RWA 170 AUTUMN OPEN

Fabulous to have work shown once again as part of the Royal West of England Academy 170th Autumn Open. A bit like the RA Summer Show, it is a wonderful showcase of contemporary art practice from the region and beyond. My painting ‘Stillpoint’ was hung beautifully, as was the rest of the show. Wonderfully sensitive and thoughtful curation. A great chance to be inspired by the diversity of artworks but also maybe feel that next year you could have a go too?!?

What's next?

What a privilege to work alongside others in different creative pathways, exploring and developing new partnerships and collaborations. The over a year long project with RWA & Creativeshift culminated in a fantastic mixed media installation installed in the newly completed History Gallery, minutes after re-opening following major transformation of the building. The diversity of the artworks from the Creativeshift group was amazing, drawings, collage, graphic zines, story and memory boxes, altered books, the feedback from the public was brilliant. Now missing seeing everyone!

The Family Consultation Project with Bath Spa University, Social Services & Creativity Works has culminated in a film, which will be shown to regional managers and teams. An image of one of the participants the lovely Jo documenting her holding up her journal pages was awarded a commendation at a university research exhibition. How exciting for Jo and all the families involved!

Now it is time to be back in the studio, simply musing, making and muttering. Having fun with watercolours, surreal collage and making quirky bird woman creatures. Where will it all end? Finding the more illustrative playful quirky visual storytelling imagery is stirring my dreams to one day create a book for children, inspired by my lovely grandson, who knows, what’s next?

ITS ALL ABOUT TRANSFORMATION...

Well, there is a lot going on, all very positive. Since moving to our new home (back in a rural setting of Wiltshire), the universe has decided I should get nice and busy beginning with setting up a garden studio. Then as soon as I was installed, the phone started ringing and I was commissioned for a new amazing collaborative art project with RWA & Art on Referral Agency, CreativeShift, Bristol. The sessions started on Zoom and subsequently real workshops at the academy. It was so brilliant to meet people in the real world, have a nose at the Autumn Open Exhibition, and get creative. Since then the academy is going through a massive build makeover, so transformation is the name of the game. The project, Me, Myself & I, will involve an exhibition in 2022, as part of the self-portraiture main show.

Then I was requested to do another Co-Create Workshop for Artists, A Cabinet of Care - Visual Journaling, 30 November, 10 Palace Yard Mews, Bath, for Creativity Works, as part of their co-Create training. Plus a highly valuable Family Consultation project, a new partnership between University of Bath, Social Services, & Creativity Works.

The annual Secret Postcard Auction was again a much needed success, and I was thrilled my tiny offering got loads of bids and happily sold to support academy funds. I am also thrilled to be again back in the RWA Drawing School, for Transformations : Visual Journaling, 7 December, 2021.

On the making front, an artist friend asked me if I would like to be part of Flying Monks Arts Trail, and exhibit together, firstly collaborating to transform an old official town hall room into an inviting installation creative space. So it was brilliant to unearth old and make new storytelling work, it was a great opportunity to be reflective about the creative journey. We worked our magic and look forward to receiving visitors. I will be exhibiting works for sale, but also will have on display assemblages I make as part of my social engagement practice. It is all very exciting!

JOURNALING FOR WELL-BEING

Creativity Works, Somerset, run Creative Well-Being Programmes, and commissioned me to run a series of Journaling for Well-Being sessions on Zoom. One rapid learning curve, with digital on-line training input, a whole basket of new found tech with endless cables and plugs, a blank journal and some chunky marker pens, and I was ready. Participants signing up for the course, got a personal creativity pack from me. Hours and hours of fun going through old books, mags, papers, finding imagery and text, stitching together a bundle, then posting out with drawing kit too. Feedback was everyone was delighted to receive the mixed media. Themes through each of the two hour sessions responding to group interests, but explored ideas around identity, self-awareness, location, daily rituals and transformative play! Lockdown I, II & III has meant so many of us are at home. So, one of the the sessions invited Being at Home with Comfort & Ease. CW commissioned another film of the process too, just taking oneself around a room and noticing. Drawing in response to what is there, and/or imagined. Great fun, and bringing us into the moment. What was amazing was everyone’s imagery and stories and totally unique. Much to celebrate. A new series now in 2021, and todays session will explore the theme of A Cabinet of Care.

