Running a Creative Audit [273]
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Actually, it is extremely helpful to go back because often the other thing is I think often things happen at those stages, like you say, that you're not quite ready for or you don't quite know how to handle yet or where it's going. And I think that process of, if you like, touching something and then backing away from it is so normal.

Hi and welcome to episode 273 of Art Juice. This is honest, generous and humorous conversations to feed your creative soul and get you thinking with me, Louise Fletcher. And me, Alice Sheridan. And this week we're going to talk about...

creative audits about looking at what we've been doing in the past, looking at where we want to go in the future and how we both approach that. But before we get on to that topic, what have you been doing this week, Alice?

It's been quite a quick week. Don't know if anybody else is feeling that. It might be just because we've had a shorter gap between quarters. But it seems to have whipped past very quickly. I still feel like I'm settling into the year. I'm just going to put that out there for everybody else who also feels the same. I'm still sort of planning. I've still got all those every day, every week tasks to get on with. I am noticing how much of my time...

Life, gym, fitness stuff takes up. I have been using my word of the year upgrade to upgrade our dining room chairs. Nice. Yes. I've been teaching. I'm working on this course. I'm trying to get future weeks done. So the time this goes out, I think we'll be in week three of the course.

But it's 12 weeks of intense teaching, which I'm still prepping. And then it's three months of independent study, it's called. But really, it's me doing teaching, but less often. Doing live answers, but less often while everybody gets on with their own work. So I've been working hard on that.

And that's really, yeah, that's really it. And because of that, that's actually inspiring me to go paint and to make things, partly as a way of demonstrating the ideas that I'm sharing, because the course is about how to find your own way with your work, but a set of processes, tools, frameworks that can help you keep yourself on track or know what you're trying to achieve with what you're making. And so...

developing videos to share that means I have to get back into painting. So it's been really good for me. And that's actually what brought up for me this week's topic. So quick segue in is that one of the things we're doing as part of the course, although

they haven't done this at the time I put this out, they will do, is to, oh no, they have, sorry, is to look back at what you've made previously, looking for clues as to what you might want to do in the future. And I know that this is something you do within your membership group as a formal thing, and I think you've done recently, so I thought it might make a good topic for this week.

So tell us about what you've been doing in your group, Connected Artist. We've just been doing that as part of generally a year review. I'm a big believer in the fact that we can get very caught up in the here and now and what's happening right in front of our face.

And actually, there is so much learning from our own individual path where we have been before, what has led us to now. And it's very easy when you're looking back to dismiss that, take it for granted, overlook the details, forget that you did about things. And I, why do I think it's so important? I think it's really important to recognize how far you've come.

You've already learned. When I first started the membership, I remember that one of the things that I really wanted from it was for people to find their confidence and to build their confidence in their own ability and approach and find their own way going forward because...

We all have doubts, right? But actually, when we take our time to go, oh, yeah, I have done this. I have learned this. I have enjoyed this. This is what it taught me. That's where your confidence comes going forward because you realize all the things that you've overcome, figured out. So although sometimes it feels like there's a lot of looking back, the point is the information. There is information in what has been already in our life. What is ahead of us?

What we don't know is coming. We can't predict, we can't control. We can only, we can't know that part. The only part that we know is where we've been. So that's like a really helpful foundation. I think particularly when you're at stages, if you feel a little bit unsettled or lost or, you know, just uncertain with that unclarity about the future,

That's one way of being able to calm yourself so you can tap into where you're going. Yeah, because I think I use it. I think that's true. Definitely now you're saying it, but I think I've thought of it more as,

Let me look back because often, like you said about getting involved in the day-to-day and forgetting what's happened. Yeah. What I often do is I'm so busy do-do-doing that I don't look back and see the obvious clues that are in what I've made before. So I'll even do it mid-project. I've done this a couple of times. If I'm in the middle of a series of paintings that's getting a bit lost...

I'll make an actual sketchbook. It's quite laborious. I'll print out images of all the things I've made so far or the work in progress. I'll stick them in and then by flicking through the book, I can kind of get a sense. Oh, yeah, I liked back there in February when I did those things. But then I went off on this tangent or...

