SHOW & TELL

This page aims to reflect on and explore the process of making artwork and what has to be considered when showing and telling about creative experiences. Exhibiting in a gallery or presenting at a conference are 'big' processes practically and emotionally. Yet making art or talking about it in a smaller or less formal setting is also a 'big' process.

Insider Art are interested in what motivates us to make? Why do we want to show? How does the experience of facilitating others to make and/or 'exhibit' affect the relationship with our own art making? What should we be mindful of?  Do we have to think about the people who will see our work?

Show and Tell is a space for pieces from artists whether also therapists, arts & health workers or service users. It does not require any particular academic format or style but does need to be interesting! If you'd like to Show and Tell about your process or project get in touch by email and we can discuss.

All copyright for text and images belongs to the artists. We can put you in touch with them to negotiate about use but please don’t steal work!  

On this page: SARAH GATTER (artist), MANYA McMAHON (artist); KIRK STACEY (artist);  More Show & Tell in the Archive. 

 

 


From left to right: All My Heads In One Basket, mixed ceramics; Mousehole, The Gaps, mixed media on canvas; There’s Always One, Ceramic on mirror                             
    
 
From The Inside Out: By Sarah Gatter.
 
I am a mixed media artist living and working in Cornwall. Although inspired (at times) by the Cornish landscape it is my internal landscape that really motivates my art making.
 
My art practice is rooted in exploring and experiencing processes using mixed media through which I experiment with tools, materials and techniques creating a spectrum of finished art work. I enjoy 2D painting episodically as well as collage and printmaking, often followed by an intrigue and urgency to work in 3D. I no longer attempt to specialise my art, feeling that the excitement of eclectic mixed media processes is my creative calling.
 
My current work is a result of exploring the divide between my physical sense of self and my spiritual sense of self which has become fundamental to my ‘being in the world’ despite not being religious.  It starts with an examination (like a medical) of my physicality-including my body and the space that I inhabit as well as my gut reactions to the world (this is mirrored in the processes I use) and how I see myself in relation to others. I am vitally aware of the lack of congruency between my physical self and my emotional self and how I chose to express this at one time in a dysfunctional daily life- such as self harming behaviours. The creative processes that enabled me to demonstrate this includes paper moulding, sanding, burning, scoring, sawing and drilling into the work, fully handling the materials and tools, controlling and manipulating them, then losing and gaining control of those processes, often walking away for a while then returning after several days to wrestle these forms into a permanent resolution. Not all of my work finds itself in a state of permanence, much is constantly evolving.
 
 
 SHame, 3D mixed media
 
From this completed 3D sculpture (SHame, 3D mixed media, 2009) I moved directly into clay work enjoying the excitement of earth, air, water and fire to further express my longing for a physical, emotional and ultimately spiritual sense of equanimity. I love the emollient nature of clay and the alchemic transformations in the kiln or smoke firing, allowing me to continue my passion for burning or scolding surfaces but in a less explicit or directly destructive way. It also allowed me to experience a more productive process of ‘giving birth’ to a series of heads from a cast made of plaster, one after another, as if I am a midwife! I became quickly fascinated by the differences in the heads although all cast from the same mould they lack a uniform identity. The heads measure approx 7cm (height) x 5cm (width).
 
Diversity, mixed ceramics.       
                                      
Emergence, mixed media print.
               
Initially I aimed to continue to experiment with a variety of clays, oxides, glazes and firings ( “All My Heads in One Basket”) However, In March 2010 I was commissioned to make a series of white porcelain heads for a psychotherapy degree presentation called ‘Configurations of The Self’.
 
The Five Of Souls, ceramic porcelain on board.            
Smoke fired head.    
Head on driftwood, ceramic & mixed media.    
 
This encouraged me to identify with a ‘spiritual experience’ in the head forms and deeply consider materials, surface, presence, poignancy, transparency and being. I decided to set up a space using candle lights and mirrors and was intrigued by its flickering ‘soulful’ and serene nature. For me these became ‘sorrowful saints’ in mourning and ‘other worldly’ maybe, but harmless. However, a friend experiencing the same scene described it as ‘malevolent’ which only added to my wonderment of this process and the politics of personal and subjective experiences.
 
Sorrowful Saints with Mirrors, ceramic & mixed media.            
Porcelain Head, ceramic & glazes.
 
 
I continue to develop these ideas using mirrors, water, glass and light and I am currently working on an installation using porcelain tiles with translucent effects.
 
