Maggie's Exhibition in Cumbria

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On Wednesday, we borrowed a van from our willow sculpting friend Trevor, and took Maggie's latest artworks down to Farfield Mill near Sedbergh, in Cumbria.

The exhibition is running until the end of August. Early evening on Friday 7th, there will be a "Meet the artist" thing and over the weekend of the 8th & 9th Maggie will be running a 2 day workshop - more details on her website: http://www.maggieayres.co.uk/exhibitions.htm

Since Spring Fling, the Open Studio event back at the end of May, Maggie's been up to her elbows in plaster, scrim, threads, fibres and paint as she's been exploring the idea of creating more three-dimensional sculptures. The pieces are still very much Maggie, but can now be viewed from many angles, each of which gives you something else to become absorbed in. It's the first time she's done anything like this so we have no idea how well it will be received, but she's had so much fun I think it's likely to now form a permanent part of her repertoire.

If you know anyone who lives in or near north-west England, or is planning on visiting over the summer, do point them in the direction of Maggie's exhibition.


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Charlie says...

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In the last post, my blogging pal, Charlie, left a comment saying, “...I'm thinking that your mid-life crisis is just about over.”

Now there was a comment that got me thinking.

Mid-life crisis over? Surely not? I’ve been in some kind of existential crisis virtually my entire life; I just happen to be at the right age for it to be called mid-life. The only way it was going to pass was when it became an old-age crisis.

And yet… and yet…

There’s no doubt I’m feeling considerably better about myself these days. Of course the CFS is still a pain in the butt and shit still happens, but it’s just a part of life, rather than the defining part of life.

What caused the shift from posts like this or this, was never going to be one thing, but a combination.

To begin with, there’s no doubt sunshine helps: I’ve waited 3 years for summer and damn, it’s good.

The anti-depressants have helped somewhat too. The sudden and horrific mood drops I was getting a couple of years back were more crippling than the CFS. I’m now weaned down to only 1/3 of what I was on, but these were never a cure, only a way of giving me enough space to find ways to survive.

One of the major strands has been the sudden understanding, and gradual acceptance of a way of viewing the world that makes sense of it, as briefly mentioned here, here and here. In essence, the world we experience depends on the way we are filtering it: change our filter and we change our experience. First of all, however, we have to realise we are always filtering the world and never see it “as it is”, and secondly, virtually all our filters are created either knowingly or unknowingly by other people – but we don’t realise.

Understanding this has allowed me to begin to create my own filter. It’s not an overnight thing and requires constant building and maintenance, but the result is I am freer to truly become the person I want to be.

A combination of this kind of thinking with having little enough energy just to live my life, means I’ve managed to let go of the messiah complex that’s been there since childhood. Part of me always felt I was supposed to be out there saving mankind, while not having a clue where to begin, but just felt really guilty and bad for not doing it. The weight of responsibility of the world was on my shoulders. Now I am able to accept it’s not actually up to me. Barack Obama is here instead (and boy, do I feel sorry for the poor bastard).

The final strand, which has been drawn from all these others, is setting up in business as a photographer.

By building it around the patterns of my Fatigue, allowing myself to be creative (both with the camera and the computer) and indulging my love of interacting with people, I have managed to retake control of my life and shape it in a direction I can really enjoy.

Previous businesses I’ve built have primarily been about making money in order to enjoy life. Of course if you’re not making money, you can’t then enjoy anything. And if you are making money, you don’t know how long it’s going to last so you still don’t enjoy anything.

This way, however, they enjoyment is in what I do and any money is a side effect.

So is Charlie right? Is my mid-life crisis just about over?

Maybe it is.

At least until the sun stops shining anyway...
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William Neal

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William Neal is an artist based out in Wigtown, SW Scotland. For many years he’s painted landscapes of Galloway, but more recently he’s moved into creating large abstract artworks, full of light, texture and colour, but completely flat and smooth.

He was after some updated portraits and new images of his studio, so I was out there last week clicking away.

Part of his fascinating and varied background includes his association with prog-rock giants, Emerson Lake and Palmer, for whom he created the album covers for 'Tarkus' and 'Pictures at an Exhibition'

As we were coming towards the end of the session he mentioned an idea he’d had for a while about having a photo of him sitting outside at his easel, looking like a typical landscape artist, yet having one of his abstract works in front of him. That sounded like too much fun to miss, so we loaded bits and pieces into his car and went down to the harbour. We may have run well over time, but he did make me some rather nice sandwiches for lunch.