And then when I do it, when I did it recently, I look back at everything I've made, starting with some terrible still lifes that I made in like, you know, 2010 or something. We went that far back. I didn't for the video I made for the class, but I looked personally and saw them. And I did make a funny little video where I said, here's some lemons I painted in 2010. Here's this abstract ink and pastel thing I've just created. And now...

Never think that where you are now is where you're going to be because look, this is the difference. It was quite good. But anyway, going back through, what I found was that last year, around 2021, I made some really pieces that really excited me that were very raw and expressive. And then I backed off and started doing other things. And then towards the beginning of last year, I made some more. And then I backed off and changed direction again.

And I put them together in a little video because I thought that'd be a good way to demonstrate it with some music going from 2018 to now. And then it was just so obvious, like, oh, you were onto something there and then you went, you were onto something there and then you went.

And the things I went to, I quite liked. And I, you know, made paintings and people, mostly they went. But the things that I really loved mostly weren't for sale. Mostly those were either early layers of things that got covered up or they were just pieces on quite cheap paper that I was making just for myself. They never put up for sale. So I found that interesting.

Don't know what it says other than I've got to put my big girl pants on and go back to the parts where I was really excited. Well, there's a couple of lessons in there. One is the value of taking photos of mid-stage work. My phone camera roll doesn't have a lot of... It does have pictures of my family and children. That's quite a lot of...

Studio paintings, mid-roll, and you think, really? But actually, it is extremely helpful to go back because often, the other thing is, I think often things happen at those stages, like you say, that you're not quite ready for or you don't quite know how to handle yet or where it's going. And I think that process of, if you like, touching something and then backing away from it,

is so normal. Is it? Oh, okay. I think it's so normal. Okay. You know, see my little, I don't think I have this anywhere in a video, but you must have heard me talk about it. So this, my mental approach to everything, like a daisy, is that you are the middle of the daisy. And then if you imagine all the petals of the daisy, we have to loop out.

and touch the outer edges of something and then you loop back in and you bring it back to yourself at the center. And then you do it again with something else and some of the petals go further and then you bring it back to you and then you loop out and then you bring it back to you. And I think what you've just said is that's those loops. You stretch yourself out, you reach the edge of what is comfortable for you at that moment

And then you bring it back to you and you absorb it. And then when you're ready, you do it again. And I think we have to give ourselves a little bit of gift that it takes time. At that time, you did as much as you wanted to. And then when you're ready, you do the next part. It's not... That's interesting. It's not interesting. No, but it is still, I think, something that I need to be aware of. And I feel like I'd kind of forgotten about.

you know, until I laid them out. Not that I'd forgotten that I made those pieces, but I'd forgotten until I saw them in context with everything else.

I've forgotten how much more I like those over everything else I've made. Yeah. What you ended up with was probably more familiar to you. Yes. Yeah. It was safer. And I can see. And so I like the way you're describing it. I can see myself going back to safety and comfort zone. Yeah. And then coming out again. But now that I've done the audit, I can look and say, hmm, well, I definitely want to go back out there again.

yeah and now with a little bit more because we're always gaining more skill and more facility with paint and everything so maybe now that I try it I'll be I've got more tools up my sleeve more things I can try and it just a case of giving myself the time I think in the past one of the reasons I went back to the center if we're going to say say it that way is that

Well, I know if I want to sell paintings, I know that other kind of stuff sells. So let me go back to that and put some of those up for sale. But now these days, I haven't done that for a long time. So I don't need to worry about that. It's not even been, it's not like, oh, I'll be losing all that income if I do that or I'll be losing that gallery. I don't have a gallery. So there's nothing for me to lose by just making stuff for myself for a while. Yeah.

And then if something, if I feel like it, I always remember, I've talked about this before, but I knew a local artist, a farmer, who he used to paint every night and he used to make a painting a night, sometimes two paintings a night. He used to pile them up and then his wife, who was an interior designer, used to come and pick the ones she thought were good and put them in frames and the rest he just bunged in a plan chest and he really didn't care either way. He just enjoyed making them. Yeah.

But that idea of it doesn't mean you can't sell things just because you didn't set out with that intention, but you just don't make that the primary, which is never been. I don't think it's ever been my primary driver, but maybe in the back of my mind, sometimes that came in.