THE DOORS WILL OPEN

Ssssh! Its that time of year, when you can’t let on which of your work/s will be on auction at the Secret Postcard Auction of the Royal West of England, Bristol. Its very exciting when one’s very humble, less than famous work, has been invited to be on show alongside the great and the good. I mean big names, seriously. You know, usual ones, Alan Measles, Tracey, etc. So, no pics here of what’s what, just yet, as that would give the game away. This year the RWA is shut, because of lockdown it is an online auction. A couple of days in and the auction was a digital hot room, hundreds and hundreds of kind folks had made bids, which was very exciting for the staff of the RWA who have had to, along with millions of others across the world, close their doors. So, the support of art lovers from around the world have come to the rescue. Thankfuly, my little offerings have received bids. Phew. It reminded me of another time when the doors were closed, but that was because I had excitedly arrived too early for my residency Curious Narratives. I can’t quite remember why I sat on the doorstep with a bit of red curtaining, sipping tea, with a large musical figurine that a friend had gifted for an outing. I unearthed this pic and sent it to the lovely chief of the academy, who said it cheered her up no end!

Who Will Take Me Home?

Very excited about delivering the new workshop planned for 3 November at Royal West of England Academy, Drawing School. The idea is to spend a day, up cycling old pieces of artworks, transforming odds and bobs, delving into collections of curiosities, treasures and tat, transforming into a healing votive, totem or miracle painting. The idea is inspired memories, life events, loss of loved ones, hopes, dreams and possibilities. The process will be informed by the Mexican tradition of praying for divine intervention, in wishing for something or someone, or an aspiration for oneself. I’m promised there will be gold galore!

Singular Art

“I found your work strangely unsettling, yet very engaging, says Kitty, Singulart, Art Development Officer”

I get an email whilst flat packed on the sofa, after a very hot summer with an endless time of exhaustion and seemingly no way out. The post is from Kitty at Singulart, saying she has seen my work on the RWA website. She asked if I would like to exhibit my work on their on-line gallery. Yes, I say. I begin eventually to re-find my energy and I begin the process, of unearthing CV, artist statement, images etc. I email back. I ask Kitty, where in the world are you? Paris, she says, it is unbearably hot. My world opens out as I decide to join this vibrant and electric collection of artists with their dynamic work. As the commercial element is not my main creative drive, I find it uplifting to create a series of drawings/prints and see one’s work in a new context. She asks me to also send images of me in my studio, which friend Chris kindly photo documents. There are so many collections, curiosities and things going on, a challenge on where to place the focus.

https://www.singulart.com/en/artist/jill-carter-1767

Photograph: courtesy of Chris Durrant

Identity, Journeys & Journaling

I am so looking forward to meeting everyone at the co/Create workshop for artists and health practitioners interested in the playful and poetic therapeutic intervention of creative journaling.  I decided to be really professional and start preparing for leading the day by making a Power Point Presentation.  However, this is a totally flatpack thinking medium, but decided to stick with it, as a good reflective part of practice which allowed for trawling through an array of lush images of moi, people, place and stories,  The question was how to edit down relevant stories?  Decided this time I would focus on IDENTITY & JOURNEYS, but I forgot to mention that in the joining instructions which Creativity Works have kindly sent out to participants.  Instead, talked about not being able to travel light and packing lots of creative mixed media STUFF to bring to the day, and would folk like to bring STUFF that was relevant to them.  We are meeting at the BRSLI building in Bath, the Lansdowne room, with a giant Dinosaur glued in the wall.  Well, I suppose if the PPP fails, we could use that as a found object to start journaling ideas.  Alternatively, I could reveal a bundle of STUFF from my cloth bag which I took with me on my journeys around the grounds of Lacock Abbey when I was installed as a Sociable Hermit by the National Trust, living inside the wooden enclave of a hut transformed into a Camera Obscura. In going through my project 'legacy' for Curious Narratives, a one year artist-led project, a quest inspired by women storytellers, I found the scroll I had made when evaluating the process, so will take that, as it was an inky reflective storytelling thing what happened on my journey in search of Sybils & Self.

