A Slave's Work is Never Finished

The Journey of Rediscovery

Arriving at the village what struck Emily most was that it seemed unchanged, it was just as she remembered it – an idyllic stretch of coastline nestled between the cliffs and the endless horizon. The smell of wildflowers and ozone complimented the endless azure sky. There seemed to be a quietness here, people going about their daily business in an unhurried manner, almost as if it were a village that time had forgotten. It wasn’t an uncomfortable quietness, but more like the landscape was waiting for her to settle into it. She managed to rent a small cottage on the edge of the village overlooking the sea. Inside she was confronted with two main rooms a large living room/kitchen and a somewhat smaller bedroom with an attached bathroom – everything she really needed. She had brought materials with her, but had been told that if she gave the postman a list he would fetch anything she needed from the local town. She quickly set up a makeshift studio in the living room, but had decided to spend the first few days just exploring with her camera and sketchbook. She had already noted that everything felt so different here, the light  and textures all more alive and vibrant than she remembered them.

Emily decided that she would take a few days to reacquaint herself with the place, to explore, walk, notice any changes from when she was last here. It was on one of these walks/explorations that she met Marie a local potter working out of a small studio in the village square. She was slightly older, in her fifties, with weathered hands and a calm grounded presence. Over a few days they struck up an easy friendship, and very quickly Emily found herself spending afternoons in Marie’s studio watching as her hands transformed clay into delicate simple forms. There was definitely something mediative about the process, and also about watching the process. Something about the way in which Marie’s hands were in sync with the spinning wheel, how they shaped the clay in an unforced manner without overthinking it.

They talked a lot about their own creativity, Emily explaining how she had seemed to lose direction, and had come here to break out of the familiar environment that appeared to be stifling her.
‘You’ve forgotten how to let go.’ Marie said one day as they sat beside the kiln ‘Art isn’t about control, it’s about discovery. Sometimes you just have to get your hands dirty.’
Emily took these words to heart, they seemed to make sense with her own present thoughts. Back in her cottage she allowed the evenings for experimentation. She gave herself permission to play with different mediums, watercolours, charcoal, photography, even sculpture drawing inspiration from the shapes and textures around her. She found herself beginning to draw inspiration from the waves crashing against the cliffs, the ever changing colours of sunrise and sunset, the twisting branches of olive trees. At first it all felt clumsy and awkward, but she kept at it pushing herself to abandon that need for perfection. It was in these quiet moments that she began to feel a small spark of what she was seeking, small, flickering, but unmistakeable. That joy of creating was returning, not as a finished product – yet – but as a process, messy and unpredictable, very like the waves she watched from her window every evening. For the first time in many years Emily was creating, not for an audience but for herself. The village with its timeless beauty, its slower pace of life became the sanctuary that Emily’s studio had once been. While she still hadn’t yet discovered a clear direction something inside her was shifting. She could feel something new taking root, something fragile but real. For the first time in what seemed like forever she was ready to follow it wherever it might lead her.

***

Every morning began with a silence that Emily was quite familiar with from her studio back in Cornwall, the sounds of waves breaking, the calls of birds soaring above the cliffs. She would wake early, not because she had to but because the stunning sunrises where simply too beautiful to sleep through, the washes of pinks, golds and blues stretched across the sky. She loved to stand at the window with a coffee watching as the light transformed the sea into a shimmering canvas painted with the reflected colours of the sky. Emily was quickly coming to the conclusion that it was impossible not to be inspired in a place like this. The space of the cottage that she had turned into a makeshift studio had quickly become a refuge. The walls were bare except for a few sketches she had taped to them – quick studies of shadows in the olive groves, of the ever changing coastline, and the shapes of pottery in Marie’s studio. A blank canvas stood in the corner, leaning there against the wall, tempting, teasing, inviting her. But she wasn’t ready yet, the canvas could wait a bit longer, it could wait until she was ready to commit to something more permanent – it could wait until she knew what she wanted to say.

Emily spent her days walking the cliffs, wandering in the narrow village streets, absorbing all of the details that she would have been too busy to notice in the life she was trying to leave behind, to escape from. The oddity was that even though the village was small the world felt so much bigger here. She wondered if it were something to do with heightened senses. The ground beneath her feet was sunbaked and cracked with the sea stretching to the horizon and seemingly infinity. She found herself enthralled, even mesmerised, by the ever changing colours of the sea, colours ranging from deep greenish blues to silvery greys – colours that changed constantly with the ever changing light. The ever changing light was partially due to the clouds moving across the sky, not only changing the light but casting shadows transforming the land beneath them. It almost seemed like Mother Nature was painting, effortlessly blending colours and textures in ways that made her abstract works feel pale in comparison. This insight somewhat frightened her, while at the same time exciting her. Here the world was creating art on its own terms, free from the world of galleries, critics, and collectors. The world was showing Emily new possibilities. It had taken time but she was now coming to the conclusion that she wanted her work to mirror this kind of freedom David had been right to suggest that she ‘find a bigger world’.

