Emily Ball

These are two of the studies done during last masterclass.  The message from John that seemed to resonate with me  was to be aware of what he describes as ‘la matiere’, the physicality of paint.

One of the main difficulties I face at the moment is how to bring in to my paintings the flow and freedom which come easily in studies and in drawings. My paintings on canvas are often more static as I seem ‘to freeze’ and slow down when faced with what I wrongly consider ‘the real painting’…

John’s suggestion this time was not to go on canvas and to carry on working in the same way on paper. I enjoy working with cut papers. I find that sticking a piece of paper ripped from a  previous study helps me to make an instant response.

During  the last John Skinner painting class at Emily’s studio I started out thinking that once I had put the ‘finishing   touches’ to three pictures I would get on with something new. By midday of day one, I hadn’t got very far, and John said ‘Just find the three marks which will finish off the faces’. Vainly, I said, ‘faces aren’t a problem for me, I’ll do them last’, and went on.  Three days later I not only had not managed to finish the faces, I hadn’t touched them at all but messed around with every other square inch. By day four I was getting desperate, but then two sketches on canvas emerged, and both seemed a striking departure from my previous work. This breakthrough came rather late and was primarily the result of a mark making exercise John had set us all, but also the cumulative effect of the studio as a place.

The exercise was to make the same mark repeatedly on a stack of paper, very fast, and then sort the results into two; rejects and ones to save. This too was to be done very fast. The first time we did this exercise I made a squiggle, and the second time I tried to make the three marks to indicate at least one of the faces of the figures on the unfinished canvases.  In ten minutes I had produced about thirty faces which put together did somehow make up for all the lost time. This raised the question of what it is we do when we try to over-ride our thinking, both when making the mark, and when deciding whether or not to keep it. The significance of making a random mark, repeating it, and then judging it, seems to hover on that interface between what is conscious and what is unconscious.

The mark making exercise, and the struggle which preceded it, led me to recall the work of two psychoanalysts, Donald Winnicott and Marion Milner. Winnicott developed a therapeutic technique called the ‘Squiggle’ game, which would start with Winnicott making a mark/squiggle on paper and then he would invite the child-patient to add to it, and then Winnicott would add another, and so on. Milner wrote a short piece on what she called ‘The Framed Gap’; the psychoanalytic hour  which allowed anything and everything to be explored because of its rigid and safe boundaries of time and place.

It is a jump, perhaps, but I think Emily’s studio with its delicious soups and cakes, and firm time boundaries, bears comparison with ‘The Framed gap’; there is something  about the struggle involved in freely using any material- human or mineral – as paint is, and a more ‘grown-up’ obligation to be frugal, careful with the resource, the paint , the canvas which we might re-use etc. Some of this may be generational and most of us in those classes are women of a certain age, and don’t draw on a lifetime lived as if in a primitive paradise of plenty.  Painting becomes a shock. It demands a willingness to take risks, to not fear destroying what you have just made, and of acting as if resources were infinite. It takes us back to a very primitive state.

It is a commonplace in the therapeutic professions to note that patients often bring the richest material at the very end of a session, in the last minutes, and I have felt that something similar happens in the classes, which is another reason for seeing them as a version of ‘The Framed Gap’.

Fleurs-du-Feu

A wonderful 4 days on John Skinner’s course.

Conversation with paint, face up to and resolve issues within the painting. It is tough.

Making the paint thin, transparent and glowy, alongside thick luscious and salivating.

Become part of the dialogue and keep the conversational flow going with the painting.

Allowing the resource (drawings) to stand aside when the painting takes a different, exciting and new direction – and not looking back.

John was rocking, and students were focussed and professional.  A wonderful four days with lots of energy and good food (put recipe section in website, please!  It won’t make the site lightweight -  creativity needs matiere too…)

I undertake never to ‘not do’ warm-up mark-making again, if the double negative makes sense.  I feel my practice will benefit enormously from the things learned, as it all filters through in different ways -  and, hey, white is my friend….

Hi Emily,

Mary and Thierry picked me up from Montpellier, blue sky and warmth.

Sète, busy as usual; we parked by the Chaland, just had to have an apéro on the pavement. Delphine and Seb arrived. Luc was on the corner, we took him a “médicament” he seemed content – as ever. Delph said I looked pale, it was true, tired and emptied out; feeling good.