It will explore the theme of the ‘invisible’ or ‘silent’ child which has manifested alongside the ‘sorrowful saints’ theme. Using white porcelain suggests to me fragility and vulnerability as well as purity. I aim to explore different surfaces, including crackle glazes and smoke firing as well as wax resist and black oxides on textured surfaces. I am also keen to explore the same themes using black porcelain.
 
The venue and exhibition date for this is yet to be arranged.
 
Letting Go, Mixed media on board
 
Art work is for sale and commissions taken.
Please contact me at sarah.gatter@yahoo.co.uk or 07837075649.
 
Sarah completed Insider Art’s Arts & Health for Participatory Visual Arts course before going on to a Post Graduate Certificate in Education in Art, Design & Creative Skills. She begins an MA in Art Histories and Theories at University College Falmouth in October 2010.
She is a self-employed Creative Practitioner and Community Arts Tutor.
Sarah Gatter 2010 

(Images left to right: Party Hat; Resurgence; Undaunted.)
These photos are rubbish: Manya McMahon
Manya McMahon has recently discovered, with delight and some amazement, that she is an artist living in Exmouth, Devon.
When I was 17 and commuting to London, I always read the Evening Standard. There was a cartoon strip in it, called Clive, about a young man who had a naughty little sister called Augusta. The edition I still remember (about 35 years later) was one where Augusta squatted down in the garden, picked something up and said: “Mummy, what’s this pretty thing?” The answer was “a worm”. So Augusta said: “Ugh!” and threw it away.
I think my fascination with rubbish stems from that childish desire to investigate and collect anything that looks ‘pretty’. It’s only knowing that it’s rubbish – putting an adult perspective on it - that makes it ugly.
Since visiting Gaudi’s stunning Parc Guell, with its striking broken-china mosaic decoration, I have also been fascinated by the artists who work with found objects and discarded materials. In the right hands, rubbish can produce a profusion of colour and pattern. A favourite is Tom Deininger (www.tomdeiningerart.com), whose astonishing constructions use everything from cigarette butts to broken dolls, creating works, often on a massive scale, which have a beauty and depth that, to me, have far more layers of meaning and impact than paintings. There is an element of ‘trompe l’oeil’ in his work – nothing is quite what it seems, and there is enormous theatricality to it too – the view from the front is very different from the one ‘in the wings’.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve met Cleo Mussi (http://www.mussimosaics.co.uk), a mosaic artist who recycles china, crockery and tiles in her humorous figures and sculptures, combining a sense of history and place with the unreality of dreams.  I have experimented myself with mosaics and collages of found objects – from beach glass, pebbles and broken china to soft drink cans and sweet wrappers – and I continue to explore these ways of finding the beauty in rubbish.
I take very opportunistic photos. My compact, idiot-proof Olympus FE-210 camera (and occasionally my mobile phone!) allows me to do this, focussing and exposing automatically while I concentrate on recording exactly what it is that has attracted my childish delight. I don’t spend a lot of time on composition, preferring to take large numbers of shots and ‘pruning’ the collection afterwards – especially since my camera’s LCD screen (there is no viewfinder) is difficult to see in bright sunlight, and I have to use a certain amount of guesswork in composing some shots. I rarely crop my photos, but try to frame them as I want them at the time.
It’s amazing what can be found in gutters, between paving stones, in the cracks of a wall or amongst the rocks on a beach. Bright colours, seductive shapes, bizarre and compelling juxtapositions - the deep pink of a burst balloon has a jewel-like depth and vibrancy; the curves of lost laces and ribbons so often appear deliberately placed in their pretty rain-soaked spirals; a leaf-shaped crisp packet sits snugly in a leafy shrub like a variegated aberration.
But I can’t deny that when I look at this rubbish from the perspective of an informed, responsible and sensitive adult, I feel a certain guilt in finding beauty in things that are, indisputably, environmentally toxic.
This is a paradox that reflects many of the issues that affect my day-to-day life; there is a constant tension between the childish “I want” and the adult “I should”. Looking at things from two different perspectives at the same time can be stressful, but also creatively informative.
Broken china and glass, junk mail and packaging are things that attract children – who are inevitably warned off them by adults, because they’re dirty, dangerous or inappropriate toys. By viewing this rubbish from a different perspective, and making something which has beauty and meaning for me, I am going some way to addressing the always-present paradoxes in my life.
It has been pointed out to me that the final verse of Leonard Cohen’s song Democracy expresses much of what I feel about my images:
I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean
I love the country but I can't stand the scene.
And I'm neither left or right
I'm just staying home tonight,
getting lost in that hopeless little screen.
But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags
that Time cannot decay,
I'm junk but I'm still holding up
this little wild bouquet:
Democracy is coming to the USA
My images imply stories of loss, disappointment and, occasionally, hope. But perhaps you will interpret them differently.
1.       The party’s over.
 The party's over: 1
 The party's over: 2
 The party's over: 3
I live in a town, so detritus from nights out and celebrations is a common discovery when I’m out with the camera. These three images tell stories of fun, dancing, singing, drinking and laughing – and the inevitable morning after. They express my constant awareness, as a lifelong pessimist, that ‘in the midst of life is death’.
2.       Not what it seems.
 Overblown
 Variegated ivy
 Urban mollusc
With a trick of the light, or just the right angle, bits of rubbish can mimic all sorts of things. I love the moment when I do a ‘double-take’ and realise that the flower, leaf or shell I’m walking past is actually not at all what it seems. One step further, and the illusion vanishes.
3.       Sad tales.
 Toy boy
 Feeling flat
 A small tragedy
A piece of litter can trigger an entire short story, as I imagine the turn of events that led to its accidental and possibly tragic loss. The ice cream cone, for example, might have been dropped by a small child startled by a squirrel in the park. Or it could have been flung by a furious teenager whose ‘friends’ were taunting her about her weight. Or perhaps it was a rejected peace offering after a bitter argument.
4.       Serendipity.
 Dove of peace
 No more junk food
 Knotted net
“The faculty of making happy and unexpected discoveries by accident” (OED.) So often, while looking for images like those I’ve described above, I find something that suggests an idea, a concept or a design. I think of these images as possible illustrations for magazine articles about the damage we are wreaking on this planet and ourselves: war in the middle east and Afghanistan, famine in Africa, global overfishing and so much more.
Manya McMahon 2009

