Self-Accountability W/C 15/4/25

16th Apr 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

What I was supposed to have done:

What I did:

Finished my work for the Interim Show
Attended the Interim Show and the Low Residency Week
Posted on the blog a few times

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I haven’t really done very much over the last 3 weeks since the Low Res. My inactivity has caused me some stress. But I have been thinking, and feeling a bit overwhelmed: processing everything I experienced and learnt from the week, cogitating as to how it could inform my work, thinking about where it all leaves me and where I go from here, trying to find a sense of direction, but to be honest I’ve been feeling more than a little lost. I think that was why I felt the way I did when I looked at the second year blogs; they all seemed to have such a clear sense of direction.

When I curated my blog for the Unit 1 Assessment and looked back at my Study Statement I had a sudden realisation that I might never get to the end, that I had bitten off more than I could chew, that I would only be able to cover all of the individual elements I had identified in a cursory, superficial manner which would not do the subject, or me, any justice. For this reason, my request for specific feedback was:

“I am concerned that the subject matter of my programme of study is too broad and, that by its very nature, is a process which will continue beyond the end of this course, something that I have already acknowledged in my Study Statement. I would like some feedback as to the consequences, if any, of there being no ‘conclusion’ as such, and whether I should consider narrowing my line of enquiry.”

I had hoped that maybe I would be gifted a steer, or a hint. But, the response was:

”You asked about whether you ought to be narrowing your approach but arguably you have to explore a double diamond shape for practice…

start at a narrow point

then expand wide

then narrow again

then open out again

— this good and a helpful place to be and probably clarity will emerge organically. You are certainly doing all the right things to create the environment where focus emerges.”

I felt like I was being told to step up to the edge and jump, and trust that there is probably a safety net waiting to catch me. A blind faith that the process will lead me through the confusion and show me the way.

But having thought about it some more over the last couple of weeks, I now realise that to progress forward I need to concentrate on those aspects which interest me the most, which I believe have affected me the most. In doing so, I will naturally leave to one side matters about which I don’t really have a lot to say. Already, in my mind, the possible avenues to explore have been significantly reduced to those which have been the strongest emotional experiences. In exploring these events, I still want to keep open a range of possible media, although I already sense that some appeal to me more than others, but I want to finish exploring the possibilities before concentrating on just a few: I tend to choose the medium which I think would best express what I’m trying to convey. Whilst I don’t like too much choice, I do like to have a few options. I don’t think that I could only ever work in one medium – I would find that too restrictive, particularly as I think that I have quite different needs to be met – a need for detail and control at the same time as a need for loose expression and experimentation.

I have also resolved to scrap my work plan in so far as I have sought to set myself on a prescriptive path; I will work on whatever interests me when I wake up in the morning. In my work plan I have also attempted to impose a way of working which really isn’t who I am. I’m trying to force myself into a pigeon-hole which isn’t my shape; to have some self-discipline, which frankly I don’t have. I work to deadlines, although just recently I haven’t left things to the last minute, which has been a huge change in me. I completed my Study Statement and Unit 1 Assessment leaving myself plenty of time to review and reflect. I also recognise that I don’t have a constant rhythm of working; I have periods of intense activity and then I reward myself with a period of doing nothing, although I am – I’m thinking and processing and doing other activities such as reading and looking at art, which are equally as valuable.

So, I’m not going to beat myself up that I haven’t produced anything over the last few weeks. Instead, I’m going into this week having recognised some truths about myself and intending to do whatever takes my fancy, if anything, although I do need to finish my posts on the Low Res. Maybe if I do make something I will feel differently about it because I have chosen to do it rather than feeling that I ought to have done it. I came across a reel of Steven Bartlett’s podcast with Chris van Tulleken, who was explaining a time when, at the end of a family dinner, he had decided to to clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, but before he could do so, his wife turned to him and asked him to clear the dishes away. He commented that he had gone from having agency and contributing to family life willingly, to doing someone else’s bidding.

