carole cluer

Art, hope and self acceptance
May 15, 2012

Self Portrait

For the last eighteen months I have been drawing portraits of people with scars. I have wanted them to be a celebration of imperfection and a counter to what sometimes gets mistaken for society, you know the magazines and films where the already surgically perfected get airbrushed into impossible proportions. There is a unique and geniune beauty about someone who has lived a life and who has come to accept what that life has made them, who accepts all the physical and emotional scars that life has drawn across their body and soul as proof of a journey taken.  I have always known that I am interested in this because of the many scars I have and how difficult I find applying this philosophy personally – I find I am always less tolerant with myself than others.

Anyway, I soon began to realise that each portrait I drew had an element of self portrait in it, I was circling around something I was too scared to execute.  All those wonderful people who agreed to let me draw them were so much braver than me.

At Christmas I drew my first self portrait, it was for my Jan assessment so when it came to having to display it I chose a dark corner in the basement of our studios and hoped no one would notice it. It made me feel physically sick to show it.  I  soon realised it was a pretty bad drawing, I was so scared of  actually looking at myself Ihad rushed it so when it came to deciding what to do for my final degree show I knew I had to redraw it – properly this time.

I have taken twice as long to draw this picture than I usually do, really focusing on each centimetre. In the next few days I have got to hang it in the gallery, that is going to be the toughest bit and I am  not sure how late I will leave it.  A scar isn’t just a mark  on your skin it is the story of a moment in your life. For me, my scar represents what I hate the most about myself, the fear that keeps me awake at night and is the thing that somehow makes me feel ashamed, I can’t quite believe I am going to stick it on a wall and let people see it – let people judge me.  I have to remind myself that it also represents what I feel most proud about myself, what I have endured and survived and the example I want to show my daughter and son.

If I feel like this it might seem weird to you that I am posting this, but I am just sitting in my study typing, alone, this is me just dipping my toe into the water, any reactions are distant and removed. Real life begins on the 1st of June when the exhibition opens.

Its not the best photo but I hope you can see it well enough,it’s a little over life sized and I have framed it with glass so that the viewer can see their reflection over the drawing

7 Comments
May 15, 2012

Degree Show Nerves

Writing a blog is still pretty new to me, I tend to write about things that have already happened, that I have had time to process. For the last few weeks the build up to my degree show has been hotting up and I have found it difficult to find the words about what I am going to show. Most of my work is pretty personal so it feels like its me not just my art being judged. Anyway, since in a weeks time I am going to be assessed on it and on the 1st of June loads of people (hopefully!) are going to come and see I thought I had better start easing myself into the fact by talking and showing it to you. I have three pieces that I am going to show – two are definite and one a maybe at the moment, as they are ready I will post them

Leave a comment
March 28, 2012

hope

I am making the artists book that I have spoken about before, I want to use cyanotypes of dandelions for the cover and end sheets and have been waiting for them to appear so I can experiment. Finally a spell of uncharacteristically warm weather has kicked nature into action and never ones to miss out, dandelions have begun to embroider the fields around my house. Its a little early for them to turn into clocks but I managed to find one on my first ‘expedition’ and I carried it carefully back in the palm of my hand. I am not sure if it was the hour long walk in the sun or seeing life bursting out around me but I felt a hell of a lot better on my way back than when I started. Life really is hope

2 Comments
March 27, 2012

When

When I was young I thought

I would live forever.

Life was permanent

and indestructible.

Age and illness would never bring

their frailty and doubt.

Time proved me wrong and

tempered its preciousness.

Now I know that like all men

I hold onto life by a golden thread.

2 Comments
March 7, 2012

Beauty – only skin deep?

A lot of my work is concerned with how our appearance affects the way we think about ourselves so I do spend time thinking about how this notion of beauty has shaped our world. Although I have never considered myself beautiful I have had to adjust my own view of myself as surgery and age has changed me, life traces the passage of time over all our bodies and if we are to remain content with ourselves we have to learn to accept those changes.

We have all grown up hearing phrases  like ‘ugly as sin’ and listening to fairy stories like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, where the hero/heroines are beautiful and the ugly are there to be punished or redeemed. In the past women have been disfigured and restricted by conventions that demanded corsets and foot binding and it is a shame that today when women in the west have more freedom than ever that so many feel it necessary to starve themselves and undergo surgery.

The trouble is beauty can now be bought, cosmetics, dyes, surgery, dieting can create a facsimile of perfection.  It is interchangeable with success, if the rich and successful are beautiful then by becoming beautiful riches and success will follow. It is used to promote and sell, it is a commodity to exploit.

It would be lovely to think that how you look doesn’t make a difference but you only have to remember back to your school days to know that the beautiful are treated differently, the groups of pretty popular teenagers to whom life seems to come so easily and the groups of awkward plain young people who have already learnt that they have more to prove in life. What is sad though is in a recent worldwide survey only 2 % of women stated they believed themselves to be beautiful.[1]

When we view the rest of the world through the filter of the airbrush then its understandable that our own image will be less perfect and as long as beauty is epitomised by the absence of imperfection then we are all doomed to fall short of that standard.