‘Harry, me and OCD’ by Kirk Stacey, Artist & OCD sufferer
 
In 2002, I was in what I now call a relapse bubble. OCD was something I managed, it was a secret to all my friends and family, I lived a torturous life; rituals were strong and dominating. The guilt and anxiety were overpowering, it was a sort-of-life, definitely not the one I wanted to live, but it was something...

OCD stands for obsessive compulsive disorder, It is an debilitating anxiety disorder in which a person will suffer from repeated behaviours, unwanted thoughts with the idea that doing an act/ ritual will take away their anxiety.

I was a very keen artist from a young age, through school and college I loved the medium. On leaving  school I worked with my father as an Apprentice in the house maintenance field, sadly the only thing I got to paint  were walls... how boring.  No artistic licence was needed.

One day in the Summer of 2000, I sat down and decided to brainstorm two characters. I was bored so what I drew was a married couple who lived a grubby sort of existence. This was drawn off the top my head, I was never a fan of copying. I named the glum-looking duo Harry and Hilda.

(Exposure Therapy)

Over the next few years I decided to work during the week with my father, doing house maintenance and at the weekend I would relax, draw, drink, etc. To me it was a treat.  Of course, the more I enjoyed my break and artistic activities, the more my OCD would threaten me. Every Saturday I would leave home at 12 noon and go to my local stationary store to buy the materials I would need to make what I would call ‘ masterpiece’. I always had such big plans which were actually a bit unrealistic.

(This must be a Dream)

Sadly, the OCD ritual of 'making safe' came into play. By which I mean I had to have ready a good thought or image to help me secure the materials I needed to buy. At the time what I wanted to buy was white cardboard. I had to 'make safe' the card with a positive thought before I could purchase it. If OCD got there first then it would tell me, 'You can't buy it.  Bad things will happen if you buy that piece!' Negative after negative. However, I increasingly won after a struggle, but while this mini-battle was  won, the real battle was just starting...

(Cook it Babe)

Back home, I’d rip and bin a piece of cardboard. It was the same every week; two pieces of card, one ripped, because if I chose one piece and stored the other, I knew somewhere along the line my OCD would taint what I was using. So, I had to rip one piece of card into bits to force me to stick with the other. It was a mad kind of logic, but it worked and I’d win again and be able to go on. So I would have one jumbo-sized piece of card. I’d think of a Harry picture, wondering, ‘what could my duo be doing in my masterpiece this week?’ I’d think of a few ideas, but so often it would be too late, with every good idea came an OCD negative. So I’d brainstorm harder and harder for another idea and if possible I‘d quickly make it safe!

(Harry & Hilda go Shopping)

This meant I had to think good thoughts to replace bad ones,  anything that made it secure was the idea. This I remember was pure torture, I would always get angry during this process. Finally, I would settle on something and at two in the afternoon I would start to draw. Just before 8pm, I would finish the picture, or try too. Saturday night is a social night for many people, but sadly not for me. I’d finish my work and settle down for a beer and TV, the day had been hampered by OCD, but I had won! I'd drink my beer as a reward and think, ‘well done Kirk…..game over.’

