Members' Blog

During lockdown last year, I took part in a great scheme created by artist Tom Croft, to boost the morale of NHS workers. I wanted to share a blog post that I wrote during this time. I feel it is still relevant today to remember NHS workers and to give them a nod or clap of thanks and also it will introduce you to my portrait painting which I love to do.
Tom Croft painted a portrait for the first NHS worker who contacted him. The scheme has now grown arms and legs with thousands of artists all over the United Kingdom taking part. I posted a simple message on my social media asking for the first NHS worker to get in touch if they wanted a free portrait. Needless to say, it did not take long for a response before I was matched with a wonderful woman from Edinburgh. I was secretly hoping for someone with an inspiring story as it always makes me enjoy painting the portrait even more when I can connect with the sitter, rather than just painting a likeness. I was not dissapointed.
Meet Claire Gray, a mum of 3 wonderful children, all under the age of 10, one son who is autistic and 2 daughters. She has recently separated from her husband and works 3 days a week as an Occupational Therapist. She is a team leader for the occupational therapist community mental health team at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. I know what you are thinking already! What a woman! and how does she manage to do all that while looking after 3 kids? I had the same reaction. Claire was nominated by her very good friend who felt she needed some encouragement and morale boosting and I was happy to try and provide that.
We met via what’s app and chatted freely for a while, so that I can get to know her a bit and observe how she looks and the way her face moves. I tried to do the latter part without being too obvious but I think Claire was on to me. We chatted about her work and her home life, which fascinated me. As I have said she is an Occupational Therapist and leads the community mental health team in Edinburgh. This involves visiting people’s homes and helping them live effectively and as independently as possible, with their diagnosis. Most of Claire’s patients are elderly, live on their own and have dementia. Claire and her team also help adults with other mental health diagnosis like schizophrenia and depression. As you can imagine, a patient with dementia, on lockdown, with social distancing and not being allowed out as freely as once before, can prove a very difficult task. Claire said that by putting up simple notes with instructions can help ensure they stay safe. A major part of Claire’s job is assessing how memory loss has affected the patients day to day activities, such as making a cup of tea, writing, cooking and their ability to remember appointments. Claire will often have the patient make her a cup of tea to see how well they do. I thought this would be a great idea for the painting. Claire having a simple cup of tea, it shows the social aspect of Claire’s job while also showing one of the major tasks she helps her patient perform. Sadly during lockdown she can no longer sit down and have a cup of tea and chat away to her patients. I showed this by painting Claire wearing protective gloves symbolising the barrier between her and her patients.
Claire’s job has changed a lot during lockdown. She has to ask patients to wait for her while she changes into her protective apron and gloves and this can be confusing for the them. Dementia patients often have large calendars and many post it notes to remind them of tasks. Claire can provide them with special calendars made specifically for dementia patients. I thought it would be great to add a calendar into the background as to me they symbolise every day life. It contains memories and helps us remember future events. It is a vital piece of kit for her patients. Adding the moto, “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” also adds a reminder and signifies the times we are in. If you look closely you will see a tiny forget me not ,which is the logo for Dementia awareness charity . I thought that would add a nice wee touch.
I chatted to Claire yersteday evening and showed her the painting and I am glad to say she was thrilled with it and I quote, “ oh my word, I absolutely love it. The calendar is genius and the detail on the gloves, my hair. Honestly really really love it. I’m a bit speechless and teary actually! In a good way.”
I couldn’t ask for a better reaction. I think I can safely say that her morale has been boosted.

Good evening! I thought I would start my blog take over with a wee background story to who I am and why I create. My name is Jaclyn Stuart and I am an artist living in a tiny village called Brunton. I have been creating art ever since I can remember, always making something in my bedroom as a kid ( my mum would say “making a mess”) or finding my Dads tools, soldering pieces of metal together or trying to make a bird table. I have always had a creative inquisitiveness and this led me to apply to Grays school of art in Aberdeen, where in 2000 I completed a BA Honours in Fine Art. What does one do with an art degree? No one really tells you and so I have made my own way along the creative road as the years have gone on. When we left Aberdeen to move to Fife, I went to work in Further education as a lecturer in Art and Design. I worked at Elmwood and Adam Smith college helping students create portfolios to enter into art school. A familiar path, that I had once taken.
When I became pregnant I resigned from Adam Smith and focused on Elmwood as it was closer to home. Sadly in 2011, Elmwood college decided to close the art department and my colleagues and I were made redundant. Always the creative, I put my thinking cap on and started my own teaching business in St Andrews, developing courses based on the NC and HNC that I taught at Elmwood. I called it Eden Art. It is now in its 10th year and still going strong. I feel very blessed. My other colleagues from Elwood also started their own ventures, all of which have been successful. So it definitely helps to be a creative thinker and creatively think your way out of unemployment. Since leaving art school I have had a steady stream of people who have enjoyed my own artwork and have bought pieces to have in their homes. It is the best feeling when someone else appreciates your artwork other than yourself. I love to create art with a spiritual edge to it. I think art can help to connect our everyday world with the divine, unseen world and help us experience something greater than ourselves. So I love to explore topics such as meaning, identity, purpose and the fragility of life using colour, atmosphere and symbols to communicate these thoughts. I would love to see you all at my studio in October and get to know you too. You can see my artwork up close and I may even have some hot chocolate for you all.
I look forward to seeing you all at my Studio in Brunton, Fife on October 23rd and 24th.

