My art, first-and-foremost, has an emotional message. Not pretty. Not beautiful. Not finessed. It is often rough, edgy and uncomfortable. I feel something, I share it, and the viewer feels something. It might not be the same thing that we feel. Sometimes my art is classed as Naïve(naive) art*, other times my landscapes capture reality. I know it is often uncomfortable to view. What’s important to me is that I capture the concept or emotional content that I need to express at that time. So my art is very personal. It is a form of visual journaling.

I have held back on revealing my edgy art for a long time (17 years) but I believe that there will be something relatable about it to some folk because we all have ‘edgy some-things’ which we fear might make others uncomfortable. At the very least it reveals that I am unconventional and I am comfortable with that now.

About ten years ago I explored art with an art mentor, Ilhaam Stoloff. The day we met for the first time she encouraged me to make an artwork a day for a month. It was to be executed in an unfamiliar medium, thereby challenging and stretching  my creativity. She suggested, since she knew I was keen on up-cycling and reusing, that I use whatever rubbish or cast offs  were on hand. That was my brief.

That evening I went home feeling a bit stunned. The project felt daunting and I wasn’t sure if I could do it. The next afternoon, when I had a window of opportunity, I knew I needed to do something but I didn’t know what. I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.  I was a Peri-menopausal woman. Everyone who has experienced this will know what I mean. The bed was calling – but I resisted. Sitting on the edge of my bed, I looked over at my desk. There lay a cluster of deflated balloons. That’s exactly how I felt. Lifeless. Lethargic. Puffy and Droopy.

So I sprang into action – Made some papier mâché** (paper mache) glue out of flour and water, tore some strips of paper (my goodness it felt exhilarating) and I began shaping a body that expressed how I had felt. We can’t ignore how the action of creativity suddenly energized me. I even wove her a patchwork bedspread out strips of rose floral material.

As you can see from the last Instagram image I called it: Exhaustion: and wrote ‘words woven forming patterns trailing threadbare into space.‘ It is a mixed media image of fabric, paper mache and oil pastels. It expresses a the time when I was too tired to even speak. Art can say many things over time and different things to different viewers. The image speaks not only of exhaustion and yearning for bed but also has a message: that life is like a bed of roses (with their thorns), it is pretty hard to lie on thorns as they are very challenging but if you manage to lie there long enough you will gather moss just like an inert rock. I am all for rest but sometimes inertia sets in if we don’t make an effort to stoke the fire. Do whatever you find energizing. That’s what I learnt that day.

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*Naïve Art Style

This style often has a childlike quality, using bright unblended colours which lack the subtle tones, often the perspective is not important and so it appears flat. Some of the artists are self-taught. Here is a link to seven TATE artists who have this style. They are modern examples of naive art.

**papier mâché

Paper mache is often used for children’s crafts, keeping them entertained on a wet winter’s day but anyone can use this method of sculpting using torn strips of paper, a glue (paste) made out of flour and water and a from of construction material, anything that will hold the structure like balloons, cardboard, chicken wire, bowls etc. My daughter Ellie made a bed table out of cardboard boxes, cardboard tubes and paper mache. Her last layer was decorative wrapping paper. And I have made beads with paper mache.

Have you ever used paper mache?

Wishing you Peace and Love this weekend,

~Morag Noffke~