But I think as well, just noticing where your patterns are. So if you notice that those are the works that you really enjoyed, where you were in perhaps a slight state of discomfort, that's where you were stretching yourself. That's where you were learning. You know, you've got that awareness. Then the next time you're in that, you might just give yourself a little bit more time. You might...

back away leave the studio give yourself enough time so that you don't cover over critify and it's one of your things just just give it the time to be in its own that's one of your patterns and if you're more aware that in the past you've covered over and that's what you've done but that's not what you want to do next time it comes up there'll be a little bit of you that goes oh okay we've been here before this time we're going to try something different because you've done this process

It's so interesting because one of the assignments we're going to do, I just did yesterday and it's about, I don't want to spoil it, but it's about not being able to finish things. It's about not being able to fix just for that reason, because for some of us, not everyone, but for some of us, that's really helpful. I think it goes two ways, the fixing, doesn't it? I think there's a group of people who

Find it really difficult to finish and what counts as finished versus what do you need to do to move something over the finish line? I remember being really conscious of that at one point and just playing with actually how quickly could you make small adjustments that took something from feeling quite mid-stage to feeling quite finished was quite fun. And then I think there are other people who are always wanting to complete and not live in the raw. Yeah.

Yes. You need both. You need both. You do. Okay, so let's have a look. What we're going to do, so I'm not going to run through all of these because this is like when we do this, it's quite a comprehensive audit. So I'm just going to scan through. Surprise, surprise. Haven't prepared much for this. And just see which questions I think might be relevant to

or help our conversation. But the first one is, you've just said it, it's quite clear really, what are my goals as an artist and how did my work this year move me towards that? And again, I think that is something that we lose track of because often when we start doing things or when we shift what we're doing in our art, we might have started out with one set of goals or things that we wanted or things that were important to us

And then actually it changes over time. And this is just a way of saying, okay, is this still what I want? What is important? And if, for example, if one of my goals as an artist is...

to learn how to finish my work, to learn how to share it with people, to put it up for sale, that's going to lead me to a whole different set of decisions that I need to make and things that I need to do about how I work in my studio, whether I plan my time out, understanding how long things take, working out how I finish,

how long each body needs to work towards a particular show. That's very different. And then if you have a year where or some time where that's not so much a primary goal or a focus, your work is going to shift. You'll give yourself more time for play, more time for outdoor adventuring, more time for sketchbooks. So it's important to know where you are in that stage or in that cycle, I think. Yeah. Really what your goals are.

And even the whole question about what your goals are, then you go, well, are they really yours? Why are you doing this? Yeah, we could go on forever. Sometimes you could look at that question, you could say, and it would also bring up, actually, I haven't put enough time in. You know, you might look at that and say, actually, I haven't made very many paintings at all. Totally. So I need to go back and do more work. Totally. One of the things that I did...

very early on, I've spoken about this before, but I think it's super important, was track my studio hours. Because I knew that if I tracked finished paintings, I mean, firstly, that happens anyway, you have a list of them anyway, right? But if my focus was on tracking finished paintings, my focus would be on finishing. If I tracked studio hours, my focus is on going in and doing the practice.

But what I didn't realise when I started doing this that I only realised afterwards was once you have that information, you understand so much about your working practice and how much time you put in and how much time you need to put in, which again gives you more security and confidence if something comes up. You do have an event. You can say, well, I know last season

It took me eight weeks of working this number of hours to complete this. I can do it again. Yeah. You know, what are you looking at? And I've been listening to James Clear, Atomic Habits, which is a very interesting book. But, you know, one of the things he says is, you know, are you actually tracking the right things for you?

You can get totally obsessed with tracking, but it can be a very good way. You know, you can gamify it. You get your little rewards, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like the tick boxes and 750 words for my writing. But just be careful what you're tracking, you know? Yeah, good point. That's a good point too. So the next question was, yeah, how is my studio time spent between studies and finished work? Was this the right balance? Yeah.