Will The Real Alex Schady Please Stand Up?

13th Apr 202530th Apr 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

I’ve always thought it a good idea to try to see the world through someone else’s eyes, but perhaps misappropriating Alex Schady’s glasses during our collaborative making workshop wasn’t the best way to go about it, although I’d love to see the world the way he does! I imagine that it would be a lot like the experience I had in the Apple Store the other day when I accompanied my daughter who was buying a new laptop. Whilst she was doing her thing, I wandered over to the table with the futuristic looking Vision Pro headsets. Did I have time for a demo? Hell, yeah!

Apparently someone very technically minded in a back room somewhere was building my device for me based on my head size and glasses prescription, and then out it came ceremoniously offered up on a velvet cushion for my delight. Well, an hour later, having held a butterfly on my hand, walked with a tightrope walker across a ravine, ducked to avoid the flick of a dinosaur tail and had VIP access to a Metallica concert, I rather reluctantly removed ‘my precious’ and handed it back. My cheeks hurt through the stupid grin which must have been plastered all over my face. According to my daughter, I had turned into a child and had been making quite a lot of noise which had attracted quite a lot of attention. All the way home I was considering what I might sell to raise enough money to buy one. But then reality set in; I’d never go out of the house again, and would be destined always to watch films by myself (hang on, is that such a bad thing?). But it turns out that it’s had some mixed reviews, and so I resolved that I could spend the money I had saved by going on a nice holiday, and try to get my hands on one of Alex Schady’s spare pairs of glasses instead – he has quite a few apparently because he keeps on losing them. I wonder if he ever walks past someone and thinks, those glasses look familiar.

Until then I’ll have to make do with his fascination with holes. All sorts of holes; sink holes, caves, the holes the Road Runner used to fall down, black holes, white holes. He explained that the thing about holes is that they are defined by what is around them rather than the hole itself. Thinking about it, generally speaking, a hole is the void where something used to be. I have a hole somewhere inside me. I don’t know what used to be there, but I find myself trying to fill it with food, rubbish food, even when I’m not hungry and particularly when I’m bored. The thing is, I know that it’s a hole incapable of being filled, and that I’m not doing myself any favours in terms of my health whilst I engage in such a fruitless activity, but, nevertheless, still I try. I once told a counsellor, who was helping my daughter with her needle phobia, that I thought that my brain was trying to kill me. I could see the pound signs light up in his eyes.

So, Alex got us to cut holes in some card and took us off into the outside world where we stopped still, on his bell, and focussed on what we could see through our differently shaped holes; a lot of perplexed passersby and the fruit and vegetable section of Waitrose. It became something close to a performance, and I half expected some members of the public to whip out their cardboard holes and join us. It’s interesting how masking the extraneous can make you notice more details which perhaps you wouldn’t notice in the round. I found myself slightly adjusting my hole so what I could see through it became more compositionally pleasing.

Then it was back indoors where our holes were repurposed by being joined together to form a circle and painted black. We then had to make something which would move inside the holes as Alex filmed them from the inside using a small turntable.

I forgot to photograph my piece which was a circular piece of card with tissue paper and a length of finger-knitting glued onto it in a spiral to represent my oesophagus, which I was going to spin around on a pencil. A strange choice, I agree, but I had just been talking to Zoë (to whom I owe thanks for allowing the use of her photos from the day) about recently having had an endoscopy. I’d been experiencing a sensation of having a lump in my throat for a while, and Dr Google had diagnosed it as being globus, which is a common side effect of reflux, but the GP didn’t necessarily agree and decided, in light of my family history of oesophageal cancer, that it was better to be safe than sorry. I told them to give me all the drugs they had, and all went fine (turns out I have a hiatus hernia) although I do remember seeing inside myself at one point which was ever so slightly weird. Zoë and I agreed that I should get hold of the images by making a data access request to see if I can use them in my work.