One afternoon she found herself drawn to a secluded cove along the coast. The path down was narrow and difficult, but when she reached the bottom the sight that greeted her made her feel that the effort was well worth the risk. The sand was soft and unblemished, the water crystal clear, the cliffs rose high behind Emily seemingly protecting the beach from the rest of the world. She pulled a sketchbook out of her rucksack, opened it, and then spent a few minutes just observing. There was something raw about this place, something real, a beauty that could not be captured by precise lines or carefully composed shapes. She started sketching. She wasn’t thinking about what she was drawing, she was just letting her hand move independently. Her sketches were raw, unfinished, but had an energy, a sense of movement. Her hand was no longer hesitant, as it had been in the studio, her sketching was more instinctive, responding to the landscape in front of her. She sketched the curves of the cliffs, the flow of the water, the wind patterns in the sand, anything she could see. The lines were loose, chaotic, but far more alive than anything she had drawn for years. It took Emily a while to realise that she wasn’t trying to impose her will on the paper, but she was allowing the world to speak through her. She was almost unaware of the passage of time, and was surprised to find that the sun was beginning to set bathing the cove in warm golden colours. She felt something deep down inside, and realised that it was a spark that she hadn’t felt for decades now, a spark of excitement in the act of creating. Now she was beginning to see the path she was seeking, a path forward that didn’t involve the constraints of her previous work. It wasn’t totally clear yet, but it was there, like the glimpse of land through the mist.

Back in the village Emily’s evenings were spent in Marie’s studio. The two women had grown quite close as the weeks had passed. Although they worked in different mediums they shared a mutual appreciation for the creative process. Marie’s approach to her art was quiet but firm, moulding the clay with a calmness born of years of experience. There was no hesitation simply a quiet confidence of practice along with a trust in her craft.
‘Sometimes you just have to let the material guide you’ Marie said one evening ‘you can’t always control the outcome, you just have to trust that it will take the shape it is meant to.’
Emily watched captivated as Marie used her hands deftly shaping a bowl on the spinning wheel. She had always been focused on controlling her work, on making it perfect, sellable, something the critics would praise. She realised that therein lay the difference, Marie worked with the clay, not against it, letting the result come naturally. Emily knew that this was a lesson that she needed to learn. The more time she spent with Marie the more she came to know that her art had become disconnected from the physical world. She had spent far too much time in abstraction reducing everything to shape and form, she had lost touch with the tactile, that visceral experience of creation. Watching Marie she began to feel that need to reconnect with her own hands, the need to feel the material beneath her fingers, to let the process guide her.

She began working with clay herself, hesitantly at first, unsure of how she should mould the soft earthy material. He early attempts were awkward with uneven results, but she felt that there was something quite liberating about it. The clay wasn’t bothered about whether her fingers stumbled, or if the shape was imperfect, it simply took on a life of its own responding to her touch. Soon Emily began to enjoy the process of working with her hands, the feeling of creation, not as a polished end product but as something organic, something alive. One evening having spent hours working with clay and sketching she sat watching the last light of the day fade over the horizon her fingers stained with paint and clay, she was tired, but that tiredness was quite satisfying in a way. She looked around at sketches she had pinned to the wall, the small clay sculptures in the corner drying and realised that something had changed. It seemed that she had found a way through the layers of expectation, the cage of control that had imprisoned her for so long. What she was doing wasn’t for a gallery, for critics, for collectors, she was creating for herself. For the first time in years it felt enough to be creating for the simple joy of the process. That night Emily walked out onto the cliffs and sat watching the sea, the waves crashing on the rocks, the sea relentless, graceful, constantly changing and yet eternal. She pulled out her sketchbook and, for the first time since arriving in the village, began drawing the sea itself. Her lines were loose and flowing as they captured the rhythms of the water as it moved. There were no straight lines, no hard edges, just the fluid motion of nature. The sketching produced in her a surge of excitement, a joy of achievement. The sketches weren’t perfect, but they were raw, real, and hers. She wasn’t trying to fit into a box, there were no thoughts about whether, or not, they would sell, or be praised, they were purely for herself. For the first time in many years Emily felt totally free.

As the days turned into weeks Emily’s experiments grew bolder, she began mixing mediums, combining paint with the clay, using sand from the beach with paint. She began tearing pieces of fabric, incorporating them into her canvases. These experimental works were totally unlike anything she had created before, she was creating a fusion of abstraction and the natural world, a fusion full of texture and movement. She loved these works simply because they didn’t fit neatly into a category. The sea had become her muse, its ever-changing moods were reflected here in the shapes and brushstrokes of her bold experiments. There were days when the sea was calm and tranquil, on these days her works were soft and flowing. Then there were the days when the waves crashed against the cliffs violently, the days when her work became chaotic and rough full of heavy textures and sharp lines. In the unpredictability of nature she had discovered rhythms, patterns, something that exhilarated her. She came to the realisation that for the first time in years she was not afraid to make mistakes. Emily was no longer worrying about the end result, she was focused on the process, the act of creation, on seeking the path back to finding the artist she had once been again. She appreciated that the journey was far from over, but knew that she was on the right path. Now whatever art she produced, whatever her art became, it would come from a place of truth, not from the expectations of others. She was now aware that she felt ready to face anything the future held.

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