My Mother, My Muse

It is with a sad and heavy heart that I write this blog, after a four year battle with cancer my mother passed away peacefully on the 11th May surrounded by her family at St Luke's Hospice. Throughout my mothers painful battle she never stopped encouraging me to follow my dreams, explore my creativity and believe that I could be all that I want to be. 

When I look back over the years I was amazed at how much art work I have created where my mother has been my muse, my inspiration, my motivation and driving force. She has collected bottle tops, cartons, saved her crosswords, modelled for me and collected inspirational images for years - often clogging up her tiny flat all for the sake of art! Never once questioning my motive, just trusting in my judgement.

 One of my earliest memories is of going to a second hand market and being given 50p to purchase some cloth to make something out off.

So it is with this blog that I want to say thank you mum, for being you, for always believing in me and hopefully instilling in me all that you hoped and dreamed of for me, God Bless and sleep tight, love you x

Here are just a few of the many pieces inspired by my mother.

1 up 1 down, M.A Installation

Live, Life, Here M.A Installation

Live Life Here, M.A Installation

What is a Mother, M.A Installation

 Mums Ops, Paper Myths 

My Brave Mum's Survival, Paper Myths

Kinafters and Kinshafters, Paper Myths

Love will see you through, Frottage drawing

Mother Miro, Newspaper, carrier bags and acrylic paint

Detail, My Cup Runneth Over. Newspaper and acrylic paint

My Cup Runneth Over. News paper and acrylic paint

Every Twist and Turn. News paper and acrylic paint

Aerial View, Mothers Mask. Radio Therapy mask, prescriptions, felt, embroidery thread

Side View, Mothers Mask. Radio Therapy mask, prescriptions, felt, embroidery thread

Mothers Mask. Radio Therapy mask, prescriptions, felt, embroidery thread

Side View, Mothers Mask. Radio Therapy mask, prescriptions, felt, embroidery thread

Autumn. Water Soluble Crayon on Paper

Miss you x

Metamorphosis No 2

Happy New Year one and all - Christmas is officially over so it's back to work. As much as I have enjoyed relaxing over the Christmas period, I did find the time to start some new work. After the positive feedback I received from the "Journeys and Cells" exhibition - I have wanted to explore making larger sculptures using the same newspaper rolling technique.

Metamorphosis No 2 is a larger scale sculpture of one of the pieces from the previous exhibition - with some changes. A podium has been added to the base of the sculpture made from a cluster of rolled newspaper bonded together and then painted with white acrylic paint to unify them. I am thinking about adding some text to the horizontal bands but have not decided whether that is the right direction for this piece yet!

The tree form at the top has been made from rolled newspaper to create the "trunk" and then surrounded by stamped out butterflies from printed papers.  Taking the papers previous history and voiding this from the viewer - The process of providing new life to old paper, I find really exciting . Below are the results.

 Close up of Metamorphosis No 2

The cluster of newspapers at the base of the sculpture are reminiscent of a barrel.

 Reverse view of the sculpture

Close up of the reverse of the sculpture

Why not take a few minutes to have a look at my new look website www.lisasmith.uk.com I still have some work to do on the gallery but the site is looking very good thanks to James Ferguson

Paper Pottery

Yesterday I had the pleasure of delivering my ‘Paper bowl’ (or as it was renamed yesterday ‘paper pottery’), workshop as part of Meldreth Primary Schools Family Day.

The day’s events were a storming success with families taking part in numerous FREE workshops at the school as part of the annual family day. The activities included, street dance, geometric dome making, car making, pop up cards, creative writing and making bath bombs –not forgetting paper bowls of course!

The paper bowls is a fantastic, quick, easy and affordable project, that once you have learnt the basic technique, the possibilities are endless. I took along some of my sculptures from the ‘Journey and Cells’ exhibition to inspire participants, displaying some of the varied shapes and objects you can create using this technique.

What I like about this activity is that it is an affordable activity that families can carry out at home on the kitchen table with limited resources. All you need to create your own bowl is newspaper, a glue stick and something to roll the paper with. We experimented with 3 different objects yesterday, a ruler, a thin plastic tube and a thicker plastic tube, you can see the results below.