The last activity of the day was to make a cardboard structure which was to have a phone at one end and, at the other end, an image with a hole cut out of it. The trick was to get the distance between the two just right so that neither the image nor what could be seen through it would be out of focus, which proved to be quite difficult. We then went out onto the roof and did some filming for one minute. I filmed using one continuous take – it didn’t really cross my mind to pause and change focus. Thinking about it now, this meant that the decisions I made as to where to go next were determined solely by what I could see through the camera and not by extraneous influences. Rather than moving from left to right, I think, in retrospect, it would have been more effective moving in the opposite direction which would have created a relationship with the image itself, as if the figure is being thrown off balance by the movement.

Developing this idea further, it would be possible to see, quite literally, through someone else’s eyes. In this respect, Sophie chose an image in which a model was wearing sunglasses, which she cut out, which was ingenious.

All in all, a super-charged day which has provided lots of food for thought.

Six Degrees Of Separation

12th Apr 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

Image: http://www.justwatch.com

In the film Six Degrees of Separation (based on the play of the same name written by John Guare) one of the main characters, Ouisa Kittredge played by Stockard Channing, says:

”I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we’re so close. But I also find it like … water torture that we’re so close because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It’s a profound thought… How everyone is a new door opening into other worlds.”

I don’t think I agree with her that it’s comforting to be that close to the President of the United States, or to many other people who live in this world of ours, for that matter.

The film was made in 1993, more than 10 years before the advent of social media, and so application of the theory would be dependent on your level of knowledge of the networks of friends and acquaintances. It was a fun game to play when we didn’t have anything better to do. I once got to Nelson Mandela in 4, Edward VII in 3 and perhaps most impressive of all, Ant & Dec in 2. In the age of social media it’s definitely a lot easier, and research carried out a while ago by Meta suggests that, certainly in terms of social networking, the number of degrees is probably closer to 3.5.

But, yes, connections are important and they enhance our lives and can be discovered in the most unlikely of circumstances. Unexpected connections can provide comfort that the choices we have made are the right ones. Who would have thought that even if I wasn’t on this course I would still be able to connect to Jonathan in 2? I just wouldn’t know it.

There are connections which become long-lasting and develop into relationships, and those that stay transitory. On my first night in London for the Low Res, I was having dinner in a restaurant near to my hotel, trying to make some headway into Stephen Fry’s Mythos but getting terribly distracted people-watching. A couple came in and sat at the table next to me. The woman saw my book and asked me whether it was his latest. One and a half hours’ of non-stop talking later, with the restaurant staff clearly eager to close up and head off home, we said our goodbyes never to see each other again. He was a lawyer with a keen interest in Roman civilisation and Greek mythology, and he would read books to his wife in bed (each to their own). I told him my story and encouraged him to embrace his passion and seize the day. He won’t, but that doesn’t matter because we talked about anything and everything connecting on so many different levels, but sometimes that’s all it’s destined to be, a connection in a moment in time.

I have been able to make even stronger connections with the majority of my course mates having now met them in person and spent hours in their company. We did a lot of travelling and walking over the course of the week which was a great opportunity to chat with everyone including the second year students who imparted some really helpful advice. It was a strange experience meeting people who I have seen on Zoom every week – would greeting them with a hug be appropriate?

It was an amazing time spent with like-minded people. I spent hours chatting about life and work with Rebecca who is such good company. She was explaining how each piece of her work is influenced by one of her stories (one of my favourites being Maureen and the Pope) whilst we were on our way back to CSM on the tube one day, when I noticed a young girl sitting opposite us holding a camera in her lap absolutely transfixed by Rebecca. After a couple of stops she got up from her seat and moved to stand next to Rebecca (who later confessed to being slightly worried that she was going to ask her to give up her seat because she wasn’t feeling well). She then rather apologetically explained that she couldn’t help but listen to what Rebecca had been saying, and that she found it really interesting as she is doing an Art A level and has had difficulty in finding focus in her work. The conversation continued for several more stops, up the escalators and through the tunnel until we parted ways. Another connection for just a moment in time, but hopefully one which was inspirational.