With medical advances enabling those with disabilities and deformities to live the variety of the human body is only going to widen, if we are to evolve into a happier and more content society then we need to find a way that allows beauty to encompass that variety.

We need to embrace the imperfections that life writes across our bodies. The notion of beauty fundamentally affects how we view the body, others and our own and it has been used to exclude and control but there is hope that it can become inclusive and celebratory because ultimately it is us who write the guidlines.

Here are links to a couple of interesting websites

Changing Faces is a charity that works to promote equality and acceptance for those with facial disfigurement. The whole site is interesting but try taking their face equality survey and see how accepting you are.

http://www.changingfaces.org.uk/Face-Equality/Take-the-face-equality-survey

The Face Research Lab which is has online psychology experiments that judge the facial traits people find attractive and programme for you to create your perfect/average face

http://www.facelab.org

[1] Nancy Etcoff. ‘The Real Truth about Beauty: A Global Report’, Dove White Paper, (2004)                    

<http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentarticles/52%20Beauty/dove_white_paper_final.pdf&gt; [accessed 20 March 2011]

Leave a comment
March 1, 2012

The art of trying

“You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day”

Marian Wright Edelman

Since last September I have been going to pottery classes, I think you are meant to call them ceramics classes but that doesn’t seem right somehow, after all my aim when I started was to learn to throw a pot.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to use a potter’s wheel. I am old enough to remember  the ‘interlude’ clip on the telly between programmes that showed a potter raising a vase out of clay.

At school there was a potter’s wheel that was kept safely out of harms way along with the good paint and paper that we were never allowed to use. It gained a mystic for me, something other people got to do.

As part of my work I have researched the Japanese craft of kintsugi and the tradition of tea bowls. I have been inspired by the Japanese aesthetic of Wabi Sabi ( more on that another time maybe).

Last year as part of my degree I went to a talk by Edmund de Waal, the way he talked about his work was inspiring and it gave me the final push, after all I had changed my career and life, surely now I could learn to throw a pot.

You see that’s what is scary about dreams, even small ones. If you don’t ever try to realise them they remain safe. Whilst I had never tried to make a pot I could always imagine that if I did I would be brilliant, people would stand around amazed at my natural genius, by trying I was also risking failure.

Now you don’t often get the opportunity at 48 to try something completely new and I seem to be making a career out of it so I set off to find my pottery class.

It didn’t take me long to find Penny Withers at an open studio, she is a brilliant ceramic artist who has turned out to be a very patient and encouraging teacher.

Her classes have reminded me of the pleasure of learning a skill and are filled with others who create art just for the joy of it. That’s something that is easy to forget when you are coming to the end of your degree and are overwhelmed by deadlines and assessments.

At first when asked what I wanted to try I vaguely said I didn’t mind, whilst eyeing the row of wheels in the corner. It took me four weeks to summon up the courage to try  and unfortunately no one stood around in awe of my god given ability – it was difficult! What Penny made look like effortless poetry was a stressful and strength sapping wrestle with this solid lump of immovable clay.

But, and this is where I get to the trying part, I didn’t give up.

Most of my efforts didn’t make it off the wheel, except to be scraped back into the recycle bin. When after what seemed like dozens of attempts I raised a very wobbly and lumpen bowl from the clay the relief was immense. Yes relief, the fear of complete failure had haunted me, I didn’t want to be bad, I might never be good but please just don’t make me bad.

Any pot that had managed to stagger into life, however poor a creation, was fired and glazed, I wanted to chart my progress. Each pot makes me smile, I use them for soup and cereal and as the tea bowls I initially set out to create. They are far from perfect, but their imperfections make them sweeter to me, they remind me that imperfection brings with it its own beauty.

I may never manage to throw my perfect tea bowl but I will keep on trying.

Penny’s website http://www.freeformceramics.co.uk/

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Leave a comment
February 26, 2012

New work

I recently completed  my first public work. It was a live art drawing which sounds quite dramatic but actually it was quiet and unassuming.

A few months ago I had one of those ideas that just keep going around and around in your head.

I had seen an article about the numbers of people who had been diagnosed with a type of cancer the year before and it made me think that somewhere there were statistics that contained me. You tend to forget that when you read about mass numbers that each one is an individual.

So I sent off a few emails and the kind people at Cancer Research uk supplied my with the data.

In 2004 45704 people were diagnosed with breast cancer, that included 9 men.

Think of it, 45704 families affected

I was already interested in the tattoos that you get when you have radiotherapy, I had been researching the work of American book artist Martha A Hall who created a book called tattoo. I had also been looking on forums and people really seemed to hate those tiny tattoos, I know it might seem such a tiny thing to worry about when you are fighting cancer but it does feel like you are being permanently branded.

A member of a club you never wanted to join.

Also the process of radiotherapy is pretty dehumanising, before you start you have a session where you are measured, you are left alone in a darkened room, wedged in by heavy cushions to immobilise you whilst laser lines are beamed across your body. The staff were great but you do feel alone and frightened.

