I have enjoyed getting involved in some exhibitions closer to home recently. It’s a while since I have shown anything nearby and it is good to rediscover the wealth of history around here as well as reacquainting myself with three female artists – one working over 350 years ago, one working over 250 years ago and one working 80 years ago..

The Bury Festival in Bury St Edmunds, includes a new ‘Art Trail’  where contemporary artists’ work is dotted around the town in shop windows (thanks to Cate Hadley for organising all this).  They all look great and seem particularly well matched to their venues. My long painting of scissors seemed quite appropriate for the Lawrence Paul Salon although it was pointed out that it didn’t have any hairdressers’ scissors in it!

The ‘Fresh eyes’ exhibition is in both the 12th century Moyse’s Hall Museum and the 21st century, award-winning Apex and shows local artists’ work alongside local museum treasures. I can’t complain about sitting on an easel at Moyse’s Hall next to work by James Tissot (1836 – 1902), Sir Peter Lely (1613-1680)  and Angelica Kauffman (1741 – 1807) – that won’t happen again! Angelica Kauffman was one of only two female artists amongst the founder members of the Royal Academy (RA).

  Left to right on wall –  Kauffman, Tissot and Lely

The Apex is showing work by another, earlier female artist called Mary Beale (1633 – 1699) who was born in Bury st Edmunds and later worked in London. She knew Lely and, amazingly for her time, was a semi-professional portrait painter whose husband became her assistant.  So that’s two female artists – Kauffman and Mary Beale – working over two hundred years ago in a very male-dominated world and still showing their work in the 21st century in Bury st Edmunds, Suffolk.

While I was at Moyse’s Hall I also said hello to one of my favourite paintings by another female artist from Bury st Edmunds called Rose Mead (1867 – 1946).  It’s a painting of Barbara Stone, c1940, and here it is.

I have recently finished 2 more long paintings for the RI annual show this year (25 March 2015 to 11 April 2015 at the Mall galleries, London).

Nine scissors   35 x 96cm

A sharp painting – again the subject determined the background.  I never realised how many scissors were hiding away around my house.  Inherited, acquired, found.  The orange-handled ones had spent about 4 years in my compost heap!  The large wallpaper scissors belonged to my mother-in-law. The elegant ones on the far left belonged to my mother…….. years of use and history in everyday objects.

Bits    34 x 96cm

I live next door to a riding stables. I had no idea how many ‘bits’ there were, all with different uses depending on the size and temperament of a horse. Rather like previous paintings involving metal scaffold clips (see Gallery / Cross series) there is something rather sinister about these metal forms and I was captivated by the shadows and sense of movement that they conveyed.

Six balls and a shuttlecock    21 x 110cm

I recently painted a very overdue wedding present for my niece and her husband (see above).  The format got under my skin and I have since done several long thin paintings…….

Old keys   40 x 109cm

The keys came from a private collection – I saw them on a visit to an historic house in Suffolk (a couple of them were found in the moat). The owners kindly lent them to me to paint.  Whether simple or complicated, solid or frail, they all held secrets at one time or another.

Seven paintbrushes   40 x 109cm

Backgrounds, or the lack of them, play an important part in these pictures. Whether full of suggestion or simply playful, I use them to enrich the impressions that the objects have made on me.

Birds and beasts   30 x 95cm

From the Kenbally kitchen 34 x 43cm

I was recently asked to paint a still life using objects from a family farm where there was to be a reunion of descendants from around the world. This cracked old turnip masher and well thumbed cookbook are the only items remaining from the centuries-old kitchen at Kenbally, Co Antrim.  With the McNeill family scattered across the globe the picture provides an evocative image of a common past.

I have undertaken quite a few commissions when I have the freedom to translate them in my own way!  They all have the same aim – to capture objects that mean something to someone. The potency of these personal everyday objects adds another dimension to what seems like a standard still life painting.  I was particularly keen to make the background blend with the objects but not be too insipid or too dominant  (weathered but not intrusive).

Seven hooks on sacking  20 x 34 cm

This painting is in the RI annual exhibition at the Mall galleries, London (2-19 April 2014).  It may have been a simple subject but it was a bit of an adventure to paint!  I was taken by lots of things – the restricted palette, the contrast of the curves against the square ‘cross hatching’ of the sacking, the ‘life history’ of the hooks …. but then I had to get down to painting it. The sacking was a challenge. I can’t stand fiddling. I like to put down whole ‘areas’. In the end, rather than paint from light to dark and add millions of dots at the end (and vaguely in the right place),  I put in the time at the start by generally mapping out and then masking the threads.  All I then had to do was a sweeping dark wash over it all, remove the mask, let the tiny ‘dark’ squares set well over a few days and then do general gentle washes of colour over the top in the comfort that the impression of sacking was there and I could build around that.  Simple or not so simple?

The RI has a theme at its annual exhibition this year (Mall galleries, London, 2 – 19 April) which members can use if they want.  ‘Gardens and gardening’ lends itself to my love of old tools, rust, dirt and general ordinariness. Kind friends have donated winter vegetables and well-loved tools to sit alongside ours.  Today I hope to be starting on a tower of root vegetables – a vertical ‘row’ will be a welcome break from horizontal ones.

The Cathedral at Bury St Edmunds had a Christmas tree festival this year. The proceeds from the entrance fee were divided between the Cathedral and the Charities that decorated the trees.  I asked loads of artists if they could make a small triangular decoration so that I could decorate a tree in aid of the Artists’ General Benevolent Institution (AGBI) and they came up trumps.  Thank you!

Abbey flints    watercolour   21 x 45cm

Flints are part and parcel of the East Anglian landscape – we see them in the fields, in the walls of buildings and as part of the decorative flushwork on churches – even the ones with holes in them became part of the local folklore and were hung up to ward off bad spirits.

These five look ordinary enough but there is more to them than meets the eye. Back in the 12th century they were picked up from the fields by women and children (gleaned) and taken to the building site of the Abbey in Bury St Edmunds.  There they were used as infill on the West front of this, the largest abbey in medieval Europe.

The Abbey is now a ruin.. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the outer facing stones were taken by the townsfolk and used in their houses – column sections and other stones can still be seen in walls and cellars. The original flint infill still remains and houses have been built in part of them.  Over time, like autumn leaves in slow motion, flints like these drop off the sides.

This painting will be in the exhibition ‘Contemporary East Anglian Artists’ at Gainsborough’s House, 46 Gainsborough street, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2EU (tel 01787 372958)  from 21st October 2013 – 4th January 2014

Here’s a great quote sent to me by a friend – it’s by Daniel Sutton who was an 18th century clinical scientist and innoculator. It could easily apply to still life paintings of everyday objects but in terms of research he wrote,

“Despise not trifles, though they small appear.  Sands rise to mountains, moments make the year and trifles life.  Your time to trifles give or you may die before you learn to live.”