Unveiling The Artist Within

The path is not always a straight one.

My background is in functional ceramics. I went straight from school to art college and with no life experience under my belt I eventually burnt out trying to think of things to do, trying to explain what I was doing and why I was doing it. So I changed tack and started making functional ceramics, teapots, bowls, cups. There was no need for explaining then, people saw my work and instantly knew what it was, they brought it home and started to make their own connection with it. My work became part of their daily lives and I loved that. 

Life happened after that and I had kids and homeschooled them and had less and less time for making pottery. But still I had the need to make stuff, that never went away. I started taking pictures of my kids and really enjoyed it as an easy creative outlet. It was so immediate and low maintenance, unlike ceramics. After a while the kids didn’t want to photographed anymore so I decided to take self portraits instead. I would always have myself to photograph and I really admired artists who took self portraits, it felt like a very brave thing to do. I went on Pinterest first and had fun just trying it out, getting used to seeing my face and being in front of the camera which I hadn’t done in years.

Then I took this images below and it started to feel like a portrait that had more to say then simply 'this is my face.' It looked like it could begin to describe those messy feelings of motherhood and the chaotic tapestry of everyday family life that was always whirling around inside and around me.

So I started to work on some double exposures, I wanted to portray that complexity and duality. But they felt heavy and obvious, like taking two okay photographs, sticking them together, and trying to make one good one. They weren't able to express what I wanted to say but I kept going anyway.

Then I made this image below and it felt like something closer to what I wanted to express

I started to make more images like this and I called the project 'Small Self.' These images represented that feeling of overwhelm that often comes with motherhood, the feeling of never being fully seen and of never feeling fully whole.

On reflection they also came to represent a bigger theme of how our fears and limitations can often hide our true selves or our greater selves. I made loads of these images for a whole summer. Then they kind of reached a climax and sort of died. I stopped making them completely.

I had all these images and I needed a context for them. I needed feedback and a critical eye. So I signed up for a one hour general consultation with a photography organisation based in Dublin, I paid my €25 and I waited. I heard nothing back… Winter was dark and hard and it rained and it rained and it rained… but I still knew what I needed, friends and family couldn’t decipher my work, I needed other artists, I needed peers. So I found a new group that was starting up locally and, after overcoming a major attack of imposter syndrome, I joined. The first meeting was looming and I felt that if I was going to be in an artist’s group I had better be an artist so I started making more work.

It started to become really important that I could make work now, in this moment. I had been drawn into thinking how easy it would be to make art when the kids were grown up and moved out. But I knew that that would be a different story, I would be a different woman then too and I wanted to tell the story of now. So I started to work on a project I called ‘Artist in the family’ The white dress became the symbol for my creativity and artistic practice. When I wore the white dress I was my true self but so often I couldn’t wear it and it hung over me, it waited from me, I waited for it, it came to me in my dreams.

During this project I took two very important pictures the first one (below) I am represented as the artist lost in thought and fantasy and in the foreground my kids are a blur, running around being themselves. I am an artist in the chaos of daily life. I had intended to make many of these images in lots of contexts but this image was actually an ordeal to make. The kids started fighting and shouting, the dog didn’t know what was going on and never barked so much in her life and I kept saying, can we just take a few more, I nearly have it, just one or two more but I didn't want to keep going, I wanted to abandon ship. It was all so loud and stressful and awful I knew I couldn’t make art like this and I didn’t even like the final image. It was blurred, the light wasn’t right, it made me feel like I needed a new lens and new camera everything, it was a disaster.

Around the same time I also took this image below. And it was so so different, I loved it so much, it said everything. I am a self taught photographer so sometimes anything goes. We got a wildlife camera to capture the foxes and stuff in the garden and I thought hey 'I could take self portraits with this thing' and that’s what I did. Here I am an artist prowling around at night, captured in night vision.

One image I hated, one image I loved. Around this time, it was a year later, I remembered my 1 hour general consultation I had paid €25 for and had never gotten and I wrote an email looking for a refund! Well they got back to me all apologies and said I could get my consultation straight away. I was in a very different place but I still craved context for my work, I still felt lost at sea. And during that hour I was introduced to so many amazing artists making amazing work and I was left with the sense that these artists were just really enjoying making their art. They had a wonderful sense of playfulness, experimenting freely and with joyful curiosity. I was blown away. I had so much food for thought. I sucked it all in and ruminated on it for two days, where could I go from here? What did it mean for my work. I had that one image I loved and so I decided - I would bring the wildlife camera indoors and see what happened. 

I took 800 images in a week, I was exhilarated, it was a constant non stop cycle of capture, download, capture, download. 

And I started to see this light, this blinding white light. This was my inner potential in amongst all the little fragments of me. An arm, a foot, a leg, I’m never fully whole, just snatches, just pieces of me.

I wrote this line, it's the closest I've ever come to poetry. I don't really know what to do with it but it sums up this project perfectly. The project is called 'Sightings'

Incandescent my creativity burns through my days of mothering leaving sunspots on my artist mind.

And my work has only just begun...