Something old...

This morning as I was deciding which paint brushes to take on holiday, I had a vague memory of a travel bag for paint brushes and watercolour tins that l purchased many, many years ago, so poor David was sent into the loft kindly offered to search the loft to see if he could find it.  And he did!  What a hero! :-))

He also found a dusty old art folder and brought that too, because he knows me so well and knows if he mentioned it and hadn't brought it he'd have been sent back up he would have ended up offering to go back up.

I removed the dust and unzipped the folder and there, smelling slightly foosty, were all my old paintings from 15 - 20 years ago.  I honestly thought they'd been thrown out / lost in our last move.  Some of these I photographed at the time so have in a computer file somewhere but there were lots that I'd completely forgotten about.  

What a trip down memory lane it was going through them as a number triggered strong memories of my location and circumstances when painting them. 

A few of them transported me to various holidays in France, with familiar countryside scenes from various holiday houses with grapevines and sunflowers featuring, some were painted at the kitchen tables of previous houses on work days off.  Memories of rushing to get finished and cleared up before Alan came home from school when the kitchen table would have to stop being an art studio and revert to its original purpose.  Remembering how difficult it was to find time to myself, (and trying not to feel guilty when I did) I am sure every mum will identify with that feeling.

But looking at them now, the thing that strikes me most is how different they are to the kind of painting that interests me today.  The cala lilies in my main blip are probably closest to what I may paint now, but the rest are so constrained and formulaic.  Safe.  

Back then life was a bit of a rollercoaster, Alan's health was up and down, we were constantly involved in advocating for his rights (I could write a book about the discrimination he faced from agencies designed to support him) and although work was good, it was intense, time consuming and at times very stressful.  Free time was not something we had a lot of and in order to function effectively, life was generally well ordered, controlled, organised with deeply set routines.  And I think this is reflected in my painting.

If someone had suggested then that I attempt an abstract landscape or just throw paint at paper to see what happens, it would have been beyond my comprehension.  Such lack of control would have been beyond me and I don't think I would have been physically able to do so.  I just could not comprehend such freedom of expression.  Actually, I expect if I had tried, it would have been my undoing and David may well have come home to a kitchen literally resembling an explosion in a paint factory!  

Seeing these paintings has made me reflect on where I currently am artistically, and has actually given me a bit of a boot up the bahookie because although I feel much more free in my painting style now, I know there's still some restraint there.  A final bit of resistance to complete freedom of expression.  Still an element of painting what I think I should paint, rather than what I really want to paint.  

Or perhaps it's just taken till now for me to work out not just what it is I want to paint, but how I want to paint it.  Perhaps what I am witnessing is development?  

Whatever it is, I am beyond thankful that I have rediscovered the joy of painting (awww thinking of the lovely Bob Ross and his happy accidents whenever I hear that phrase :-) and I am looking forward to throwing some paint at paper next week, just to see what happens.

In other news, I am almost packed :-)))

Extras - Portsoy Harbour and a hopefully self explanatory bowl of fruit.