So you're better than I am at doing specific exercises and studies that prepare for something. I just dive into the paintings, just figure it all out in the paintings. And I do have my sketchbooks open for colour and drawings of the paintings in progress, but I don't do a lot of preparation before I start. I think what's important in that question as well that you asked is...

the right balance for me so if we go back to my situation the right balance for me might be this year all studies that might be the right balance for me because I'm wanting to explore something new but if you have an upcoming show that could be completely the wrong balance because you're spending all your time having a lovely time in your sketchbook making lots of things that are not useful to you for your particular goal so I like that it's targeted that way and I think

For me, artwork, paintings come as a byproduct of studies, if we call them studies or explorations or playing. It's almost like I'm in there making stuff and paintings come out the other end sometimes. But I can't, if I launch into a painting or series of paintings without doing all of that stuff in advance...

What happens for me is I just get lost. I just don't have any kind of centre to come back to. And the reason my purpose for making them comes out of that exploration. So it's not that I'm particularly good at it. It's just I have to do it to find my idea, which then I know then I have a centre to make paintings from. But if I don't have something...

I do it all the time, though. God, my studio's full of pointless canvases. And you can see they're pointless. You can look at them and say, that person had no idea what they were doing. But then if I work like this with all sorts of different materials, different sized pieces of paper, scraps of canvas, whatever, then something comes out of it. Then I can quite quickly make things. So that's how it works for me. But for you, I think you...

Perhaps you do. Do you go into your paintings at the beginning with a clear idea of what you're aiming for? Not I don't mean by an idea. I don't mean you can see the result, but something that you're working on. I don't think I go in with a clear idea of what I'm aiming for. I think often I start a new series of work with an idea of what I want to test or explore in those paintings.

But I have to do it in the paintings. So the sketchbook work might be almost doing something like this audit. But sometimes I don't do it written. Sometimes I do it literally. This is the other thing. You know, when you have paintings and they don't all sell immediately and they're wrapped up in their foil packages like leftover turkey, you know, you need to go in and get them out and have a look at them.

actually see the paintings because I think because you've had such a strong connection with something that you have physically made you're going to have an emotional connection with it you're going to have that oh oh that part all this part all this is what and then that's where the idea comes from and then I might just write down you know a whole list of

okay, oh, it was that strong mark or it was this fluid bit. So the last ones that I've been doing was just taking this idea almost for the whole of last year of working with fluid layers but in a different way, in a more immediate way rather than building lots together. But I can't plan that. I can't plan...

for that other than have that idea and take that approach and then see how it works. Yeah. That's about, and maybe this year, I am thinking this year, it would be nice to have a little bit more of a definitive start and aim.

So I don't know, that might be something that changes this year when I get back into the studio. I think the other thing I've just got a note of here is, you know, looking at your pace over a year and noticing, I've got here, do you notice a pattern of when you work best? But I think it's just as much noticing what your pattern of working is, which we'll be talking about. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, because there's that saying that lots of people have heard that,

inspiration doesn't, you have to show up or something. Inspiration doesn't just come, you have to sit there and work. And that works actually for me.

But in that, if I do go in, I will start getting inspired and excited as soon as I start doing something. Yeah. But it doesn't work for everyone. And so whenever anybody gives advice on anything, I just think you're just giving the advice on your way. You're just saying what worked for you. It's like someone gives you advice on how to get fit. It's like, OK, that worked for you.

So if one more person asks me if I've tried intermittent fasting, I'm going to throttle them. Don't mean people saying they're doing intermittent fasting. Do what you want, but don't keep giving people suggestions for this thing. What you got to do is this because it doesn't work for everyone. And it's the same. So so that advice, does it work for you? What is your pattern? Do you need to wait to be struck by lightning to go in?

Or do you need to show up and just move things around and see what happens? Or do you work best in summer? Or do you work best in winter? Or whatever it is. I think the tricky thing about that, though, is, and this is always a bit of a balance, isn't it? Do you have to wait to be struck by lightning? And it's very easy to say, oh, yeah, this is what I have to do. And what are you shutting off for yourself by keep telling yourself that,

Because that sounds to me like you're giving yourself a very clear set of perimeters before you even begin. Mm-hmm.

which actually might not be serving you very well. And so much of it depends on personality type. We've talked about this before, but your personality type waits to respond, or responds, doesn't necessarily wait, responds to what's around. And mine can't do that. I can't respond to other people.

