I have made mention previously of the book ‘The Artist Way‘ by Julia Cameron and one of the things she suggests is to make the time for a regular ‘artist date’.
The premise as I understood it is that the artist date should be seen as a regular opportunity to explore things that interests or inspires you. It need not be overly artistic but should fire up the imagination and encourage play so as to replenish the creative well.
Instead of a weekly ‘artist date‘, I try to book in an entire ‘artist day‘ every six weeks where I take the day off of work to visit galleries, peruse book shops and art supply stores, take trips to inspiring places and take photos of things I find interesting for reference later on, and usually wind the day up by spending an hour or so at the local watering hole with my notebook, sketchbook and a couple of pints of dark ale, just spit-balling about ideas that may have come to me, and plans going forward.
I generally come to the end of the day feeling refreshed, inspired and ready to take action.
Last Friday I had just such a day.
After dropping my daughter off at school for the last day of the term, I made my way into the city (via a nice little suburban art supply store I’ve been meaning to check out) to visit the Art Gallery of South Australia for retrospective exhibitions of two South Australian Artists – Dorrit Black (1891-1951) and Mortimer Menpes (1855-1938).
From the Art Gallery of South Australia website:
- The World of Mortimer Menpes: painter, etcher, raconteur , curated by Julie Robinson, includes his work in all media – paintings, prints, drawings and ceramics. The exhibition will be the first museum retrospective of Menpes’s work.
- Dorrit Black: unseen forces , curated by Tracey Lock-Weir, includes all aspects of Black’s work – oil paintings, watercolours, drawings, textiles and her dynamic linocut prints. It will highlight her as one of Australia’s foremost modernist artists and teachers, who significantly contributed to the acceptance of modernism in Australia.
I was heading in mainly to see the Mortimer Menpes, but found the works of Dorrit Black resonated with me much more. I found her painting of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as it was being constructed particularly interesting, especially on reading the association between not just the physical bridge depicted in the painting, but also the implied bridge that Dorrit sought to build between the modernist and cubist art movements she was exposed to in London and Paris and Australia’s traditionalist art style of the time. Fantastic work by both artists and was definitely well worth the visit.
After some lunch I check out a few book shops, picked up some storage boxes and a frame, dropped into another art store where I treated myself to a new easel. Then it was back up the hill to the local for some light refreshments and some time to contemplate, record ideas and generally relax, before heading home to the family for Friday movie night.
All in all a very successful day and feeling refreshed and inspired.
Now, back to work.