Over lockdown I spent a lot of time doing courses online. It was a way for me to get to grips with new technology as a participant and become comfortable with it as I had to use it in my work as an Art Therapist. I also had access to courses which I wouldn't have been able to do normally. As a result my work has changed and I've become more confidant about showing my work online.

My work has always focused on the process rather than the outcome. I enjoy pushing the boundaries and challenging myself with different experiences. Over the last 18 months being outside in nature has been very important to me as it has for many people. This has influenced my fabric work and I love working outside when I can.
I use natural colours from foraged plants or my tiny garden to dye threads and fleece as well as recycled and found fabrics. Mindful stitching has become a big part of my work and a way to help me unwind (no pun intended!) and re-centre myself.
As always felt-making has been a big part of the work I do but I use fleece as a 'glue' to bond other fabrics and to change the texture of the fibres so that the experience of touching them can be surprising.

As I experiment a lot I end up with many pieces in different stages. These are stored and then found again (often when I'm looking for something else!) and often become part of something; a bigger piece, creating a collage of textures and colour. I am less precious about cutting things up, re-arranging them and incorporating fabrics which have a history to make a new story with them.

I make botanical inks to play with on paper in a more free form way with water and other liquids. I like that I have to work more slowly, building up layers after leaving them to dry or using wet cyanotype on top. Sometimes I use this technique on fabric which then is applied to a background or felted to change the pattern again.
Found patterns and textures in nature are photographed through all the seasons and even damp stains on fabric make interesting patterns when I discovered a leak!

My name is Moyra Stewart and I’ve been exhibiting at Open Studios for ten years now. I work in clay using a process called Naked Raku which is an unusual and demanding process. It’s always nice to talk to people directly about my work and explain that process, but I find it much more exciting to have visitors in my own working environment : I can show my recent experiments and talk about new work in a way that is very different from doing fairs or exhibitions, somehow it’s a much more personal encounter. I also do demonstrations when the weather is good and for so many people, actually witnessing a raku firing really helps them understand what is involved. You can find out more about it and watch the videos on my website : moyrastewartsculptor.com or see what I’m up to by following me on Instagram @moyrastewartsculptor
I have worked in clay for more than 45 years : it soothes my soul. In the human world where I have always felt like an outsider, my relationship with Nature is where I feel truly at home. Throughout my life I have found solace and comfort in wild places, retreating to forests, mountains, and beaches when daily life becomes overwhelming. After many years of living in cities I now live in rural Fife, I look out at The Lomonds : an ancient volcanic plug beautifully eroded over millennia, I walk daily in Pitmedden forest five minutes away, we have stunning beaches within a half hour drive, and the amazing Tay river estuary is close by, every day I count my blessings.
In response to the challenges of life I make things that echo this natural world that teaches me so much and where I find peace. I want my work to feel as though it too could be part of nature, springing from the ground or as old as the hills. So I work organically using my hands and the simplest of tools, I deliberately do not make perfectly round things, preferring mostly oval shapes that are not perfectly symmetrical……….

Hi!

I am an artist and art teacher who lives and works in Foodieash, near Cupar in NE Fife. I left my secondary school post two years ago, and started teaching adult classes and workshops, but that has been very quiet since the you-know-what! I also run an arty Airbnb in Freuchie.

I paint portraits, many of family, pupils (when I was still teaching in school) and commissions. I love drawing and painting faces and figures and have been doing it since I was very small. I also love being creative with ideas and stories, and building up moods and mysteries - often the ideas are a mystery to me too, which I love, and I gradually realise much later what it was all about!

Paintings I had been working on for years centred around a web of stories about girls being invaded by wasps and wasps' nests, inspired by a bird box in our garden being taken over by one - I had a real fascination with it as it poked out of the hole and gradually spread around the entrance each day - it all felt like a message, especially when one day in the garden a wasp landed on a headline in my newspaper - 'he was special' - right on the 'was sp' section! It seemed like a message and it kindly waited while I ran to get my camera.

