Call yourself an artist
Beverley Saville • 9 July 2020
When do you get to call yourself an artist ?
I have been painting, making and teaching art most of my life , I cannot remember a time when this was not so, its at the heart of who I feel I am and how I experience the world. Despite this I have never felt comfortable calling myself an artist , putting it in the title of my website made me squirm . The word hangs around me but never finds comfortable , easy expression . Even thinking it I can hear an echo of "ooo get you ". That northern upbringing which is quick to hunt for signs that you are getting above yourself comes hurtling in and slaps down any signs of pretentious behaviour. The need to justify the use of the word artist has stalked me.... to be an artist you must be in galleries..... people must bestow the name upon you , it is not something you have the right to call yourself...... and so it goes on .
And yet I have a deep desire to make things and to respond to the world with paint and wool and thread and a miscellany of other things. This is at the core of how I exist in the world. So I want to claim the word artist and be bold and call myself one because its not about selling work or the perceptions and judgements of others. So here I am on a journey , I have dared to think of myself as an artist , I have called myself an artist in print, I have made a tentative case stating why I want to claim to be one. So next time that fateful question " So what do you do ?" comes my way will I answer "Oh I am an artist " Will I heck !
There is one word I pepper descriptions of my work with more than any other, "original" . In marketing and promoting work artists are encouraged to emphasize it's originality and uniqueness , but I have been feeling increasingly unsure about this. Yes my work is created by me, yes it comes from my heart, my experiences and my skills, but it is part of a huge unbroken tradition spanning back thousands of years. Every aspiring artist stands on the shoulders of others, they have revealed the possibilities of expression through art, they have explored the forms those ideas can take and developed the techniques and and materials needed. I have been thinking about the artists who have inspired and influenced me, and this is the first of my blog musings on the subject. As a teenager I began walking in the hills of The Lake District and I fell in love with the spectacular beauty of the landscape. I had already begun painting and sketching and soon wanted to paint the wonderful experiences I was having. At the time I worked in a library and I used to browse the guide books and walking guides planning my next adventure, It was in this section I found W. Heaton Coopers "The Tarns of Lakeland". I didn't realise at first that W. Heaton Cooper was an artist as well as a mountaineer. As I leafed through the book I was captivated by the illustrations. Simple sketches and beautiful watercolours of the Lakeland Tarns, some I had visited and many I had not , and a few I haven't been to 40 years later ! For the first time I was seeing paintings which had really captured my own experience of Lakeland. I looked at his painting of Sprinkling Crag Tarn , and I was stood on the shores with him. I felt his paintings were about place and his experience of being in that place and I knew this was what I wanted to achieve in my own work. William Heaton Cooper painted places you have to walk to, he painted in all the seasons and at all times of day, but most of all his love for the landscape shines through. He was a huge source of inspiration for me, and set me on a path I am still on , giving me some guiding principles I have used for over forty years. I can't paint like him , and although I love his work I don.t want to. What I took from his work was that I should paint what I love , I should seek the landscapes which move and inspire me, and should try to convey those experiences in my work . William Heaton Coopers "The Tarns of Lakeland" gave me the confidence to paint what I see and experience, it helped me to realise I didn't have to be clever or quirky, I just had to be honest. This principle has guided my work ever since. If you want to see W Heaton Coopers work there is a lovely gallery in Grasmere , and if it inspires you too it also has a fantastic art supply shop.
Lay a thin even layer of wool roving on a bamboo mat . The bamboo mat is best on a towel or a waterproof surface. I use a large container lid . All the roving should be facing in the same direction . Here I am using Herdwick roving which is hard wearing . Next lay a second layer of roving at right angles to the first layer. You can see where I have made a start in the top right hand corner.