Carshalton – The Consulting Artist

Book Pixies : Inspired By Art

Buy a book. Read a book. Pass the book on.

The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them? (Bob Dylan)

I was contacted a few days ago by Sam. Sam works in the library of a local school and has been following the free art project for a while now. Inspired by the project, and by Emma Watson’s Book Fairies, the school, Carshalton High School for Girls, has devised a community pay it forward project of its own. This week, Book Pixies came into being.

Students from the school have begun to distribute books in the local area. They visited a children’s hospital this week to start the project and give an interview to hospital radio. You can follow progress and find clues to where the books are being hidden on the school’s Learning Resource Centre instagram account. I wish the girls and the Book Pixies project every success. Who knows, maybe we’ll team up for a joint free art and book drop some time in the future?

I learned of the Book Pixies project while I was deep in preparation for an art exhibition. I was busy making and curating, surrounded by my work and wondering…’is it good enough?’ The timing of Sam’s approach, coincidental though it was, uplifted me, and helped motivate me to put together what became my most succesful art show to date.

I’m delighted to learn that the free art project has inspired others to act, and I am grateful for Sam taking the time to let me know. These little circles and loops are important so I’d like to leave you with something to think about. Who is inspiring you? How are they inspiring you? Have you told them?

Be curious. Start something. Keep going.

Project Lavender

During a recent trip to Spain my mind wandered back home. At the time the lavender would have been in full bloom, just about to be harvested. Usually we would see the harvest taking place but this year – the early hot weather had brought things forward.

I made a sketch which I shared on Facebook. The sketch was spotted by someone in my network who was about to be married. Lavender was the theme of the wedding and the person asked if the sketch was for sale. I said they could have it as a gift, I brought it home, mounted it and this lavender went on its journey.

Prior to going away I had made three lavender waves. Two were given away in my local area as free art drops, the third I took with us on holiday.

I photographed ‘Third Wave’ in Parc Guell, Barcelona – someone in my network correctly guessed the location and this art work is now theirs.

The final holiday related lavender art work is this one.

I particularly enjoyed making this piece – it has a looseness to it which I sometimes struggle to achieve. Since returning home I’ve had it made into a greeting card, and you can see the original in a frame here.

Casting my lavender mind back a little further – I made a small sketch in May which became a free art drop, and which led to a larger (20″ x 16″) canvas. I’m not sure the latter is finished yet…

We Are All Artists

Saturday 19th August, Midday. I’m unloading (what feels like) a ton of art materials at The Wallington Arms, to get ready for our first We Are All Artists community art workshop and exhibition. Jon, Rachel and the rest of the staff are on hand, the doors are opened and the set up begins. Carole and Keira come down early to help – that’s much appreciated. Will anyone show up? I’m quietly confident that there are enough curious people in and around town to make this a worthwhile afternoon. We’ll see…

We are due to start at 2pm, and just before then, our first guests arrive. They are quickly followed by more, and more, and more. In a short time – the huge room is full and we are busy playing a drawing game called Finding Lines. The game loosens people up for a brief conversation about community and what that means to our guests. We ponder a while – share a few ideas, then get down to work. Our intention is to create art for our own evening exhibition.

The pub very kindly provided some snacks as people worked, and boy did they work. The room became an outpouring of colour. Acrylics, water colours, Sharpies, pastels, crayons, pencils and more came to life across the room as the art works began to emerge. Jason Goldrick kindly demonstrated a technique involving water colours, salt, clingfilm and a hair dryer (you had to be there). There seemed to be no end to our creative experiments – credit cards were used as brushes, so were fingers and hands. 4pm arrived in the blink of an eye – and our guests departed. We now had just two hours to turn the room from a fully functioning workshop, into an exhibition space. No pressure!

With more help from Carole, Keira, Helen and Aissa, the transformation began. We worked hard, and once the clear up was finished we then had the job of curating the work. I think we did a pretty good job – I hope you will agree.

The exhibition opened at 6pm and our guests had a great evening viewing all the art and having conversations about community. I met Lindsay who recently guessed the location of a Spanish art drop which I was able to hand over, and Stacie came to the exhibition with a piece of free art which I placed in Spain a year ago. She correctly guessed its location at the time – and it was a lovely coincidence to spend time with two people who had both found Spanish free art. The project is full of lovely coincidences like this.

We closed up just after 8pm and I’m heading back to The Wallington Arms in a while to finish taking everything down. I expect the two large murals will stay on the wall for a while, why not pop down soon and take a look at them?

Thank you to everyone who came and made art, and attended the exhibition. Thanks to Carole, Keira, Helen and Aissa for helping with preparations. Thanks to Rachel, Jon and all the staff at The Wallington Arms for being such great hosts, and thanks to Arts Network Sutton for supporting the free art project and providing a grant so this event could take place.

#WeAreAllArtists