of a exciting and creative community and most of all thoroughly enjoyed myself. If you missed out this time, have no fear The Big Draw is back in October. Keep a look out on The Big Draw website for further information http://www.thebigdraw.org/home/index.aspx

Mission Complete

What a busy week! As mentioned in my previous blog I have been working with a local school as part of their health awareness Art Week. Our mission was to complete 8 sculptures in the style of artist Niki De Saint Phalle. The children chose to make 2 figures, a heart, a pair of lungs, feet, a head (love the spiky hair), legs and arms. As you can see from the picture below we completed our bright and brilliant sculptures in the glorious sunshine on Wednesday.

 As part of the week the children learnt new methods of making sculpture, and got to work as a team, develop their painting skills and have a lot of fun. This project provided a great opportunity for the school to work slightly off curriculum for a week and embrace their creativity. The children led the project from start to finish working on problem solving, confidence, material selection, decoration and use of colour.

 Sitting figure

 Spiky Head

Legs

She's got legs

For this piece I looked at the theme of image and the pre-conceived ideas of what we are led to think is an acceptable body image by magazines and fashion programmes. In myself, I have always been unhappy with my legs. At the start of the year I had a mould made of my legs and cast these using plaster - a material associated with traditional sculptures, tough, strong and long lasting. These were placed on a manufactured column made out of mdf - this was painted completing the make over and illusion of perfection.

The pair of boots at the base of the column were a pair of mine that I wore during the making process. The boots showed the wear and tear of the user, stretched over calves, worn in, showing everyday stresses and strains, trying to be fashionable. On the side of the boots I used a gel pen to write a ode to my legs. Sparkly silver, high street and glossy.

As much as I was unhappy with all my lumps and bumps that the plaster managed to show up very well, my legs have got me through a lot - never letting me down, school, being bullied, marriage, child birth, university etc etc. For me this piece was as much about experimenting in the manipulation of materials, playing around with 'fakeness' and material qualities as a moment of acceptance of my image, physique and who I am. In this piece my legs are placed up on a pedal stool for all to see in all of their glory!