From the studio No.36

I was a tutor at Newlyn School of Art on the year long mentoring course this year, and they invited me to take part in their annual online fundraiser.

I have ten pieces in the online exhibition. Included are some of my oak gall ink and Moon Drawing diptychs and triptychs, a card maquette for an installation plus a couple of pieces from the (2008) archive.

Sizes and prices at Newlyn School of Art - Sarah Poland

Nightwatch-No.3, Nightwatch-No.2, Moon Drawing No. 11, Nightwatch-No.8

All oak gall ink on etching paper + silver gelatin print.

Card maquettes for Shape Shifter : Bird Love

Night Watch No.3, Night Watch No.2, Moon Drawing No.11. All oak gall ink on etching paper + silver gelatin print.

Moon Drawing No.20; oak gall ink on etching paper + silver gelatin print.

The Clearing No.8; gouache on watercolour paper.

A bit about the Moon Drawings

During my time living in an ancient oak woodland in West Wales (2010-2015), I started going for full moon night walks and began making drawings in the dark. Setting my camera on a long exposure, I used the moon as a light source with which to draw. I call these photographic works Moon Drawings and Night Watch.

Since then, I have put them together with oak gall ink (also from the woodland) drawings and make small and large scale diptychs and triptychs.

You can see more and read more about them here Moon Drawing

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You can also regularly find my work at Yr Oriel in Pembrokeshire, Wales and Campden Gallery in the Cotswolds.

From the studio No.29

It’s 4th of February as I write this and the new year has careered into place, there is always a settling in period I find and a hopeful promise of snow. This is just a short missive to let you know a bit about the current exhibition that I have a piece of work in.

Prosodic Chapters Of Immanent Silence 2022

Oak gall ink and gesso on panel ; 122x122cm

The above painting has been accepted into the Visual Arts Scotland - Then and Now: 100 Years of VAS at the Royal Scottish Academy.

I am excited and grateful to have my painting included in this landmark exhibition. It's a substantial piece at 122 x 122cm and was selected from over 1500 entries. 242 artists will be showcased. Using my signature paint, made from locally foraged oak galls, I have made the painting with traditional gesso on sustainable poplar wood panel.

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A little background history - Who are VAS?

On a winter’s eve in Edinburgh, 1924, Visual Arts Scotland (VAS) held their first-ever meeting, becoming early pioneers of inclusivity within Scotland’s artistic landscape. One-hundred years later, the organisation has grown into a leading platform for national and international artists and now celebrates its centenary with a year packed full of opportunities for its members. To kick off 2024’s celebrations, VAS are holding their biggest-ever exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh, showcasing work from the finest contemporary artists across Scotland and beyond. THEN AND NOW: 100 YEARS OF VISUAL ARTS SCOTLAND will showcase over 300 artworks, with art ranging from ceramics, paintings, mixed media, photography, sculpture, and a variety of contemporary art forms.

VAS has seen a lot of growth and change over the past 100 years. The organisation began as The Scottish Society of Women Artists in 1924 with the aim to empower women after their contribution to the war effort. In the early 90s, the organisation’s name changed to Scottish Artists and Artist Craftsmen to embrace the high-quality experimental crafts taking place.

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The painting has already been collected by courier and I head off to Edinburgh next week to join it and shmooze with the best. Hmm, now the next problem…what to wear.

Studio journal 4

I've got a little box of watercolour tubes that I've had sitting around for a few years. My father-in-law gave them to me, his father was a painter. I, or perhaps they, have been waiting for the right time.

I've found it difficult to get motivation moving these last two weeks. It is far from a usual problem. Perhaps there's the overwhelm of moving house and trying to clear a pathway into my studio where things have been strewn amidst the chaos. Plus the bliss of finally being in a house and wanting to slack out on the sofa.

I did something I've often done when I don't know how to get started. I went to the sea. I packed my special off-piste snowboarding rucksack - used for day long adventures. It helps me to create intention of letting go and exploring what comes up. Off to find a wild, windswept, isolated beach I did.

I packed a little portable set of watercolours. Perhaps the time is right now to explore watercolour but…note to self to not drift too far into the allure of what they can do - the pooling, the reticulation - not make 'watercolour paintings' per se but to use them in my own way. For this, they seem a good quick sketching tool.

The morning started with a thick freezing fog at home, the journey to the sea opened out and the long steep walk down brought a pool of sunshine to where I positioned my belongings on a flat boulder.

The day was beautiful.

The sea was calm, small waves dolloped the shoreline dragging pebbles away with them. Such a beautiful sounds that makes you sit very still and Listen. Out at sea cloud was low and colours were limited to gorgeous greys and aqua of the small cresting waves.

