In the Name of the Father

The Man Who Went too Soon

The Man Who Went Too Soon was completed in one day and this is the first pull.  It's drypoint on Plexiglass using one needle.  I experimented with different touches.  Some lines are almost dug out others are light and feathery.  It began as a loose self portrait.  I'm feeling very down after we put our little Jack Russell to sleep on 24th March, the day after my birthday.  she was nearly 17 years and 5 months old so she'd been with us a long time.  My emotional response to the passing of Bracken seemed out of proportion when compared with human loss.  I began to think about death and loss a lot and that invariably takes me to the death of my father which happened 40 years ago when I was fourteen. 
I think this life changing loss must have altered my happy psyche more than I realise and I don't think I ever came to terms with it. 
Anyway I've decided to try to work on this unresolved issue by uncovering and incorporating elements in my work. 
This is the start.  It's very literal and illustrative.  My father (taken from one of the last photo's we have of him) is represented on a pedestal (pretty self explanatory).  The girl/doll faces are based on a photo of myself as a young girl.  A time of innocence and safety - before one grows up and learns that life is fragile and change inevitable.  His death ended my childhood and so I wanted to alter her.  I've used elements from a ventriloquist doll that belonged to my Dad as a young child.  It too is fragile.  It's glassy unseeing eyes seemed appropriate.  It's inability to speak it's own words but have words "put into it's mouth" seemed to contribute something. I don't know why this felt appropriate except that when my Dad died I stopped speaking about him because it hurt too much and I only became able to in my early forties. 

Back to matter's practical..... the plate is A4 size and I'm using Hawthorne ink.

The edition will be small - about five......

Well.... here's to art therapy in action!!  

Mermaids and Blood Lilies

These new drypoint etchings were all done on plexiglass. Baby Mermaid started with a photo of myself as a young child.  

April Fool is also a self portrait and features one of my favourite indigenous lilies - Haemanthus Coccineus.  The thick fleshy spotted stem thrust out of the ground with a brilliant flower comprising about five fleshy vermillion petals (bracts) and a mass of little red stamens with dotted yellow tips erupts. 

I identify with them somehow.  I'm mad about them. They affect me so much more than any other plant.  

I think it may be because they're so rich and strong and yet in a weird way vulnerable as they push through the hard bleak barren looking ground before erupting with such violent colour. 

Is it possible that every thing we love, we respond to because we identify with it on another level; we recognize qualities that we perhaps share.  Be it plant, animal or mineral? A smooth pebble.  Something sparkly embedded in a rough rock. 

I wonder.....

 

The Downside of Success

It's been just over a year since I last posted.  A lot has happened since then. I've participated in several exhibitions locally and internationally - several years of hardwork and dreams starting to come true. So why am I totally stressed out to the point where I don't want to or can't make any new work. 
It's complicated.  but it's to do with people's expectations.  And not just any people.  Gallerists.  They contact you because they've seen your work somewhere and they like it.   And they want some for their gallery.  OK.  So suddenly you sit down with a piece of blank paper and instead of allowing the thoughts to flow you have this person looking over your shoulder (figuratively speaking) and all you're thinking is "will they like this".  Every mark you make is done with someone else's response in mind.  It becomes almost impossible to get to that point when you lose control and the work takes on a life of its own.  The problem is, I 'm really battling to get past it.

I've recently started to make some small prints trying not to think of a gallery or gallerist's response.  The image above is titled Tots and Tiaras.  I've been inspired by the awful programme on toddler beauty pageants in which parents, particularly mothers, mess their little girls up by turning them into little fakes in the name of "beauty".  It is repulsive.  I've used a photo of myself as a toddler as a basis for this etching which portrays childhood innocence and then messed it up by hand colouring.  Think the crown was a bit of overkill though!  Hopefully this might just be the start of something interesting.

One thing's for certain; I'm making sure that I do it for me alone and any ghostly gallerists are banished until the work is done until I am happy with the outcome.  then, if they like it........   

Colleen Ross Website

My new website is online.  You'll find it at www.colleenross.co.za or please take a peek at it here and give me feedback.  I'd really appreciate hearing from you.  Things like ease of use, download times etc.  Anything that confuses or annoys you I'd like to know about so that I can sort it out.
You'll notice that it has a blog page of it's own and it's possible that eventually this blog will fall away but I haven't decided yet.
It also has a contact me/ add me to your mailing list link so if you;re interested in knowing about future exhibitions please make use of this to send me your contact details.
Hope to hear from you.