We're going on a bear hunt - revisited ♥

'We're going on a bear hunt - Revisited' Work in Progress  June 2014

Amy Dignam © 2014

Julie Swindel ♥

Julie Swindel is a mother of eight, yes you read that right EIGHT! When I started exchanging messages with Julie and found out, I thought that perhaps I had found the ultimate Desperate Artwife...

Julie tells me how she tries and keep her eye focused on art during her hectic lifestyle. Having attempted a few art courses she has never managed to finish them and therefore she considers herself largely self-taught. At forty she was able to have her own home studio (protected by a stair-gate!), allowing her to come and go from her work as and when. Julie says "I had my first daughter at 25, before that I had time and I wasted it, I had no perception of how precious life was. If you are desperate enough you learn to be flexible and adaptable. Every experience can be channelled into expression, frustration can become passion seen in a flurry of marks on the canvas or clay at the end of the day when the children are asleep. During day to day tasks a partition of my mind is always open to creativity. If circumstances are limiting I study the ordinary. Necessity has been the mother of my invention."

Julie's painting style takes me back in time to when I was studying art in Italy and experimenting with various subjects for my paintings. Her way of combining different situations in one painting makes the image become a narrative - almost like stills from a motion picture. Some of her work combines dream-like situations and reality, some others in - true Desperate Artwife style - relates to the everyday and private life. Death, memories, resignation, daydream, childhood... 

Dad

Her father's death motivated her to pick up the paint brush again, eager to try and hold his memory before it melted away from her.  Through this  experience, she discovered that art can be used as a form of therapy. Sometimes I think that artists are privileged because if it's hard to verbally express their thoughts and feelings then they are able to use their art instead. It is challenging but it helps in giving you a voice without you having to talk.

Fabrication

In "Fabrication", one can see a woman folding clothes from a washing basket while underneath a man is busy polishing and lining up shoes. Everyday home chores are surrounded by a background of a coastline and a cloudy sky. A flock of white doves are flying around, perhaps symbolising love and peace. Julie explains that this work is about how daydreaming  can help in life but how we also need to embrace the present moment. 

The other mother

I read  "The other mother" as another attempt of healing the soul. Julie painted this in reaction to having to accept the medical profession into her family after the birth of her disabled daughter. A narrow corridor,  green walls,  a blurred vision of a faceless doctor and nurse wearing white scrubs and walking towards you. They are surrounded by big red crosses that seem to shoot out of the painting. The painting is coming outwards, it's unstable and full of tension. Art is a tool that Julie constantly tries to exploit in order to better endure her life. 

Mausoleum of motherhood

"Mausoleum of motherhood"  was painted as a way to stop the swirling storm of images and emotions that were gathering as Julie dealt with the realities of motherhood against what one might think it ought to be (or how the media portrays it to be). 

Julie condenses her life experiences into her work and like a good book, it unfolds stories we all can connect to. And like a good book it remains with you long after you've finished looking at it. 

Amy Dignam 2014 ©

It's Christmas time ♥

Yes, it is! I must say though that my excitement about Christmas died during the late '90s and early noughties, around the time I decided to leave my country and come to the UK.  My decision, although thoroughly thought out was also based on my survival instinct.

Back then things weren't great for me and I knew I had to do something drastic. My mum was the only person I truly loved and I just wanted to be with her. As paradoxical this might sound, I decided the only way to be able to cope with the things life was throwing at me was to leave her instead. Our hearts broke but we both knew that for life to continue this was a step that needed to be taken.

I have never met anyone as courageous as my mother and you'll often see me writing about her. I sometimes ask myself if I would ever have the courage to let one of my children go as she did with me. 

I was a complicated person but she "got me". As a matter of fact, coming to London saved my life and indeed changed it for the better too - and I only have my mum to thank.

For me Christmas doesn't bring back many childhood memories, in fact only a few come to mind. But the feeling of happiness during my early years definitely emerges and now, after many years of glossing over Christmas, I can finally start enjoying it again...albeit through the eyes of my children.

The build up is by far the best thing about Christmas. The countdown on the various advent calendars scattered around the house, the secret talks between me and my husband Mike about the choice of presents, the shopping, the hiding and the night before when we get going on the wrapping over a glass or two of port. A great deal of preparation and labour goes into my Christmas these days but the happiness always outways the fatigue.

I'm usually late sending my Christmas cards too, but not this year. Not sure what came over me... but today it's only the 12th of December and my cards are in the post box ready to be delivered. This year Dixie designed the card and this is what it looks like:

I also made a little celebratory installation this Christmas.  Too often I get sucked into my own universe thinking about the chaos in my life and forgetting that in the end, my life is not that bad at all. It's not very often I take the opportunity to pause and appreciate it (Although I think I do, I don't!). So this week I got to reflecting upon it.

"Unmade Christmas Tree" is a work made out of clothes belonging to me and my family, randomly layered one at the top of the other to form the shape of a Christmas tree. However uncool and unpopular, I decided to use the Christmas tree shape. It makes sense to me right now as for many, Christmas is indeed a time of reflection and a collective memory. 

In this work I try to create order by placing and balancing the clothes - in the same way as I try to arrange and control my everyday life. One on top of the other, a bit wobbly and precarious, each item supports the next just as we try to do day after day.

This pile of clothes in the shape of a Christmas tree symbolises the passage of time and the mourning (in advance) of my children's passing childhood and my most precious moments. 

Amy Dignam 2013 ©