Life Drawing into Death

Bring your dolls, she said, and so I did.  We became an installation amongst the monochrome artworks of the Drawn exhibition at the Royal West of England Academy, Drawing School's unique event, All Souls Eve - Life Drawing into Death.  I sat surrounded by my offerings, and small groups of visitors would find a seat and materials, and began to respond creatively.   I talked of the finding, wrappings and mindful stitching of this and that, the power of totemic objects, hope in healing for others, the ritual performative events to mark the loss of loved ones. There was mention of creative exchange with other artist friends, gifting of materials and sharing process.  The story dolls listened on, whilst in the quietness of the gallery, participants quietly drew, observing and responding in detail, whilst real life stories unfolded.  There would be sometimes question asked, did you ever find the lost cat, oh no, I replied.   How can you bear to sell your dolls when they are so personal to you, was another question.  One woman on entering had cried out, oh no, I don't like dolls, but at the end of the process she had been captivated.  The space became filled with quiet attention, sadness and laughter, acknowledgement for... the never to be baby resting in the herb filled colander, the pilgrim doll adorned with giftings of this and that from around the world, the doll with her world on her head, and the seekers of the light, wrapped, bundled and ever present.  At the close of the event, the diversity of drawings were inspirational and showed profound feeling, delicacy and sensitivity.  

http://www.rwa.org.uk/drawing-school

How to become a journaler?

Is that actually a word?  was asked, when my latest journal opened at a page with face of an inky splodged spotty woman and badly scribbled question "How to become a journaler?"  Well, who knows, but I like the fact that predictive text hates the word, so I probably made it up.  The process of journaling for me, allows random questions, spiralling thoughts, worries, anxieties, showing off bits, some facts, but mostly badly behaved free as you like talent to ooze across the pages.  This small gifted leather bound journal, took me from my desk, to walk part of the Il Camino St James pilgrimage trail, Spain, to a costal enclave retreat gathering in Cornwall, back home.  Then another part of Cornwall again, this time documenting the mindful cloth stitched and bundled cradle in which to let go of my sister's ashes in the autumn tide.  The pages become a space in which to reflect and mindfully record relationship to myself and others, with stories unfolding.  I love noticing small details of place and surroundings, plus mapping a world between real and imagined experiences. In this journal, I had decided to limit my use of and document materials used, as journeying, so travelling light with a pencil, calligraphy /colouring pens, not much collage or stitching this time, and mistakenly art bars.  Rubbish idea that bit.  At end of day was my time for journaling, as noticed I felt more self-conscious in writing/drawing in my journal pages when in public, so usually in the evening, just loved surrounding myself with objects I may have collected along the way, creating temporary assemblages, time based museums of myself, which in themselves become 3-D journal pages.

Pop-up Gallery 9 December

Just preparing for my once a year event, a great way of welcoming folk to share my world.  The day is a great way to meet up, exchange ideas, inspiration and news, plus have a peek at a collection of fine art, with quirky artworks and gifts for sale.  This year will be introducing Lu with her Neals Yard Remedies, organic feel-good products.  Raffle & refreshments to support the charity Brighter Futures.

Life Drawing into Death

I was invited to take all my dolls on a journey, to install them in the Royal West of England Academy's gallery, as part of a new  drawing event.  On All Soul's eve, visitors had the opportunity to explore the theme of death responding to famous paintings recreated as life drawing tableaux, and to draw my collection of still life assemblages, whilst I recounted my stories of how they came into being.  The act of bundling with found, gifted and gathered materials began as part of my residency at Lacock Abbey, National Trust project, when I was installed as a sociable hermit.