It was great to work with you again, thanks for all your hospitality.

We had a true master-class. The four days allowed us to really fuck things up, then unfuck them. Get it wrong get it right. All the painters fully immersed in their subjects, working together, willing to experiment, testing out their practice, what they have been practising, what they will practice. Practising to be the same, practising to be different.

The new exercise worked; Patti vowed “never to not do this” before painting. Commitment

Le mouvement, la matière, la sensibilité, la poétique. The corners of invention.

Everything is invention.

Lots of love

John

Sometimes it is good to paint in the dark, let winter nights be the backdrop for a different palette, a different mood. When I don’t know what to paint, I start with what is in front of me. Last Autumn I had some freshly picked pink and white gladioli from my garden, the first time I’d grown them. I started the paintings when they were still fresh and alive. I finished the paintings when the winter was here, painting at 4 o’clock, dark outside my window, the flowers by now dead (but then I have always loved dead flowers). So my palette changed, and the paintings are new, for me. Helped by the stark red of the certamic shoe on the bright white window sill, the dark space around the flowers became thick and tangible. Helped too by the fact that I was painting on top of someone else’s discarded canvases; daubed in someone else’s choice of colour, scarred by their unfamiliar marks. I really did feel then that I was painting in the dark. Everything I normally do was influenced by the colours and marks already there. In the end I had to get rid of all their marks, but the colour remained; dark, much darker than my usual daytime-summer-as-if-I-lived-in-the-mediterranean colours! And it is this new dark that makes my new colours sing. So, sometimes, it is good to be painting in the dark.

After a fantastic workshop with John Skinner, I was left with an unanswered question. Why were my paintings lacking the qualities that were in my exploratory drawings?

When faced with problems I look to cycling to help me.

I cycle every day. On my bike I feel alive. An element of surprise and decision making meets the unforeseen that lies around each turn in the road.

Fig 1

These rides are like my drawings.  Within their confines, I find surprise, freedom and control.  Many rides, like drawings are indistinguishable, and are lost in the myriad of experiences. But… occasionally… when I draw, I can capture something that may equate to a smile shared or a beautiful crack in a wall. These images are very special, and I hold onto them. I did such a drawing that weekend with John Skinner. (Fig1)

I also like to cycle further.  It took me ten days to get to Manchester and two months to reach Tate St Ives. These bike rides are like my paintings.  They are journeys.  Within the journey there are many painful and wonderful moments. Decisions must be made constantly and each decision takes me somewhere new.  That is not to say advice is not listened to or help appreciated. Like the lock- keeper that advised me to leave the canal path, or the lorry driver who offered to power- spray my muddy wheels.

Fig 2

Thus are my paintings. They are not responses to, or illustrations of, specific moments.  They are more than the sum of the parts.  They contain a journey, going who knows where. But when is the arrival?  There are many paintings and many arrivals along the way.  I forget where some start and I may falter on conclusion. On the last weekend with John, I found some lines, which created some spaces, which concluded a painting from eight years ago! (Fig 2.) Whereas my new painting still has a rough ride ahead. (Fig 3.)

Fig 3

I aim to continue cycling, drawing and painting to the end of my being, because the journey is my being.

Swimming Scribbles 3, 8' x 4' canvas

Last weekend Emily joined other artists at the studio for a John Skinner masterclass.  Her ambition for the weekend was to:

1) practice scribbling

2) discover how scribbling could contribute to the content and subject of her work

3) not be fearful – to play and improvise straight onto 8’ x 4’ canvases!

Swimming Number 6, 8' x 4'

For the first time on the blog, Emily shares her thoughts on how she got on.

Emily’s musings

“The colour shift felt like a good idea,  and on later reflection I can see how it connects to the sparkle and atmosphere of the moment rather than just the look of water and colour of the swimming pool.”

Emily ponders

“I’m beginning to wonder – are the figures inherent in the scribble?”

Emily Reccommends…

Oil sticks for scribbling!  Best ones are made by Markal or R&F Pigment Sticks.

Emily’s top tip from the weekend

Smile and go with it “Smile and wave boys…”