Studio journal 4

I've got a little box of watercolour tubes that I've had sitting around for a few years. My father-in-law gave them to me, his father was a painter. I, or perhaps they, have been waiting for the right time.

I've found it difficult to get motivation moving these last two weeks. It is far from a usual problem. Perhaps there's the overwhelm of moving house and trying to clear a pathway into my studio where things have been strewn amidst the chaos. Plus the bliss of finally being in a house and wanting to slack out on the sofa.

I did something I've often done when I don't know how to get started. I went to the sea. I packed my special off-piste snowboarding rucksack - used for day long adventures. It helps me to create intention of letting go and exploring what comes up. Off to find a wild, windswept, isolated beach I did.

I packed a little portable set of watercolours. Perhaps the time is right now to explore watercolour but…note to self to not drift too far into the allure of what they can do - the pooling, the reticulation - not make 'watercolour paintings' per se but to use them in my own way. For this, they seem a good quick sketching tool.

The morning started with a thick freezing fog at home, the journey to the sea opened out and the long steep walk down brought a pool of sunshine to where I positioned my belongings on a flat boulder.

The day was beautiful.

The sea was calm, small waves dolloped the shoreline dragging pebbles away with them. Such a beautiful sounds that makes you sit very still and Listen. Out at sea cloud was low and colours were limited to gorgeous greys and aqua of the small cresting waves.

By the end of the day I was watching the freezing fog roll in and envelop the beach.

Play the above video to watch waves dolloping onto the shore in fog.

Thank you for reading this. If you would like to follow this studio journal and sign-up to my newsletter for exhibition updates, inspiration and available work you can sign up at sarahpoland.co.uk/subscribe I send it out some Sunday’s at 11am.

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Studio journal 3

Souvenance

I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions’ ______________________________________ Diane Di Prima, _____________Beat Poet (August 6, 1934 – October 25, 2020)

And so too the painter.

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Diane Di Prima was a poet and writer of the American Beat Generation.

Back in 2002 I went to Western Canada to meet a great friend of mine, to snowboard as she finished her season and to travel together up the West coast. We stopped a night or two in Tofino, B.C. I wasn’t sure at the time why I didn’t join her on a whale watching boat trip, but I drifted into a lovely bookshop, sat on the floor to browse a shelf and came across this wonderful book. Actually, it pretty much jumped out at me.

Some years prior, on a U.S. trip, someone I met recommended Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Another great book for that time in my life and it turned out, took the same route that I did. That was my introduction to the Beat Generation and so finding this book focusing on the Women was very exciting.

They are the reason I drink coffee - Coffee And Writing Go Together.

For me, a coffee taps into this culture and also our European cafe culture, particularly of the 50’s and 60’s. I Love the B&W photographs from these era’s, the starkness, the contrasts.

One of my favourite poems ever is Rant by Diane Di Prima - it is in this book. I also discovered Jay DeFeo and her incredible work The Rose, a 2,300 lb. painting which she spent eight years making.

The Beats in turn lead me to Patti Smith, punk poet, writer, rock musician’s thoughts and writing.

So this was the reason I missed the whale watching!

Jay DeFeo working on The Rose, 1958–66,
in her Fillmore Street studio, NYC 1960. Photo: Burt Glinn.

I’ve just gotta squeeze in a favourite photo…one of British painter Sandra Blow who lived in St. Ives for many years. I love Roger Mayne’s images of the artists there. The other Michael Gaca, director of Belgrave St. Ives took of me at Carn Galva after a bush fire in 2006. It was in my 2006 exhibition at the gallery Tuath (click for catalogue).

Sandra Blow (1925-2006) in her studio 1959 by Roger Mayne (1929-2014)

Sarah Poland 2006 by Michael Gaca

Studio journal 2

Every now and then I think about my journey, how I got to here, now, where I started, what the story is.

We all have a story, one unique to us.

I always have a story behind a particular piece of work or a series.

My first exposure to abstract modern art wasn’t until I was 17. Growing up in the Highlands of Scotland there wasn’t much. I went alone to the Inverness Museum once, determined to see some art – I saw a stuffed polecat, stags head and a dusty ptarmigan among other objects. It wasn’t what I was looking for, besides, I’d seen some in the wild.

Joan Eardley - Catterline in Winter (1963)

Mum had a poster of Joan Eardley’s Catterline In WInter 1963 on the wall. I would often stare at it, be in it, feel it.

It definitely helped kindle my love of bleak Northern landscapes, coast and falling snow, besides growing up in the foothills of the Cairngorm Mountains.

It's Funny How Oak Trees Look Pink In Snow No.2 (2018)

My school history of art lessons used B&W photocopies of... the Impressionists. Paintings which I subsequently learnt are huge, are all about colour, colour harmonies, brush marks, feeling, joy. Obviously none of these qualities came across in the photocopies.

My first Real exposure to modern art was at the Tate Gallery, now Tate Britain. Again, thanks to my mum, she took me down to London on an art trip just before my school exams. And thank goodness she did, for it sparked a drive that got me into one of our countries best art schools, Edinburgh College of Art.

I remember going around the National Gallery and the Tate. I remember at the end of our day at Tate peeking through a tiny window in a door, not unlike a medieval arrow slit. Straining to see as much as possible and begging my mum to pay for me to go in - the rest of the vast gallery was free to enter but this was a temporary touring exhibition and was typically expensive.

She did. Bless her.

What I saw in 1993 was an exhibition by American painter Robert Ryman. Known as the ‘painter of white paintings’, he is one of the foremost abstract artists of his generation. The influence that this one exhibition had was so profound it still resonates deeply today.

And he predominantly used white paint and little else!

Robert Ryman - Untitled (1962)

Robert Ryman - Untitled (1965)

Robert Ryman - Classico 5 (1968)