Sorry, Are You Talking To Me?

11th Apr 202512th Apr 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

I’ve decided that I’m probably learning far more about myself by simply being in this process than I am by looking back on my life.

I need to retrain my brain. My legal training has made me focus on detail, anticipate every possible eventuality, dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ all within a rigid framework of rules and regulations. That way of thinking served its purpose then, but it now stultifies creativity.

When I’m in a scenario which is unfamiliar, I like to know the parameters within which I’m expected to navigate; quite often I feel discombobulated when things don’t go the way I am expecting, the paper workshop with Christian Azolan being a case in point. We were instructed to fold the paper. To my pedantic mind, folding involves a deliberate act of bending something over on itself to create a clearly defined edge. It doesn’t include scrunching. But once I had overcome my initial confusion and accepted this unexpected variation of the parameters, I enjoyed myself.

I definitely preferred using the blank paper – I don’t know what brand it was, but it felt really good. It led me to confess my fetish for pristine white paper to some of my fellow students. I think it stems from being at primary school when the teacher would write my name on the front of a new exercise book with a marker pen and I would go back to my desk and give it a good sniff. I now appear to associate blank paper with a solvent high. I don’t think that my school ever had a pupil who was so keen to man the stationery cupboard at break time. In fact, I used to get palpitations and a bit of a sweat on just walking into WH Smith (R.I.P).

Working with the blank paper seemed to allow more freedom and I liked that the results took on a sculptural quality. The effect of the folding on the reverse of the paper was equally, if not more, interesting at times than the right side; areas which were peaks on one side became troughs on the other and vice versa.

I felt inhibited using the print of the back of my head; I became too concerned with the resultant image which seemed to impose restrictions on how I folded, so maybe I like clear parameters, but not too many of them? Also, the effect is less sculptural than when using the blank paper; the areas of shadow are less apparent and the focus shifts to the distortion and concealment of parts of the image rather than the creation of form.

We then went on to do some linocutting – it seemed a bit incongruous with the folding activity, but nevertheless we all launched into it with equal enthusiasm.

I prepared two linocuts; one inspired by tree roots and the other a reduction linocut of an abstract shape – I printed it using yellow ink first, then cut away more lino and printed using red ink.

I also printed the tree roots image on a transparency, having torn up bits of paper to create a random mask. It is interesting to see the effect of overlaying it with the two prints; how it creates a sense of discord on the prints where it’s not in sync with the image below, and how it creates areas of intensity on the print over which it lines up.

As I was taking my lino into the next door room to print it, Christian heard me reminding myself as to what I was planning to do. Sorry, are you talking to me? No, just myself. Doesn’t everyone do that? Yes, of course. When I went back in to print my second lino, I asked him how long we had left. Sorry, are you talking to me?…

Out Of Sorts

10th Apr 202512th Apr 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

I haven’t done anything since coming home from the Low Res.

There was an intense period building up to it, followed by a period of sitting back and taking stock. I’m still thinking about it all, but whilst doing so I’ve allowed myself to get sucked back into domestic life. My daughter’s now home from uni for a month, along with all her ‘stuff’. Whilst it’s lovely that she’s back, it’s upset the normal way of things. Glasses and crockery disappear into the blackhole that is her bedroom, and the bottom of the stairs has become a footwear hotspot. Could be worse, I suppose.

Also, one of our dogs, Monty, hasn’t been so good. He’s an old boy at 12. Enlarged prostrate, chemical castration, hormonal inbalance making him not himself, and removal of a malignant melanoma. Waiting to talk to the vet about prognosis. I suspect there may be trouble ahead and difficult decisions to make. He’s out of sorts. We’re all out of sorts. But tomorrow’s another day.