And I have, if I get an inspiration, it will get done and quite quickly and really, you know, well, but it might take a year. This is art related and teaching and life. If I get inspired, I will bulldoze over you in my desire to get this thing done. But if I'm not inspired, I will be quite sluggish. So what I found in making art is I do have to show up anyway, right?

And sometimes I can get the inspiration to come from doing that. But I do a little bit have to be struck with, because then I suddenly get all this energy, which then I can use to propel things forward. Yeah.

So it's everyone's got to know themselves and that takes time. You've got to know when you're giving yourself an excuse versus when you're genuinely waiting for something. And there's a point here that I've noted, which is like, what did you enjoy exploring? And I think this is the important one. How do you recognise enjoyment? I think we use a lot of these words like I'm inspired, you know, I'm excited. This is what I'm enjoying. This is what I want. How do you know?

What does that feel like? Like when you're in that moment, when you feel inspired, actually what does that feel like in your body? What's the opposite of that? And because I think that is when you can bring that in, you can recognise what you're missing and also when it happens, you can follow it more clearly. Yes. So it's just an extra little thing to think about. What other questions happen? I mean, I think...

So I have this thing about a pivot.

painting if there is one piece which stands out which one would it be and why there's something that that tells you about your work that's quite interesting and I think what I notice about that is that there are often paintings that feel different from the others and you've mentioned it already and the clues are usually in those ones not the ones that actually came so easily so where are the challenges where were the things that you had to do differently and what did those teach you

It's funny because when you were saying it, I was looking up at one on my office wall, which is the wood panel is painted on split at the back, so it can't be ever sold or used. So I put it in this frame and just stuck it on my office wall because it's not even a finished painting.

But there's something in it that I really like and it's quite different from anything I've done. And it just sits there like and it's been there for over a year now and I'm not ready to know whatever it is that it's telling me. But I just like it. So it just sits there. But when you said that, I thought, oh, that's that. It's quite muted. There's almost nothing there. It's a lot of texture. It's quite light. There's very amorphous texture.

shapes in it that are hardly visible. There's some hidden writing. There's some things I recognise that I always like, but there are some other things that happen. And it happened entirely by accident. It was a sanded back painting, which I just played with.

And so there it sits. But I've had those in the past. I had one in 2018 that didn't actually sell to somebody. It was on my website and it didn't sell until like 2021, I think. So it was there three years. And I always thought it didn't sell because I wasn't ready for it to go. You needed to learn from it still. Yeah, I don't usually hang things of my own in my own house, but I hung that up because there was something about it. It's quite raw and quite ugly in a way. And...

I didn't think anyone would want to buy it and someone did. Someone fell in love with it. But I loved it too. But by the time she bought it, I was okay packing it up and sending it off. So yeah, I think we've got to pay attention to that because sometimes people can say, well, why can't I let this thing go? I should be able to. Well, maybe you shouldn't. Maybe you should keep it. Yeah, and that's...

It's a benefit of hindsight, isn't it? I think there are often paintings or work that we do that, okay, if they've managed to escape the covering over, they've got through that part of the running the gauntlet of what happens in an artist. Sometimes I've definitely had paintings which have felt...

unfinished or can this really be enough? And I've had to be brave at the time to leave them as they were. And then even now, sometimes I look back at them and I think, how did I ever think that? There's more than enough. Yeah. More than enough in that. Whatever happened to that one I liked in your studio when I came?

The big, big orange one. Yeah. It's right outside the door here. It's still here. Because it's heavy. That panel is so heavy. No, I keep meaning to sand it down and use it as like a drawing. I really like that one. I thought you might have looked at it and thought, no, that's really good. No, you see, that feels like, that's also interesting. That feels like...

previous painting for me that I am ready to move on from. Yeah. It's almost the opposite of what we're talking about. Yeah. I feel like stuff has changed. That whole set of panels, they were just too heavy to ship and send. I'm not doing anything with it. Okay. Next. Next is a little bit more

Looking at your previous work, but I think this is a good question. What do you feel is missing from it? And are there areas of additional learning or skills that you might want to introduce or include? Yeah.