I have lot of fun taking photos, and I have just as much fun editing and playing with them in Photoshop. But the best aspect of this job is meeting people and finding out more about their lives, their passions and their world views.

Once again I've put up a gallery of some of the images from the session on my photography website. If you're interested, click here:
Kim Ayres photographs William Neal


The artist at work
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Amanda Simmons, Glass Artist

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Now Kim Ayres Photography has properly launched, I should probably start blogging a bit about some of the jobs I've been doing. This blog has nearly always been a reflection of whatever was on my mind at the time, and the photography business takes up a fair amount of that space these days.

Last week I was out taking photos of Amanda Simmons of Corsock Glass. A wonderful artist who creates the most beautiful pieces of glasswork, she is exhibiting this October at Origin in London. She needed some images of her at work for publicity, including a couple of tall, narrow images for banners.

Much fun was had, and even her dog, Snowy, seemed a natural in front of the camera.

Amanda was round for coffee this morning as we went through the various images and edits I'd done and she seems to have gone away a happy client.

I've put up a gallery of some of the images on my photography website. If you're interested, click here:
Kim Ayres photographs Amanda Simmons




UPDATE
Amanda's written a rather splendid blog post about the photo session too :)
http://corsockglass.blogspot.com/2009/07/working-images.html
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Aggressive wakefulness

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The last couple of nights I’ve spent hours in the middle of them aggressively awake.

I don’t mean I’ve been shouting and beating up my pillow, rather my head has been shouting and beating up me with never ending fears, concerns, worries, embarrassments, regrets, injustices, anxieties, doubts, uncertainties, qualms, misgivings and anything else it can chuck at me to prevent me from returning to sleep.

After 3 years of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and many more of crap sleeping patterns, I have found ways of generally dealing with those 4am frettings that mostly work.

Focusing on breathing; detached observation of the thoughts as they rise up then float away; understanding the darkest hours of the night are never going to solve problems best dealt with in the light of day, so a good night’s rest eclipses all other priorities.

But no, not just now. I seem to have lost these hard won skills. Anything and everything, from the mildly probable to the downright ridiculous, is leaping into my head and slapping me forcefully about before I get pounced on and pinned down by the next thought and elbowed in the teeth.

Forget Queensbury Rules, these attacks are dirty, underhand and vicious.

Unbroken refreshing sleep: a faint and blurry memory from times long since past. I wonder if we’ll ever meet again.
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Digital Switchover

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This area has finally gone digital.

There is nothing but fuzz and hiss coming out of the TV.

We have no digibox nor satellite set-up.

Now we'll have to make our own entertainment in the evenings.

I wonder how long we'll last...
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Cover Design

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Most photographers only hand out a limited number of prints and the client has to return every time they want another. This way, the photographer gains repeat income. Personally I couldn't be arsed with that approach. It's fiddly, it's sometimes embarrassing, but mostly it's no fun.

Because of the CFS I have a limited amount of energy I can put into my recently launched portrait photography business, so I'm damned if I'm going to spend much of it doing things I can't be bothered with. This business is being built entirely around who I am and what I enjoy.

I enjoy blethering with people and finding out more about them. I enjoy taking photographs. I enjoy playing with images on the computer.

I don't enjoy large amounts of admin, which doing prints for people one at a time would involve.

Consequently, one of the key aspects to this photography business is the fact I hand clients a CD of images after the session, for them to print, email or stick up on their blog, without needing further permission from me.

However, if I'm to hand people a CD, a scribble on a disc in a paper wallet doesn't look professional, so I needed to design a CD cover.

Remit to self: clean, simple, professional-looking, easy to print, reflecting the style created by the website

Problems to consider were:

• Having a single image to sum up my photography would be impossible
• Having several images would look cluttered
• Having faces on the cover is only of interest to those who know and like the people the faces belong to
  
• Having photos that aren't faces makes it look like I don't do portraits, which is the main thrust of my business
• Having white writing on a black background, like my website, would use masses of ink every time I wanted to print one up.

So, after lots of beard pulling and computer crashes this was my solution:


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