By the end of the day I was watching the freezing fog roll in and envelop the beach.

Play the above video to watch waves dolloping onto the shore in fog.

Thank you for reading this. If you would like to follow this studio journal and sign-up to my newsletter for exhibition updates, inspiration and available work you can sign up at sarahpoland.co.uk/subscribe I send it out some Sunday’s at 11am.

And do please reach out through the contact form if you have any questions.

Studio journal 3

Souvenance

I think the poet is the last person who is still speaking the truth when no one else dares to. I think the poet is the first person to begin the shaping and visioning of the new forms and the new consciousness when no one else has begun to sense it; I think these are two of the most essential human functions’ ______________________________________ Diane Di Prima, _____________Beat Poet (August 6, 1934 – October 25, 2020)

And so too the painter.

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Diane Di Prima was a poet and writer of the American Beat Generation.

Back in 2002 I went to Western Canada to meet a great friend of mine, to snowboard as she finished her season and to travel together up the West coast. We stopped a night or two in Tofino, B.C. I wasn’t sure at the time why I didn’t join her on a whale watching boat trip, but I drifted into a lovely bookshop, sat on the floor to browse a shelf and came across this wonderful book. Actually, it pretty much jumped out at me.

Some years prior, on a U.S. trip, someone I met recommended Jack Kerouac’s On The Road. Another great book for that time in my life and it turned out, took the same route that I did. That was my introduction to the Beat Generation and so finding this book focusing on the Women was very exciting.

They are the reason I drink coffee - Coffee And Writing Go Together.

For me, a coffee taps into this culture and also our European cafe culture, particularly of the 50’s and 60’s. I Love the B&W photographs from these era’s, the starkness, the contrasts.

One of my favourite poems ever is Rant by Diane Di Prima - it is in this book. I also discovered Jay DeFeo and her incredible work The Rose, a 2,300 lb. painting which she spent eight years making.

The Beats in turn lead me to Patti Smith, punk poet, writer, rock musician’s thoughts and writing.

So this was the reason I missed the whale watching!

Jay DeFeo working on The Rose, 1958–66,
in her Fillmore Street studio, NYC 1960. Photo: Burt Glinn.

I’ve just gotta squeeze in a favourite photo…one of British painter Sandra Blow who lived in St. Ives for many years. I love Roger Mayne’s images of the artists there. The other Michael Gaca, director of Belgrave St. Ives took of me at Carn Galva after a bush fire in 2006. It was in my 2006 exhibition at the gallery Tuath (click for catalogue).

Sandra Blow (1925-2006) in her studio 1959 by Roger Mayne (1929-2014)

Sarah Poland 2006 by Michael Gaca

Studio journal 2

Every now and then I think about my journey, how I got to here, now, where I started, what the story is.

We all have a story, one unique to us.

I always have a story behind a particular piece of work or a series.

My first exposure to abstract modern art wasn’t until I was 17. Growing up in the Highlands of Scotland there wasn’t much. I went alone to the Inverness Museum once, determined to see some art – I saw a stuffed polecat, stags head and a dusty ptarmigan among other objects. It wasn’t what I was looking for, besides, I’d seen some in the wild.

Joan Eardley - Catterline in Winter (1963)

Mum had a poster of Joan Eardley’s Catterline In WInter 1963 on the wall. I would often stare at it, be in it, feel it.

It definitely helped kindle my love of bleak Northern landscapes, coast and falling snow, besides growing up in the foothills of the Cairngorm Mountains.

It's Funny How Oak Trees Look Pink In Snow No.2 (2018)

My school history of art lessons used B&W photocopies of... the Impressionists. Paintings which I subsequently learnt are huge, are all about colour, colour harmonies, brush marks, feeling, joy. Obviously none of these qualities came across in the photocopies.

My first Real exposure to modern art was at the Tate Gallery, now Tate Britain. Again, thanks to my mum, she took me down to London on an art trip just before my school exams. And thank goodness she did, for it sparked a drive that got me into one of our countries best art schools, Edinburgh College of Art.

I remember going around the National Gallery and the Tate. I remember at the end of our day at Tate peeking through a tiny window in a door, not unlike a medieval arrow slit. Straining to see as much as possible and begging my mum to pay for me to go in - the rest of the vast gallery was free to enter but this was a temporary touring exhibition and was typically expensive.

She did. Bless her.

What I saw in 1993 was an exhibition by American painter Robert Ryman. Known as the ‘painter of white paintings’, he is one of the foremost abstract artists of his generation. The influence that this one exhibition had was so profound it still resonates deeply today.

And he predominantly used white paint and little else!

Robert Ryman - Untitled (1962)

Robert Ryman - Untitled (1965)

Robert Ryman - Classico 5 (1968)