A few months ago, I was deep in creative flow. The kind of flow that becomes all-consuming in the sexiest of ways, I felt heavy and pregnant with ideas and energy. At the start of February I wrote in my pages about an idea I’d had for a floral still life series - the first being simple in narrative and execution with a few surrealist elements that were being fed by the research I’d been doing into Leonora Carrington via her biography (which, highly recommend!). Half day dream, half dream-dream, I knew what it looked like, knew how to get to it, felt what can only be described as a compulsion to make it. Obsessed was not too strong a word.
It felt so exciting to have a kind of map to what I needed. Make what you most need to find! they say. What I needed was a story of hope, of time passing through us and giving us something new, again. Of some rebirth from the depths of fertile ground.
I talked to my friend and creative collaborator Rachel about helping me build the vision, and one morning in late March we got to work. As a normal creative person I sometimes have ideas that don’t make it to execution, but this flow was fr fr - In January I’d written out the phrase DON’T REMAIN IN THE ABSTRACT which has become a gentle incantation - I needed to do the things.
Armed with dug up flowers from my garden and a backdrop I dyed the exact colour I needed, I got on the bus after dropping my kid at school. The earthly contents of my garden in a plastic bag at my feet, I left the city and passed through green fields full of new-to-the-world lambs and it felt like its own part of following the map I’d made. Surrounded by a sea of daffodils outside her studio and a rare glimpse of Spring sunshine, we built and arranged and cackled and quietly swooned and brought the vision to life.
In April the film scans came back and I sat with them. I had that feeling of having made the thing I’d been obsessed with making, and not quite being sure what to do next, despite having the map right there. It felt like I’d been gestating a creative baby and then I’d gone through the labour and pushed her out into the world and now I was holding her in my hands wondering what the fuck are you supposed to do with a baby anyway?
I mean, I never actually felt quite that perplexed with my own real life babies, but for sure there was a general air of magical, chaotic ‘lol what?’ when I looked at them that lingers until this day. And here I was again.
So I sat in that for most of the month. With those feelings of… ‘lol what?’ whenever I thought about them. I showed the images to my trusted people - my Mum, a few friends, my creative collaborator. But the map I’d made taht ended with sharing them on wider scale didn’t seem to sit right.
I’m not really someone who gets caught up on outcomes - I’m not bullshitting when I talk about it being the process that’s important, I truly believe it. I make because I need and want to, and myself as audience is completely legitimate - I am always my own first audience. I have little ego when it comes to my work being seen by others, it feels like a thing too outside of myself to be safe or attractive, tbh. I also create a lot of work for clients that is theirs to share and that I see as a separate form of making, so seeing my work being in the world isn’t always a part of process for me. But spoiler alert - I am a human! And sometimes the art existing somewhere else is it’s own kind of valuable, it’s own part of the creativity. Plus I generally really enjoy sharing stuff, including stuff I’ve made. I’m curious - does this resonate? Do you see what I see? Could we hang out and chat shit about the world through this lens? Do you get it? Are we the same? How are we different? I think these questions are essential to creating and some artwork shouldn’t exist in a void.
All this to say, I had plans for these images. As a smaller part of a wider, year long project. An image not made to be small or limited to a screen. A big ass, glossy print. Sexy, ya know? And they still might be! But today, in this moment, they’re here on my computer, needing to be seen in a more immediate way.
I think this is probably a good case of ‘the next right thing’ as Julia Cameron would say. It’s too much sometimes to think ahead, to see the end game, to hit the final plot point. Instead, it’s time for a small step that feels right, right now. A tiny shuffle along the map. Sharing these here with you, as a way to celebrate the shift from winter to something more alive, feels right.
So with May and Beltane finally here, it feels like their time. A good time to share a story with you of hope and rebirth and the celebration of time happening around us. Please RSVP to this invitation to hope alongside me, as we move into the season of light here in the northern hemisphere. May beautiful things be born now.
oh laura, i love these images and i love reading about the process of birthing them!
This makes so much sense to me - the gestation not just of the project but of the finished work too - sometimes there’s such a massive push associated with doing the work that it feels like a pause is needed once I actually get to the finish line before trusting anyone else to see it - maybe it’s a fourth trimester thing (to continue your ideas around birth here) need to have a bit of postpartum chill before we show our “babies” off! I love these images though, I’m glad you’ve shared them and I can’t wait to see how the project will develop even further x