I think this comes where I definitely experienced that with those pieces that I'm saying I was excited by. I'm excited by them, but not in the sense that I think, oh, that's a finished painting. I should have put that up for sale. I should have, you know, they're not ready for that. They're just exciting to me because they feel like they need more in them. So...

I'm trying to think of an example. One of them was black and white with some little bits of a limey green in it. Very abstract, very expressionist. But all of the paint application was quite similar because it was because I was just having fun and I wasn't really thinking.

I would want to, and this is my always challenge, find ways to bring in a variety of marks and types of paint application without it, without killing it stone dead by having put too much thought into it, which I frequently do. So I look and I go, well, now that's pretty, but that's not what I was looking for because now I've, so that's my, I think that,

And when I did my audit, that's what I decided my aim is for the coming year is to work on that. So it's developing my list of, okay, now I want some more fluid paint to go with this, some more blended paint, as well as the solid marks, some more color, whatever it is, or a different color palette. And then working just as excitedly as I did without those thoughts, right?

And that is always the challenge for me because it goes from... It happened to me in California. I had pieces I was really excited by early on and Bibi was my cheerleader. So she was like, great, keep going, keep going. And for me, unfortunately, keep going means...

Killed it. Turn them into something pretty. It's not that conscious in my mind, but that's what happens. You know, then I start varying the marks and varying the colors and varying the size and shapes of things and putting in this and adding that. And now it's lovely. And also it's not as exciting to me as what it was. So I think that'll be my next stage of development.

And I think when you're in this sort of part of reflecting on it, it's almost the opposite of that being at the middle of the daisy and exploring. I think here what you've got to do is step yourself back outside of it. Disconnect from your personal relationship with it. A little bit disconnect from the emotional part of you and look at it really objectively as if you were seeing somebody else's work.

And this takes a lot of guts because we have, you know, we have to have a lot of self-belief as artists. We have to come from that place. That's where we have to...

you know, that's where we have to find our energy to turn up and do this every day because it is a challenging thing. And if it's not challenging, you're just going through the motions a little bit. So there's the doing that in the first place, but then to stand back and really look at it and say, is this really going to catch somebody's attention? What do I really love? Where are the bits? Where are the bits that I feel like?

I'm failing or I could be doing better at. And know that you have to look at those. You have to be able to look at that because that's your route into the next stage. That's your route into making it better. Absolutely. But how do you then look at those things, think about those things and then not kill it? Because I can do the looking at, thinking at, judging. That's not a problem. It's the taking what I've thought about

And not making something... Yeah, so how do you do that is the challenge. But you just...

The first part is identifying what it is. So what's missing? And if you say, okay, what's missing is a sense of spontaneity. What's missing is, you know, you use the word rawness a lot. What does that actually look like? So again, go back to that question. How does that feel when you're doing that in your body? What does it feel like when you've killed it, when you've tied it up? Like really, that's the part where you need to get really specific so you could notice not to do it again. Yeah.

And that's how you do it, is getting more aware and noticing more.

Because, you know, we all have habits about how we work and sometimes our habits really serve us. Like your colour mixing habit means that you no longer debate everything in your head. Like you don't have to pour all your energy into that because you've got a baseline of knowledge that you use. And also there are always going to be things that your next level that take more attention and energy to be conscious of.

Yeah. It's about relying on the bits that you know that you can do and being more aware of the bits that are new and challenging and they're always going to take a little bit more energy. And I think you just you have to accept that you're going to fuck it up.

Yeah, exactly.

Because I was aware that I was avoiding decisions that needed to be made that took a painting from a middle to a finished. That was what I needed to do in my work at that stage. Now I'm much happier about letting things be in the state that they're in. I know that I can do that. So I no longer have to be aware of that. Yeah. But what I need to do now is maybe be more relaxed about the amount of time that paintings take.

