A SHORT INTRODUCTORY VIDEO ABOUT MY JOURNEY TO START A NATURAL DYED, LIMITED EDITION, UK MADE CLOTHING BRAND, PLUS A DIP INTO THE REGENERATIVE DYE GARDEN.
The why and what SARAH POLAND Art | Fashion is about and stands for as a clothing brand with sustainability and ethics at its core, with zero waste, circular design principles.
Read MoreIn the studio, this year for me is all about getting out there - gaining visibility, collaboration and well, just keeping on keeping on.
This month and probably next month too, will be a creative time. For many years I’ve wanted to create my own wardrobe, wear mostly my own designs.
You could call it a capsule collection, perhaps a mini collection, I’m just going to call it a wardrobe for now.
Read MoreOn Wed 6th Nov 2024, SUSTAINABLE FASHION WEEK hosted an event at Bristol Cathedral called FASHION ON EARTH. Invited to take part, I showcased a natural dyed corduroy bomber jacket in 5 different colours with a few one-off pieces, including a natural dyed painted kilt. Raven Roundwood Timber Frames, created a stunning exhibition stand for my natural dyed, hanging canvas installation backdrop.
Read MoreWhen creating artwork dye irregularities doesn’t matter so much as it adds visual texture, plus I paint on top of the dyed canvas. But a mark in the wrong place on a garment can look like an unwanted stain. It’s one reason people combine tie-dye or batik with natural dye, the blemishes become disguised. But I want to create a different look than we are used to with natural dye - it’s a challenge to create an even colour - something more chic, by using interesting colour combinations (I’m a colour geek) and beautiful planet conscious fabrics.
Read MoreIn a David and Goliath scenario, I’ve been pressured into changing my natural dyed clothing brand name (before it’s even launched).
We hear about insecure, avaricious big companies working to squeeze out independents, putting pressure on them in some way with their big buck budgets.
Well, they object to my use of the word sonnet in the name SONNET by Sarah Poland.
Read MoreFrom 24th July 2022 newsletter.
I seem to have skipped a month…or two…hmmm so what’s been happening?
Well, I’ve been to the Do Lectures and have taken a while to land. If you don’t know about it check out their website, it’s a festival of ideas to put it lightly. All of the talks are online.
It’s also been fantastic weather here, it’s the school holidays, so beach camps and lighting the dye-bath fire. I’ve had a little help from some cinnabar moths to harvest dye plants and hang up the dyed fabric.
I realised today that I have a few exhibition openings to tell you about, it’s a weekend of events actually. You are most welcome to attend any of the events and please do come and say hi if you do.
I entered the Beep Painting Prize, an open submission juried exhibition. Launched in 2012, BEEP (biennial exhibition of painting) is a contemporary international painting prize based in Swansea, Wales. So, nice and local. I’m really excited to get into this.
Mysteries Unfold Outside Of Time was selected for the exhibition, which opens on Friday 29th July at 7pm. The Elysium Gallery bar will merge into the after party as usual.
Mysteries Unfold Outside Of Time 2022
Botanical colour on gesso on birch ply panel, 122x122cm
The Beep Painting Prize is the first exhibition opening of the Beep Painting Biennial where there will be many exhibitions Swansea wide. Saturday 30th July 7pm opens the touring exhibition Walking In Two Worlds, in which I have several pieces. This exhibition takes place at the large Volcano Theatre Gallery. (This posters date starts in June, I can only assume that it was delayed for some reason).
The third exhibition opening this weekend is the Salon De Refuse at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. It coincides with the National Eisteddfod which is a celebration of the culture and language in Wales and alternates between North and South Wales every year. I entered a large painting and photograph diptych into the National Eisteddfod and was ‘refused’ and have been accepted into the Salon De Refuses.
In case you don’t know, the Salon De Refuses is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon. Famously Manet, Pissaro, Courbet, Whistler and many impressionists were rejected in the Salon of 1863, but the critical attention ultimately legitimized the emerging avant-garde in painting.
This opens at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Sunday evening, July 31st at 5pm in Oriel 2.