I also had a fascination with sugar and sleep and wasps, which all tied up poetically in my mind - later I realised that the sugar and sleep resonated because of my diabetes, and the wasps nests because of the cellular structure invading the girl's bodies - like my condition Lipoedema, where fat cells grow and invade many parts of women's bodies, fuelled by oestrogen - it all made sense.

I started wondering whether my art should be less fairytale and more real - and so for the last few years I have painted self-portraits, trying to be brave and show the truth of Lipoedema, and trying to find some beauty in it's depiction in paint. I still want quirky touches, so a self-portrait of me with blue ribbons around my apronectomy scar line represents the blue stitches of that surgery.

I have pushed myself to go beyond 'pretty' pictures, so have some very gritty images of things that went wrong after that surgery, as well as others showing my body naked, sagging, stretched, pulled and swollen - and plan to make a group portrait of other women with the same conditions.

I love art and art materials, pencils, chalks, inks and oil and acrylic paints, and have also dabbled with print and mixed-media - I think of myself as quite an abstract artist when I get down to the nitty gritty - colours and textures and paint form a different world up close. I am still as excited about making art as I was when I was a wee girl drawing with my sister Roo. From my grandparents, my mother, artist Elizabeth Shepherd RSA, who met my father Robin McKidd at art college, to my artistic and musical children, it runs in the blood.

I have lots of exciting creative possibilities in my mind for the future, and I am very pleased to have more time to be able to try and realise them - and look forward to more mysteries and surprises along the way.

Hi, I’m Jenni Gudgeon, and I’m a photographic artist who creates pictures by etching (scraping) designs into the top layers of my photographs. There is no ink or paint used in my pictures, because all the colours lie underneath the surface in the layers of photographic emulsion. You can see a video, and learn more at https://jennigudgeon.co.uk/?page_id=466

I’ve been a member of Open Studios North Fife since the first event in 2007and am now very privileged to be chair of the committee of this amazing event.

Open studios is also responsible for my career taking a very unexpected turn in 2013, when I exhibited a couple of mythical creatures etched into old photos taken on Falkland Estate. While etching them, I made up silly stories about the creatures and mentioned these to visitors. Many people told me that these would make a great book, but I said it wouldn’t happen because I couldn’t write for toffee. One person told me sternly that I could do anything.

Three days later I awoke with the first line in my head and realised with horror that I was writing a book!

After many fits and starts and a huge learning curve, Folkland Fables was published in 2018 about the mythical creatures who live in Falkland Woods. (Folkland is the ancient name for Falkland and literally means the land of the fairy folk.)

Right now, I’m working on my second book about the creatures who live off the coast of Scotland. The last picture I etched was a boobrie. A hilariously named creature whose name never fails to bring a smile to my face (I have an eight year old’s sense of humour.) Boobries can turn themselves into bulls or horses, but for some reason are mostly seen as gigantic, cormorant-like birds, with a 17 inch beak and 3 foot long neck like a heron.

The first book I remember reading was about an elephant trying his hardest to look after a tiny world no one else believed in. This has given me a lifelong fascination with the idea of worlds within worlds, and my art reveals these hidden communities that lie just out of sight.
By etching into photographs, I like to think I combine the everyday world, as picked up by my camera, with the fantastical world of the human imagination.

I have no such thing as a typical day because my work revolves around three very different skills (photography, writing, and drawing/etching). I do whichever is necessary on that particular day and love each one, so would hate to have to give up any one of them. Each process reflects a different part of my personality.

When I started etching into photographs, I instantly knew that this was the process I wanted to perfect. Scratching into photographs and negatives is commonplace, but I don’t know anyone else who uses the same technique as me to etch into the layers of emulsion.

I’m a bit of a magpie, and when I uncover the gold colour from under a photo’s surface, I always get a tingle of excitement. Unfortunately, digital images and prints never do justice to the gold in the originals.

Exhibiting at Open Studios has done huge amounts to my confidence as an artist over the years, and I get such a buzz from the people who visit my studio. It has helped me know where I’m going right in my art, and more importantly, it helps me focus on where I’m going wrong.
I love the rush to get everything ready for visitors in my studio and garden and the supportive chat between the artists as we have our last minute panics.

I look forward to welcoming you to my log cabin studio at the end of my garden in October, and you can see more of my work at https://jennigudgeon.co.uk/

The processes that go into making art are very important to me. I like to follow my intuition which means using a variety of materials and creative approaches to different subjects. I spend a lot of time playing and trying things out. My studio space can become a somewhat haphazard collection of different mediums and reading materials that I use to keep myself exploring and inspired.
Sketchbooks are particularly important sites for trying things out; their relative portability means I can take them out walking in the countryside or have them to hand during spare moments in the day.
The North Fife Open Studios event is a great opportunity to share some of the processes behind the finished drawings, paintings and artist's books with an audience.