(Harry's reunion)

By 2005 I was fed up with fighting, and living the OCD  life,  I wanted freedom. I did not want to have to make things safe, ritualise them or lose the great ideas I had planned.  I sort of cracked, but with the support forums and  family, I took up drawing again. As I became more confident I attempted to break rituals and risk new ways of working, I looked back at the past art work I had created. I remembered the Harry pictures which it seemed were just made to pass the time. I didn’t feel I’d had a life in that relapse bubble, I’d never even bothered to colour the pictures! It would have taken ages what with their size – they were around 23inches x 17inches.

One day I remember pulling out all the Harry pictures from my portfolio and scattering them on the floor. I started to laugh, I really began to look at and enjoy my work, but then, I felt scared. As I looked in detail, I felt the oddest feeling, it was like looking at another person's work. All that I could see was OCD and its influence; in the choice of paper; pen; pencil; idea; all of it!  And yet I could also see every picture was humorous. Was that humour really me? Was it my show of strength, my way of not letting OCD ruin or hurt what I loved?  My way of keeping OCD contained/ stopping OCD Tainting everything in my life.

(Harry's School Reunion)

So in 2008, we have a selection of reduced HARRY PICTURES FULL COLOUR who knows, maybe I'll colour the rest,  but here on the website I have picked the best.

I am now happy to present a collection of pictures from a time of my life that was such a struggle. I hope you find the Pictures Fun. No matter how hard OCD affects you, with support and some kind of personally meaningful creative habits/ work/ things to do you can win at the end of it. It’s not exactly about getting rid of OCD but about finding ways to keep it busy, divert it and filling life with more interesting, and often funny, things to do.

I recently heard a good phrase by Carl Jung, he said ‘problems are not solved, they are out grown’. I think Harry, Hilda and my art work have really helped me to outgrow my OCD.

Kirk Stacey
2008  

 
(Romance never Dies)

Greetings from Hilda Brown!
So I find out all along my loving Harry has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) it explained a great deal, his cleaning, his hoarding and the door checking. what could I do to help? It was time for a trip to see the Doctor...
SEVEN THINGS WE DID!

  1. After a full Diagnosis from the Doctor I created something to help Harry. I made him a ‘from me to you card’ it was a reminder for him not to feel guilty or bad about what OCD would make him think. The other idea was ‘post it’ notes!! He liked noting down what he had to do and to achieve. I had a friend make him a Badge too.
  2. Exposure therapy.......um........this was tricky, but they say the anxiety level that relates to a compulsion will fall after a while, Harry was not convinced but I insisted we try breaking a ritual. To keep Harry distracted I made a DVD full of memories and cooked him  bangers and mash, a distraction whilst fighting OCD is very important.
  3. Hoarding.  Harry was always an untidy person, so I insisted he sort his junk out. Old news papers and such, I suggested he start throwing away the smallest thing first, this worked! We were making progress at last! Worth a praise or two! Even with the old bike parts he used to hoard! We could sell them on ebay. 
  4. We broke his door checking ritual by just not turning back the car  on our trip out, He insisted! But I said, be calm, plus those grandsons of ours were a quite distraction too. Harry now closes the door once, and walks away. The voice inside is now becoming silent, more of whisper. 
  5. Medication time. This kept Harry in control and helped to tackle his traits. I suggested mixing them with his beer but this was not a good idea. The doctor said they were his ‘water wings’, Harry does not like swimming but I insisted we must try an outing there with the Grandchildren! 
  6. Early starts and planning was key! Motivation came first. After all, it’s very easy for me to type out a battle plan, and tell people to try it, but I must stress, developing motivation before fighting OCD works.
  7. Contamination. This was hard, as he loved that bike of his to look good, but the ‘just one clean’ RULE over time became the norm. No more cold teas for him.

It took a while but Harry really changed, he is stronger now, happier, more in control, I am amazed what self help and support can do. Of course it takes strength and confidence but this you gain on the way. It was a learning experience for me, and I am happy to pass on the positives.
All the best to you self help people!

Kirk Stacey
2008  

 For more of Kirk's work click here to link to his You Tube slide show 

  
Previous Show & Tell 'exhibits' in the Archive.
Tiffany Care: art psychotherapist
Marilyn Miller: artist and art therapist
Veronica Gosling: artist
Caroline Bruce: artist
Tati Dennehy: artist
Diana Collins: printmaker and art psychotherapist