 Rolling the newspaper, you can see some of my sculptures from the 'Journeys and Cells exhibition in the background

 Working together to create the newspaper coil

Gluing the end of the newspaper coil together 

 Voila finished bowls ready for painting

 To paint the bowls we used acrylic paint. This carries out a couple of important jobs.

 Firstly it bonds the shape of the bowl, acting like a glue. If you do not want to

paint your bowl you can always coat it with PVA glue which dries clear.

Secondly the acrylic paint gives the bowl a nice sheen and professional finish.

 All of the children and families that attended the workshop worked well together and seemed to really enjoy making their bowls. Here are some lovely pictures of the children taking their time and concentrating on painting and decorating their bowls

 If you look closely you can see the bowl to the right has a really interesting shape,

kind of like a sombrero

 This stunning bowl has been embellished with some paper stamped out butterflies,

what a lovely finish!

 I am always surprised at how imaginative and creative children and young people are when taking part in creative activities. You can see that this bowl was made using thicker roles of paper, making a more cone shaped bowl. I love the way that this young lady turned her bowl into a Christmas tree. What a fantastic idea!

The design was completed by adding a range of stamps out shapes from coloured paper for Christmas tree decorations.

 One proud artist standing infront of the bowls he made with his mother, but what is that in the background?

 And I was not the only one there using newspaper. Check out the fantastic Geometric domes.

Newspaper is a free resource which is very underated as a art medium. These domes were made in one of the many workshops taking place in the school as part of the family day. In this workshop families put on their problem solving heads and used newspaper to make these amazing geometric domes.

Some of the amazing bowls made througout the day

If you would like to find out more about the paperbowls workshops or to discover the diverse range of workshops, art projects, staff training or activities available for your school, club, organisation, please contact me on lisamart@hotmail.co.uk

Journeys and Cells

Last month I held my first solo show at Glass from the Past at Barleylands craft village as part of the A127 art trail. In the exhibition I showed a selection of my paper 'cell' sculptures and crayon 'journey' drawings.

The `cell’ sculptures in this exhibition portray my love of paper. I enjoy reclaiming old papers, newspapers, found images etc giving them a new life and a new form. My working process explores manipulating the use of paper as a sculptural medium, expressing the aesthetic quality of nature.

My drawings reflect observations of places and happenings I have come across on various journeys. I use oil pastels and crayons to create accessible images provoking the viewer to contemplate their own journeys, memories and thoughts of everyday life.

For those of you that missed out on seeing the show, here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

 Gallery View showing Eclipse, and 9 Cells, Paper sculptures made from newspaper and painted with acrylic paint

 9 Cells, newspaper and acrylic paint

 Metamorphose 1, newspaper, printed paper and acrylic paint

 Shapes that go together, newspaper and acrylic paint

 Nothings gonna stop us now, newspaper and acrylic paint

 Unknown Journey, newspaper and acrylic paint

 I'll do my crying in the rain (detail), newspaper and acrylic paint

 I'll do my crying in the rain , newspaper and acrylic paint

 My cup runneth Over (detail), newspaper and acrylic paint

 I'll do my crying in the rain, newspaper and acrylic paint

 Cell, newspaper and acrylic paint

 Live, Love Laugh, newspaper and acrylic paint

 Me

 My Journey Drawings on Display

 Paris in the Rain, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 London Calling, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 Brandenberg Gate, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 Bubble Girl, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 Wellies, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 Frothy Spoon, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 Norwegian skies, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

 Elizabeth, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

Going Nowhere, Pastels, Water soluble Crayons and pencil

I am happy to undertake any commissions and have some of the drawings and sculptures shown above still available for sale. If you would like to make an enquiry please contact me on lisamart@hotmail.co.uk

Thank you to Caroline Wieldman for graciously allowing me to exhibit my art work at Glass From The Past at Barleylands Craft Village www.glassfromthepast.co.uk and Matt from Root red photography www.rootredphotography.co.uk for the amazing photos of my sculptures.