Anway I decided I wanted to use the tiny blue/black dot you are tattooed with to symbolise each person.

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to create my work in the Cantor building of Sheffield Hallam University, if anyone is interested its on the second floor.

I marked a cm grid using the traditional art of goldpoint, you actually drag a fine gold wire across the surface to deposit a tiny amount of gold. The line looks very ordinary, a bit like graphite pencil.

Like life its preciousness is easy to overlook.

The grid measured a little under 3 metres by 2 metres and took 30 hours. Next I placed a tiny dot of blue/black ink at each intersection until I had done 45704, one for each person diagnosed.

Initially it was difficult to see the lines but as the number of dots increased it gained form, it’s still delicate and lace like and perhaps easy to overlook but its also, I think, quite powerful. The number of dots is quite overwhelming, they seem much bigger than a number.

Having never worked in public before I was pretty scared but actually that was the best bit. The students and staff (none of whom were artists) that walked by were interested and took time to chat. They understood that the endeavour and labour was integral to the work, that its delicacy was given weight by the investment of time. Their reactions were better than I could have hoped for.

Lots of my fellow students came over to support me which was lovely.

The work took me about 46 hours to complete and is awaiting a permanent label, it wasn’t easy as because of my treatment I find it painful to hold my arm up for any length of time, but it was definitely worth it.

I am now working on an artists book based on the same subject and would love to take the work to other locations.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

2 Comments
February 20, 2012

The solace of objects

“It seems that the soul… loses itself in itself when shaken and disturbed unless given something to grasp on to; and so we must always provide it with an object to butt up against and to act upon.” Michel de Montaigne, ‘Essais’, 1580

I recently visited The Wellcome Collection in London to see the exhibition ‘Charmed Life: The solace of objects’, it was the result of the artist Felicity Powell’s engagement with a collection of 1400 amulets, gathered by Edwardian Edward Lovett.

Felicity Powell – Charmed Life: The solace of objects – Wellcome Collection.

The cabinets were full of strange found and created objects believed by their owners to protect them or those they loved, some were beautifully carved as if the endeavour and skill heightened their power.

This connects closely with my own work  (see Art as Talisman page) and my interest in how we use objects or routines to comfort and reassure us and how we can use art, our own art, to help us cope with life.

I think this is particularly true in times of difficulty when we are unable to control our world, our vulnerability and fragility can become overwhelming, and if we aren’t able to gain reassurance through science or logic then we turn to more ephemeral sources of comfort.

In the past when medicine couldn’t see your child safely to their fifth birthday  parents would give them red coral to signify long life or blue beads to protect from bronchitis.

Even today most of us will own an object whose importance is far greater than its intrinsic value. A lucky mug or our grandmother’s left over knitting, or perhaps it’s the blackbird you see each morning that makes you feel well with the world. When we encounter problems and feel cut loose in a sea of uncertainty those objects can become even more important.

For me, the weeds that I saw quietly and yet determinedly growing amongst rubble or through frozen earth gave me my own determination. Now I am attuned to them and I watch for their appearance in my life. I am not giving them supernatural powers but just allowing them to reassure, they have become a small part of my own private scaffolding that supports me.

Even Edward Lovett who collected these objects through a purely anthropological interest and was dismissive of their powers when faced with his youngest son going to the front in The Great War tied a talisman around his neck to protect him.

When despair threatens we are programmed to protect ourselves with hope.

Leave a comment
February 19, 2012

How old is too old?

Last week I sat through a four day conference designed to help us plan our future. I try to be a pretty positive person but as the week progressed I began to despair. Out of the nine or so speakers eight of them repeatedly spoke of our USP – our youth, that is what we had to offer our future employers, its what gave us time to travel, work in Tesco or go on the dole (yes that was a career choice) whilst we built up our art career.

That’s great but I am a mature student, I wasn’t hard to spot as I was sitting on the front row with three other mature students – when you get to my age you have to sit on the front row due to failing sight and hearing.

How old am I? Forty eight (okay I admit it I’m nearly forty nine), now I realise at this point some of you have made a sharp intake of breath but there may be others who have managed to stagger from their recliner chair that think I could have a few good years left.

On line opportunities seem full of young artist groups and competitions for new artists under thirty five. Why should new artist mean young artist? Surely its self limiting  there may be less of us but don’t we deserve a go?

I have to say now that the staff and students at my uni have never been other than supportive. My peers who are in the main in their very early twenties have always treated me as an equal, encouraged and helped me.

I think I have a lot to offer, hopefully I can show you when I have figured out how to upload my images with a watermark. I know I have my own limitations, some of which are age related, but they are mine for me to overcome, I don’t need others putting limitations on me.

Now I am off to organize my Turner Prize submission – you have to be under fifty to be nominated.

Leave a comment
February 17, 2012

Hello world!

I am a final year art student, studying at Sheffield Hallam. I am in the process of creating my WordPress blog, I am pretty slow so don’t hold your breath but once I am up and running I hope to talk about preparing for my final degree show, my art and interests

 

1 Comment