I haven’t made anything. I am conscious that I haven’t and it’s starting to stress me a bit. My last two posts could have been cheerier, but there’s no point in putting on a fake smile. My colours are definitely muted at the moment. I feel like I’m stuck and I can’t progress until I’ve managed to process and order all that I took away from the week in London, but up until now I haven’t been able to set aside the time to do it. Also, my logical side dictates that I should deal with it all in chronological order, but that’s impossible to do because it all seems to be intertwined.

Second year Catherine told me that she feels like a spider spinning a web. I told Jonathan that I felt like I had been collecting during the week; it’s as if I’m accumulating pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but I don’t have the benefit of an image on a box to guide me. I just hope it makes something, because it’s making me feel out of sorts.

I’m looking forward to the start of a new term next week. I need some structure.

A Little Fish In an Absolutely Huge Lake (Actually, Just Plankton, Really)

24th Mar 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

I had a conversation this morning with my husband prompted by a post on my facebook feed. As usual, I can’t find it when I want it. It was about how we can’t control the circumstances we find ourselves in, but we can control our reaction to them. It gave an example of being a small fish in a big pond and how some people will react by seeing it as an opportunity to learn and grow, whilst others will experience self-doubt and a negative impact on their self-esteem.

I’ve always considered myself to be one of the former and in my very first post on this blog, I said that I felt like a small fish in a big pond, and that I wouldn’t want it any other way. Well, in an attempt to reinvigorate myself, I decided to have a quick look at some of the blogs of the second years whom I met and spoke to on the Low Res. Well, I don’t feel like a small fish anymore – something more akin to plankton. In fact, they seem to be swimming in an entirely different lake.

Maybe it’s because I’m on a bit a of a downer and, had I looked at them on a different day, I would have thought, yes, there’s something to aspire towards.

So, in an attempt to cheer myself up by doing something whimsical, (or maybe bash myself up a bit more?), I decided to take up one of their suggestions and ask AI to critique Motherhood I. This is how ChatGPT responded:

”This is an evocative and surreal image, rich with symbolic undertones. Let’s break it down and offer a critique in terms of composition, symbolism, emotional impact, and technique.

1. Composition and Lighting:

The image uses a confined, claustrophobic space, with walls and floor covered in abstract blue textures that resemble fluid watercolors or deep-sea imagery. This immersive backdrop creates a sense of being trapped or submerged, heightening tension and unease.
The lighting is soft and casts shadows that add depth, particularly highlighting the seated figure in the center. The dramatic shadows further enhance the isolated and introspective mood.

2. Subject and Symbolism:

The Woman: Seated with a somber expression and slouched posture, she conveys emotional distress or exhaustion. The stain on her chest, resembling blood, suggests themes of suffering, heartbreak, or vulnerability.
The Heart-Creature: This surreal element—a human heart with legs—adds an unsettling, grotesque, and perhaps metaphorical layer to the scene. It could represent raw emotion, a burden of grief, or the physical embodiment of trauma or love. The crawling position implies helplessness or infancy, giving it a disturbing yet pitiable quality.

3. Emotional Impact:

The combination of organic textures, the heart-creature, and the woman’s expression evokes discomfort, sadness, and introspection. It appears to explore themes of emotional pain, isolation, and perhaps the fragility of the human condition.
There is a surreal, almost dreamlike quality, which can leave viewers contemplating its deeper meaning long after they’ve seen it.

4. Use of Color:

The predominant blue tones evoke feelings of coldness, sadness, or depth. Blue is often associated with melancholy, and here it amplifies the mood of emotional detachment or depression.
The vivid red of the heart stands out starkly against the cool background, drawing the eye and emphasizing its visceral, unsettling presence.

5. Potential Suggestions for Enhancement:

Narrative Clarity: Depending on the intended message, adding subtle clues—like small objects or additional symbols—could enhance the narrative and guide interpretation.
Texture Variation: Adding some slightly sharper textures or contrasts in certain areas (like the woman’s figure) might enhance the sense of three-dimensionality and separation from the abstract walls.
Lighting Drama: A more pronounced lighting contrast (e.g., spotlighting the heart more intensely) could heighten the eerie atmosphere and emotional focus.

