The other day I was walking through a forest and the wild garlic was out in full bloom, the smell was divine! Each year I have the same thoughts, can I pick this? Can I cook with it? I must find out when I get home, then I forget all about it. I documented it in my journal so I wouldn’t forget, about it which means that I have looked up the answers to my questions and plan on cooking something delicious next week, garlic bread perhaps, nothing too ambitious!
Turquoise with Threads of Black (2024) #366 series no.113
I have been keeping a creative journal since last summer, I have only really made the effort to keep it up since the start of this year. The process of journalling along with my 366 project are pushing my brain to reflect as a matter of course and recognise things about what I am thinking and feeling in a way I never have before. I have various themes running through my journal which is largely driven by my daily walks that I take for wellbeing, circles, colour theories (my own as well as established), trees, artist tools and zentangles….and I will probably think of more as I continue on through the rest of the book.
I don’t make new year’s resolutions as I don’t really believe they work. However, I have neglected my art practice over the past year, so January the first seemed a good time to remedy this. In this year, a leap year, I will be creating a postcard for each day.
2024 will also be a year of change for me, as was last year, but this year I aim to be more in control of the changes and they will be positive changes. I will be taking more care of my health and wellbeing which has been somewhat erratic in the latter part of 2023. The 366 project will serve as a form of documentation of the year to come.
I have started a new job this week, I am going to be learning how to translate what I have learned as a University College lecturer into what is required of me to teach in a school. It is a lot to learn, I will have to think quicker and ‘do’ faster and If that isnt scary enough, I was used to a wellbeing routine, early morning walks full of rich green-ness and tranquility that started my day off whatever lay ahead. That has all turned a little chaotic and I need to find a way to develop a new routine, I need that walk infused into the start of the day. I already wake at the crack of dawn and I find that while I’m thinking all this, inside my head is like a roladex that flips round and round and I can’t quite grasp the visual and exciting ideas that whizz past at too fast a pace….Breathe…
…Today, I decided that what I must do, while my routine develops organically, I will take every chance i get to ‘bank’ wellbeing miles, minutes, steps-whatever I can to keep my mind healthy. So today I banked some, stopping (inside, I was annoyed that I kept on doing this) to take photos of the familiar route I have been craving all week, which had a newness to it, as though its a metaphor for the new eyes nature of my new role.
The Wood Melick brushes that delicately protrude from the side of my path and then once onto the newly mown and difficult to walk on fieds, the purple Orchard Grass catches my eye in the thick patches of wild that have been left.
Then there are my favourite trees, well, some of my favourite trees, I have several…I’ll stop now.
I Miss Wearing my Glitter DM’s (2020)
So, once it was clear that the threat was real and we all very quickly realised that this pandemic was here to stay for some considerable time it was time to take action. What should we do? People were working from home, not working from home, just staying at home, furloughed, teaching their children at home, not going out, going out for essentials, going out for exercise, shielding, isolating and washing their hands!
We should face it by making art of course, so #WrittleArtDailyDraw was born. I was and still am of course, working from home. The staff and students at Writtle University College have very quickly had to learn a new way of doing things without diminishing quality or experience ,so in addition to the lectures, seminars and tutorials that were happening remotely, I wanted to think of something that would keep the studio experience alive.
I first started it on our course Facebook page before it was suggested to me that opening it up to the public would be a much better idea. The idea is loosely based on the drawing sessions we have on our university course on a Monday morning, short tasks that mean we can stop and be creative for a few minutes each day. The challenge would be set, and participants can translate the rules to suit them, using their own choice of medium and surface and we would rather participation happened than have the rules be a barrier to anyone wanting to take part.
The first challenge on the 25 March was to draw food, a meal or snack you are eating, food seemed to be on everyone’s mind, the shops were running out of some items and it was quite a worry for some. Some were stockpiling out of sheer worry about feeding their families, others were condemning those stockpilers for being selfish. The situation was creating a community spirit for some and bringing out the worst in others-a small minority in my experience though, I just found that people were kinder, more caring and more considerate. Food became a source of comfort, something that remained consistent -it was a shared experience in normal times, so it was a good place to start.
The first challenge when we moved to Writtle Art, which later became challenge number 1, was to draw footwear. It had occurred to me that I hadn’t worn any for the past week or so as I was staying and working at home and while fully dressed (I just can’t work in my pyjamas), was only wearing slippers. These challenges were going to be about the commonality we all had right now, and I guessed I wasn’t the only one missing my shoes (a position I never thought I would be in)!
From then on there was a variety of challenges, something worth going to the shops for, something you have achieved Something that belongs indoors drawn on an outdoor surface, step outside, take 20 steps, what do you see? something purple, be inspired by a British garden bird and draw a banana to name a few.
I rarely missed a day, perhaps one or two when I had student presentations or an early meeting which distracted me away from thoughts of drawing and I also had help from Writtle Alumni and skills tutor Sonya who steps in often to set something brilliant such as illustrate your daily walk as a treasure map which was set as a whole weekend challenge. It is interesting to see how others are reacting to the challenges while facing the same restrictions and sets of rules as everyone else and it was good to see people’s responses. Not everyone is posting them to Facebook, it turned out that Instagram was a good place to post so we made the hashtag #WrittleArtDailyDraw and also asked that participants used @writtleart when posting their drawings. It also turns out that some are taking part but not sharing, which is also great as it means the challenges are inclusive for those not comfortable with using social media as a place to share creations.
I myself have found them challenging, I have had no time to consider how I would respond each day (you would think I would think what I want to draw first) before posting the task, as I just haven’t had that luxury of time to consider it, so I am seeing the challenges in the same way as everyone else. I love it, it is becoming part of my daily routine, like cleaning door handles and walking around the garden to make sure I hit my step target.
I plan to continue with the challenges as a way to engage the public with the Art and the Environment degree at Writtle University College. Participants can post their drawings where they like, email them to me or simply keep them to themselves… perhaps we can eventually have more input from students, staff, industry and alumni on a regular basis. As well as posting my responses to each challenge on the post itself, I have documented them on my Flickr page page and they are slowly becoming not just art for the pandemic, but for a new and interesting future.
Do You Fancy A Coffee? (2020)
A story of life as part of a bird family…
Like the Emperors and leaders of past times, we like to project a carefully constructed identity to our public rather than our real self. Only now, we can all do it, we don’t need to commission an artist to do the job for us. We use the tools available to us and we carefully sculpt out the self portrait we want to project.
A crossover between real life and social media interactions, reality becomes distorted, who sees what? Others, maybe even strangers begin to have an input in our lives! Do we control it or have we lost control?
Life is so unfair…. with age comes wisdom, sometimes!
We have developed a dependency on those devices that provide us with all we need to know about the world and they are all we need to let the world know about us. How about if there was nothing more than what was contained within the edges of the box we hold in our hand, no further searching, no further discovering….
Samantha Humphreys 