Category Archives: Blog

Beauty and the Beast

Oh no!  Just when I thought that I knew where I was going, along comes a true fan and expresses a considerable desire for work which I no longer make and thought I was finished with!

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Here we go again!

I spent last Saturday at Klay London working a stint in the gallery with my friend and fellow artist Ranti.  I love her exciting colourful work and I respect her opinions hugely.  The gallery was quiet – everyone must have been south of the river at Wimbledon – so we got to talking about the direction in which our work is going.  She was firm with me – go in the direction that you have set yourself.  It works, it is what you want to do.  I nodded sagely.  She is so right and anyway, I have written reams about which direction to head.  I have, as my devoted readers will know, made up my mind.

Sunday came and I was back at the Open Studios in Wimbledon.  One of the early visitors to my studio was Dave.  He is a bit of a fan of mine, although he loves my rebellious side and insists on continuing to call me Frankie long after I acknowledged that I needed to conform a little bit and call myself by my given name. He has a couple of my pieces already and had made a return visit for more.  But what to choose?  To my surprise he took relatively scant notice of my new work and headed for the older pieces, the bits that I am no longer interested in.

 

He also expressed a wish to see the final pieces that I made for my diploma – which I had not even bothered to bring in from the car!

I am left wondering whether this level of self doubt is ever going to leave me or whether, as an artist, it is my lot never to be absolutely sure ever again.  Perhaps I just need to accept it and remember the words of architect Frank Gehry to get with my intuition.

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A Man Walks into a Studio and . . .

Open Studios presents a fantastic opportunity to meet people and to chat about your work.  The trouble is that I am completely hopeless with names and faces so I am always being caught out when people drop into my studio assuming that I will know who they are because we had a long and fascinating conversation six months ago.  It is so embarrassing to stare blankly at people whilst you are frantically flicking thorough the files in you brain in search of recognition.

The lovely man who breezed into my space on Friday afternoon was nothing if not distinctive – very tall; soft, American accent; blonde hair scrunched into a pony tail; tanned, weathered face.  I was still wondering whether he had parked his horse at the door to the building whilst he was rummaging in his ‘saddle bag’.  With a flourish he fished out a plastic bag and declared that he had brought me a present.  I held out my hands and something brown and squashy was deposited!ashstead clay

After an awkward few seconds it transpired that during the previous Open Studios in November I had given him a small plastic bag and he had duly gone down to the ‘beck’ and also to a local clay pit to fill it with clay samples, bringing it back during this event so that I can incorporate into a vessel.  I love a good piece of found material

River Journey, Bridget Macklin, 2014
I love a good bit of local dirt!

to mix into a vessel so nothing could stem my excitement at this wondrous gift!  It turns out that this lovely man is a petroleum geologist called John, who I have now got completely in focus as the man of mud !  Thank you, John.  I can’t wait to get making!