Overall Impression:

This image is thought-provoking and visually compelling, successfully blending surrealism and emotional intensity. It invites interpretation and introspection, effectively using color, symbolism, and composition to create a haunting, memorable scene.

I think that I’m starting to change my view of ChatGPT!

Back To Life, Back To Reality

23rd Mar 202512th Apr 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

It’s been a blast of a week, with the Interim Show and then the Low Residency. Spending time with like-minded people in an environment of creativity, away from the humdrum of everyday life. And now I’m home, and struggling to get back into the swing of things. I haven’t posted on here for almost a fortnight, which is unusual for me. There is so much to think about and process. I’m not sure where to begin.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to get on with tasks which don’t require much thought. Today I took the dogs for a walk in some woods which I haven’t been to for a while. It’s predominantly a beech wood. I love beech trees, even when they are leafless. It won’t be long until the bluebells are out and most of the floor of the wood is carpeted in blue, or is it purple? In the meantime, the primroses make me smile. A gentle reminder that time is passing. Maybe my motivation will return tomorrow…

Out Of The Blue IV – Something Borrowed…

10th Mar 202510th Mar 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

Something blue.

On my wedding day, my mother lent me her handkerchief. I never gave it back; I wonder whether that means that it wasn’t borrowed but appropriated, and does that affect its power to confer luck? Probably not, as I only intended to borrow it, and besides as it was over 20 years ago, I think it conferred the requisite good fortune of my mother’s happy marriage.

What’s cyanotyping without a bit of lace?

I’ve also been doing some doodling. I came across an American cyanotype artist, Marie Craig, who uses highlighter pens on her cyanotypes, so I gave it a go on the prints which didn’t really work in Out Of The Blue.

It’s an interesting effect. I’m not sure what I think about it. Maybe it would work better on a different style of image, one with defined lines as opposed to the organic shapes in these images. I’m definitely not ruling it out.

I also took an unsuccessful print of the digital image I made recently and experimented with drawing on it in pen. I had no plan in mind, and just followed some of the shapes. It was a mindless activity, just doodling. Several areas are not particularly successful, but I like the combination of the cyanotype and the pen. I’m not sure how I might use it; I think that I need to explore using some different images.

Interim Show

9th Mar 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

My main piece is the telephone. I’ve managed to figure out how it works – now I’ve just got to record my message which I think will be quite short and to the point.

I struggled for a while to come up with a way to indicate that it is an interactive piece. Also, if I’m going to use the audio files as well as the content of the messages in future work, I think I should say as much so that people have an opt out if they’re not happy with the possibility of their voice being used.

I was trying to get to sleep the other night, tossing and turning, when it came to me – I’d do what Michael Craig-Martin did for ‘The Oak Tree’ i.e. have a transcript of an imaginary conversation between me and a third party.

So I came up with this, which I will display alongside the telephone. And yes, I’ve also ripped off Magritte, and used Donald’s comment from a few sessions ago about mobile phones not really being used for their primary purpose, making and receiving calls, but for messaging etc.

I’ve also had another bash at the cyanotype of the aerial view of the village. I couldn’t get it right on A3 for some reason as the detail of the fields just wouldn’t stick. I tried so many times but I think that because I was doing it quite late at night my brain just stuck, and instead of stopping and leaving it for a while so I could reflect on it with some distance and clarity, I just kept on making the same mistakes over again which made me feel really frustrated. I’m going to park it for now – it could be something to do with the height of the UV lamp.

So I’ve gone back to the smaller negative and printed it on A3 and added in a location pin. I’ve decided to call it In Loco Parentis. I feel much better about it now, and, on reflection, A3 would just have been too large an image for something which is quite intimate and personal.