So it's going to change. And this is why, even though the questions might be the same, your answer to it, your response, your approach is never going to be the same. It's going to be the same when you do this over again. So true. It's so valuable. I mean, you know, the formal whatever, you know, it's critique, isn't it? It's getting other people's opinions in on it. And it's

That is also useful. And there's a structure for that too. But at the end of the day, it comes down to you and knowing yourself and what you want from your work. Ain't no one else going to do it for you. Yes. No one else going to be there. Yeah, you have to become your own critic. You have to become your own best friend. You have to become your own cheerleader. Yeah. Yeah. It's not easy, but...

It's not like going down a coal mine. No. We're okay. No. I'm asking for sympathy from anyone. No, but, and it's also like when you do something like this, you do realise how far you've come. You realise...

you know, oh, that used to be tricky for me and now I'm all right with that part of it. Yes, that was a lot of what I realised. Doing those still lives can still remember the teacher. It was a class in Nyack in New York with Patti Malika. Some people know her, she's amazing. And she does these still lives in acrylic small with big brushes and they're really full of life. And she kept saying to me,

loosen up Louise, take a big brush now and paint that with a big brush. And I look at these little meticulous, boring, dead still lifes that I came back with and I think she must have wanted to put her hands around my neck and just throttle me because I just couldn't. I couldn't do what she was asking me to. And I remember that now it's nuts because the thing I find easiest is to fling paint around with big brushes. Yeah.

So we do, when you look back, you say, wow, look at how much progress I've made towards what I want to do. But of course, we're never at the finish line. So we forget about all that and we just look into what we're not doing yet. Yeah, brutal. Okay, Alice, what has inspired you this week?

Along similar lines, actually. So I've joined a new group for something. And one of our questions as an introduction to everybody in the group was, what was your first job and what did you learn from it?

And that was quite fun. It was really interesting to hear the variety and the different people's stories. And also, you know, most of the people in this group are, you know, in their 50s. They're pretty experienced in business. But to take you right back to that nervousness of your first job, the lack of control that you had in it, you know, it's

And to hear what everybody had taken from that going forward was really good fun. So, yeah, I said, you know, my first job was working in a shop and all I really learned was don't listen to any of eight hours a day. Oh, God. Working in a record shop, which I did in my youth. Christmas music. Never any Christmas music. Yeah.

yeah and then I think the other thing that for me was it wasn't a job but it was when the children were little and I wanted to get out of the house and I did kitchen demonstration parties for pampered chef and I think I recognized in there some of the things that I really enjoyed doing with people you know creating interesting creating a

engagement and atmosphere and I just really enjoy and I'd never done that you know in a inverted commas work formal setting yeah completely very different yeah

I did a job at ASDA that doesn't exist anymore. In the offices, they'd send all the invoices, paper invoices, to this office. We'd add them all up on a manual calculator, edit them into a ledger. Yes, I am from the 1920s. We'd put them into a ledger with that copy paper, and then we'd tear a sheet off which went to a count's head office, and we'd tear the sheet off which went to the store. Yeah, anyway, fascinating. Nice.

My What's Inspired is a book that I was given for Christmas, a novel, an art-related novel, and it's by Paula Hawkins, who wrote The Girl on the Train, was a big bestseller. This one is less catchy and commercial, but it's about an artist, sculptor and painter who lives on a remote Scottish island...

And it's she's dead by the time the novel starts, but it's about the people who were there to curate and put her work, the people who inherit her work when she dies, the lady that she lived with on the island and the story behind some of the things, some of her artwork. And there's a mystery at the center of it. And it's really interesting.

It's quite literary, I would say, compared to The Girl on the Train, but it's really easy to read and exciting and scary and all sorts of things. Sounds quite good as a page turner to get. It is. Does it have a title? Oh, sorry. It's called The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins and it has...

You see, it was a present, so it's in hardback. So it might only be in hardback at the moment. I'm not sure. It has like a watercolour blue splotch on the front dripping down. Okay, good. And that's it for us. And that's it from us. Don't bother editing that out. That's just how we are. We make mistakes all the time. That's it from us this week.

I don't know if we'll be back next week. We might be. You never know these days. We'll see how we feel. You can find us on Instagram, Alice Sheridan Studio and Louise Fletcher Art. So pop by and say hi to us if you are interested to. I don't know if either of us have posted much lately, but if we have previous posts, you can comment. All right, we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. Bye.