Wow when I first looked up this chick after Sally, (my supervisors) suggestion, I was blown away! Here was an artist putting it all out there in a way I had only dreamt about doing. Raw, vulnerable and passionate, putting her whole life out to the world through her art. I thought this chick is so brave – its what I want to do! I want to express myself like this – warts and all!
I’ve previously dabbled with writing a blog as a way to talk about my life and what I’ve been through. I had often been told I should write a book about my crazy life but a book just seemed way out of my depths – I’m a visual artist – and though I write prose that’s not a book! I have a tonne of notes and musings that really intensified when my daughter got sick but there were so many other things I wanted to vent so a blog seemed like a great way of putting my thoughts down without having to be linear about it. So “Sex and the Catholic girl aka Memoirs of a slut” was born. Little did I know how many girls would contact me identifying with my experiences but little did I think that some of my family wouldn’t like it. Anyway in the end I stopped as I became too busy with other things including my painting.
Emin’s artwork “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With” is sheer brilliance. I remember my cousin and I sitting down over drinks one night back in the late 90’s making lists of all our lovers up to that point. I wish I had thought to keep them. The way Emin chose to represent the work using a tent with all the names embroidered on it is fantastic. Her work “The Bed” is also autobiographical like many of her pieces and it resonated with me deeply having spent so many days in bed in the year or 2 after my daughter died. It was my sanctuary, my office, my dining room, bar, hide out, drug den – home! The fact that Emin uses it – sees it – as omg this is me I’m going to use it, is so courageous! She uses a lot of different media to create her works and that is also something I do and definitely something I want to focus more on also. Though painting, writing and photography are my main media, I have done a few installation pieces and there is something really tangible you can evoke with installation that is harder to convey with paintings. Tracey’s work encourages me to do more and to dig deep inside my psyche.
My art has always been about my life. It’s been my therapy and catharsis through by far THE most horrendous experiences of my life – the death of my beautiful daughter Star. I have lost so many of my loved ones but this one I couldn’t reconcile with at all! Art helped me find my voice when I couldn’t find the words. I still have so much to say and I am loving this process of doing my MFA, being prodded, pushed, guided, shown – its like a beacon to me. A lighthouse guiding me home after being thrown into the depths and darkness. The lecturers, my supervisor, the other artists are all enriching me and teaching me so much that sometimes I feel my head will explode but I am just soaking it all in and letting it marinate and ferment because I know I will be so much closer to the artist I want to be at the end of it!
Creation! 