I’ve also tried doing a triptych of the view from my window. I had initial success in finding out how to split the image into 3 equal parts and printing separate negatives for each. After that it just went downhill; it has been so difficult to get any consistency between each of the separate sections because I’m doing them each individually and there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why they turn out differently despite using the same solution and applying it as consistently as possible, exposing for the same amount of time and washing out in the same way. I even tried to make sure that the temperature of the water was the same by starting to run it at exactly the same time before the exposure had finished, but the difference in results between them was staggering. I’ve now got lots of different sections, and having sorted through them all, these three are the best fit that I could come up with.

I think I might sort out the sizing a bit more and then fix them to another piece of watercolour paper.

Disheartened by the exercise I did the same as with the aerial view, took the original negative and printed it on A3. It was much more straightforward, and made me feel an awful lot better. Is it a bit boring? I don’t think so as I think you get a much better sense of atmosphere, and I’m trying to change myself to subscribe to the view that less is more.

As I took the original photo on New Year’s Day, I think I’ll call it, Another New Year’s Day. On reflection I think I prefer it. I’m not sure that disjointed views really do it for me, but then again I didn’t think that I liked collage.

In addition to the pieces above, I’m taking along Motherhood I which I’ve had printed on A1. I’ll see what seems right on the day.

Motherhood I

8th Mar 20258th Mar 2025Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

I have had an image in my mind for months. It came from the Elizabeth Stone quotation, I first mentioned in Hearts & Linos .

”Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

I think it encapsulates perfectly how I felt when I became a mother. My whole world was turned upside down. I was suddenly responsible for raising and protecting another human being. I felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of it all; that life would never be the same again. It made me question the sort of world I had brought her into, how her life might be; how much of it I would be a part of, the unthinkable and unbearable pain I would suffer if anything happened to her. She was precious and intrinsic to me, now living and breathing in the world, independently of me.

It’s taken a while. Bearing in mind that I’m still finding my way around Procreate I don’t think that I’ve done too badly. I’m sure that I’ve done lots of things incorrectly, but I don’t really care. It’s all a learning process and it was fundamentally about me trying to realise an image that I had in my head. I feel that I’ve achieved what I set out to do. In that respect, I’m pleased with it. I think it conveys the visceral nature of my feelings.

Actually, it has taken me more than a while; it’s taken ages, probably because I kept on making mistakes, but I have learnt lots along the way. I’ve redone parts of it several times but I have to say that it has all been about the process of discovery and realisation. It’s allowed me time to focus on the detail, but it’s been as part of the process rather than with a view to trying to achieve a perfect result. I don’t think that Procreate is a tool with which I can be loose and expressive in the physical sense, but it seems to satisfy that part of me that likes to focus on surreal detail every now and then. Hopefully that will allow the other part of me to enjoy the experimentation of being looser and more expressive in my mark-making when, say, painting.

I decided ages ago that I wanted to incorporate my ink experiments as a background to a collage type piece. I sourced the heart, crawling baby and head of the woman from royalty free image sites which allow for reproduction of the resultant work, if need be. The body is my daughter. She’s a bit freaked out by someone else’s head being on it, but I wanted a neutral character, and I couldn’t find an image of a woman sitting on a chair that fitted my requirements, so I roped in a free model.

It was challenging constructing the crawling heart. I’ve had to rebuild parts of it including the hands as some of the fingers were hidden in the original image. It was quite difficult finding source images whose licences allowed me to do what I wanted to do, and were also free. I’ve played around with editing effects and colours and I think that I’m settled on the last image for now. The slight greenish tones, complement the red heart. I really like the cyanotypes, but unfortunately there isn’t enough tonal variation and the slightly chaotic background loses its delicate tonal transitions in the process. I might try again but change the background to something a little less busy. But I like the historical, almost Victorian Penny Dreadful feel to them. I might develop it further, but I’ll leave it on the back burner for now.

The time delay video created by Procreate is of epic proportions, but it’s helpful for me to watch it back so I can see what a song and dance I made of it all. This is a shortened version.