I’ll be at Beep and Walking In Two Worlds. Hope to see you there!
From 1st May 2022 newsletter.
After much clearing space and decision making, the studio partition wall is down. The space has completely changed dynamics and I no longer ‘walk like an Egyptian’ to get in. Incase you don’t get it, I just quoted a song title - I’m now prompted me to look up the video on Youtube AND share it with you! The Bangles - Walk Like An Egyptian
Below are some photos showing progression of the studio interior wall dismantle.
Plaster board off
Posts and strengthening beam in, white paint next.
With this renewerd space I can start creating work for my solo exhibition at Elysium Gallery, a public gallery space in an old nightclub in Swansea, Wales, so lots of different and interesting spaces to fill. I’ve all sorts of ideas, including a 3-D painting installation, so now in the studio I can stretch out a little more. It’s very exciting.
However, I am in desperate need for a more permanent studio and painting store. Currently my work is stored in a static caravan, it isn’t ideal but it is somewhere seperate to the work space. I regularly empty two dehumidifiers and just recently I encountered a second leak. I’d say that storage is always an issue for artists, the work often takes up half of a studio space. So with this new leak I have lost a further 8 works on paper plus their frames. The previous flood brought damage to many large canvases.
Sharing a less glamorous side to being an artist, here is one of the damaged works, from my Ash Series.
Sooo, away from the Gloom…
I’ve been reading about quantum science and the quantum field for sometime through the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, he also covers epigenetcs, neuro-science and meditation. It’s so interesting. When I start working on a series I don’t look at anyone else’s work but I read, including artists writings. I’m re-reading books In Praise Of Painting by Ian MacKeever RA, Resistance & Persistence Selected Writings by Sean Scully. I’m thinking I’ll look out my book of Bridget Riley’s writings, she writes with such insight on her own work and of other artists’. The new publication by Pace Gallery, Agnes Martin - The Distillation Of Colour, has arrived today. I am so looking forward to reading it. I’ve also been watching videos on Youtube of Brice Marden talking about his work. There’s such an incredible archive online.
This week I’ve been making composition drawings and working out ideas for paintings for my solo exhibition in 2023. They're part of an Energy Field and Mapping series.
Mapping 1, botanical ink on etching paper, 23x24.5cm
Mapping 3, botanical ink on etching paper, 23x24.5cm
From newsletter 27th March.
Vignette (study), 34.5 x 61cm. Botanical inks on gesso panel 2022
I’ve got some grreat news.
After a lengthy and meticulous application for an Arts Council Wales grant, I have now received an email saying that my application has been successful. Hurrah!!
The grant is to create a solo exhibition to be shown at Elysium Gallery in Swansea in 2023. It is a large space and I have lots of ideas. I plan to have two painting installations, one with 3-Dimensional work as well as individual paintings and diptychs. The grant will enable me to commission and collaborate with other creatives as well. For example, I’ll be able to get some professional photography of my work a video documenting my process and a sound commission for an installation. It is very exciting and lots of work to do.
More information about the project will be unveiled over time. The exact date is yet to be confirmed with the gallery, I really hope you will be able to come for the opening night or during opening hours of exhibition. It will of course also be documented online, for those who can’t make it.
Oak gall ink and gesso on paper.
I’ve made a start by making some small studies on gessoed paper, board and panel and although when I start working on a series I don’t look at anyone else’s work, I’m currently re-reading books ‘In Praise Of Painting’ by Ian MacKeever RA, ‘Agnes Martin’ by Frances Morris and Tiffany Bell, ‘Resistance & Persistence Selected Writings by Sean Scully. I’m thinking I’ll look out my book of Bridget Riley’s writings, she writes with such insight on her own work and of other artists’.
I’ve also been watching videos on Youtube of Brice Marden talking about his work. There’s such an incredible archive online.
Studio table
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.
And do please reach out through the contact form if you have any questions.
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, ‘Women Of The Beat Generation’, by Brenda Knight. Actually, it pretty much jumped out at me.
Read MoreWhat 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.
Read More