Life Events & Regency Sofas part 1: Stage managing your project!
Not only am I trying to keep my Artistic endeavors going, but also I am restoring antiques again. Art for me is a necessary compulsion and state of being as important as my loved ones and friends. Selling your Art is another matter though. It is also an enigma to me at the moment. I think however perhaps a more ambitious approach might work.
In order to do this though it helps to have the luxury of time to develop your skill set. Financial support whether it be through a combination of your Job, Arts grants, student grants for further education is all helpful. Also applying for Artists residencies, Exhibitions, Competitions, Public art and arts projects supported by the Arts council also helps allow you to keep your practice going. Above all though you need resilience, vision and imagination.
I have recently applied for ' Cley13 flight of the spoonbill'. My Idea will take the form of an etch inspired by the sheer beauty of animals in movement and the coast here that I have grown to love. I will know very soon if it has been accepted or not! Either way to make such an etch could be good!
I do wonder where the day goes though, there seems to be little time to do all that I feel I want to and need to, I have learnt though over the years to take it step at a time. So here we have it my first large project on the somewhat cramped operating table!
A Regency Sofa! Probably not originally gilt. I feel that surely you would not make such a thing of beauty in a nice fruit wood in order to cover it in Gesso! what I did deduce though is that the gilding was probably done quite early on no doubt to accommodate a decorative change in Fashion.
Working from home is never easy especially when you have to use your Kitchen facilities! Traditional glues and gilding preparations make my slightly obsessive side come out. For a person who was teased when younger for being scatty I am now the queen of precision and cleanliness:- well almost!
Whilst we are on that subject of; well being younger, there is a big difference to now and back then, I now know that I can do it. If I could have told my younger self to trust in my own judgement and not be afraid to make mistakes when I was in my twenties, who knows where I could be!?!. Hindsight I am told is a wonderful thing but I have to say I am pretty content with my lot now!
However having children in my thirties also seemed to change a lot. In fact I completely felt that I had lost my skills and was not really employable. I was also diagnosed before and after my daughter was born with prenatal and postnatal depression (at least that is my excuse). My unfortunate circumstances at the time propelled it along but luckily I was able to get the help I wanted. I badly wanted to work at that time and have been over the past thirteen years; First as an art tutor to students with special needs and now here I am. My website shows some of that journey: www.louisemaclaren.com and www.notfromtheattic.co.uk.
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