Revisiting the Creative Desert and Artistic Isolation
Back in 2018 when I had just moved to Arizona I hadn't realized how isolated I would be as an artist and wrote a post about it . Here I am 6 years later and nothing has changed. Having to pull from within yourself creative ideas without the distractions and constant validation or feedback of an art community and friends is definitely a challenge. I wasn’t even sure I could continue to be creative, which I now know was an unfounded fear. I’ve come to value the isolation as it gives me, as artist Anna Farley says; “ an opportunity to distil what concerns me and what I want to make and do” I have been directed towards more illustrative work with black and white folk art style. Collecting Bluebells in the Forest I seem to use these whimsical drawings as a vehicle to share stories with my grandchildren. One day when I was 6 I wandered into a copse of trees in the small mining village we lived in the North of England called, Hetton-le-Hole, and before me was a carpet of bluebell