This newsletter is my first step closer to the people who connect with my work and my first step away from social media . So thankyou taking the time to read this , you are the people I want to reach!
In April this year my studio's building was sold so I moved back into my old home studio. This allowed me some time to self reflect. I decided to step back from social media and refocus on my work with no distraction. I was excited to be creatively free to do what I wanted with no restraint or pressure for the first time in years. So my shock was palpable when I immediately fell into the most intense creative block of my life. Days led into weeks and weeks of frustration, I took advice from everyone and anyone. Nothing worked. And then one day I stumbled across a YouTube of a mostly negative and extremely sweary American artist who's basic philosophy for wrangling with a huge creative block was based on the f word and the alphabet .. he shouted at me to go back to 'A' stop starting at 'D' you $#$% Moron or even worse 'Z' you stupid &^%$&. He advised his trembling viewers to paint for 2 hours, strictly, with no research before and no going back after the timer had dinged .. I took his foul languaged advice and to my utter astonishment it worked ! My flow slowly returned and I am joyfully painting again.
This frustration, the tears and the time away from my routine and day to day practice allowed me to really see what's been going on and I had a few uncomfortable realisations. What began as an integral part of my art selling was actually becoming more negative than I wanted to admit. I realised I found my business social media quite stressful and was feeling more and more manipulated by this growing trend of 'TikTok' culture throughout all platforms. The overwhelming ferocious need for 'content', I felt inauthentic posting 'content' just to get more likes or views and felt slightly awkward looking at the finished result. It all seemed pointless, uncomfortable and disruptive but mostly a huge waste of my studio time. I am not a natural performer or a film maker, I am a 52 year old artist trying to make a living from my work.
So this being the first day of the rest of my life, of course I will still have to dabble in social media .I will continue to post the odd photograph of my newest work but I am focused on finding other ways to connect ,hence this newsletter!
Below is my first painting since leaving my studio
Loving the blog! So good to see your creativity is flowing 😍
Cheers
Kay