art action: living with ptsd

i'm jumping around a bit in time here as i'm trying to catch up with thoughts and posts i really wanted to write during the exhibition but didn't have time to start, let alone finish. but new and exciting things are happening daily and so this is an immediate response to a private view i've just been to a few hours ago.

on august 30th (a few posts ago) i wrote about meeting and chatting to a young soldier due back in afghanistan. tonight i went to the opening of 'art action: living with ptsd' at the poly, falmouth. it's an exhibition of artwork by combat veterans who are experiencing post traumatic stress disorder and there's also work by their wives and friends.

what was great about this private view was that there were brief talks by jayne howard, the director of 'arts for health cornwall', rich emerson from 'surf action' and one of the founding artists, steve woods who manages their art studio at heartlands. these two charities have worked together to facilitate this exhibition and it was really interesting to hear a little of the background story. the aim is to raise awareness of ptsd and to highlight the work of 'surf action' in supporting people with this condition.

it was inspiring to hear how the art group gradually evolved from getting veterans together to go surfing. steve woods also explained that images within the pieces had not been painted in order to shock but to help the sufferer expel them from their mind. 

i couldn't help thinking about the young soldier i met on the train...... and what his fate will be.

'escape' by ian wilkes, combat veteran- concrete and slate
and a poem by "a wife of a soldier with ptsd".

I Have Never Been to War........

I have never been to war

I have never held a gun

But I feel the repercussions

I have never smelt the burning 

But I can see the fear

I have never heard machine gun fire

But I can see the shake it causes

I have never been to war.

I have never fought for my country

But I can see the scars it leaves

I have never been a soldier

But I hear the marching of his dreams

I have never been on a battlefield

But I feel like I am on enemy lines

I have never been to war

But I live through it every day.

the poly members show

going back in time to mid july i was busy painting away in my studio. all members of 'the royal cornwall polytechnic society' (locally referred to as 'the poly') were invited to exhibit up to four pieces in the annual members show. i'd painted my first twenty or so pictures which i really wasn't happy with. i had started '100 birds' intending to work my way through 100 different species of sea and coastal birds spotted and recorded in cornwall since the 1950s. i painted 19 different species of gull! here they are for the record......

1- sabine's gull, 2- kittiwake, 3- bonaparte's gull, 4- black-headed gull, 5- little gull, 6- laughing gull, 7- franklin's gull, 8- mediterranean gull, 9- audouin's gull, 10- common gull, 11- ring-billed gull, 12- lesser black backed gull, 13- herring gull, 14- yellow-legged gull, 15- caspian gull, 16- american herring gull, 17- iceland gull, 18- glaucous gull, 19- great black-backed gull.

that's a lot of gulls! although i thought my paintings were terrible i definitely learnt a lot about gulls. i also looked up their eggs and included those in the pieces. i moved on to an oyster catcher and a chough. i'm not really sure if you can count the chough as a seabird but it seemed crazy not to include the national symbol of cornwall in the 100.

it's strange how things turn out. i would never really have considered painting a chough as pictures of them are found frequently down here and i think i felt that it would be a bit obvious, something for tourists, not quite as bad as pasties and piskies but edging towards that terrain. they are however stunning birds and in painting the chough i made a bit of a break through.

i really didn't consciously think of the title '100 birds' or know how the exhibition would evolve. every time i thought about what to do i came up with many ideas which all seemed ok. every time i went out walking, not thinking about the exhibition at all, the phrase '100 birds' kept repeatedly coming into my mind. i have no idea where it came from but each time it grew louder and louder until finally i listened, and adopted it as my title. my instinct was just to start painting birds and see where it went. but i guess i thought about it a little too much and came up with the idea of the 100 different cornish seabirds. that seemed like a good idea and so i set about my research. however, things weren't going well and i couldn't tell if it was because i hadn't painted properly for about 15 years or something else. i persevered and moved on to the chough. finally things started falling into place. the poly show came round and the only piece i felt happy with showing was the chough . i hastily dropped it off and walking past the building the following evening i was both surprised and happy to see it in the window. almost immediately i was getting inquiries from people wanting to buy it. this was encouraging. after much thought i realised what had happened differently with this painting. i had a strong image of a chough in my mind so didn't have to refer to photographs as with the previous gulls. this gave the painting a spontaneity, an immediacy and it was all coming through me, from me. i felt a huge sense of relief as i scrapped all the lists, all the photos and all the research and returned to my original instinct to paint birds- any birds, just birds.

100 birds

'100 birds' is the title of the exhibition i'm working on at the moment. it's made up of one hundred small paintings of seabirds using natural pigments, most of which i've collected from the local coast. there's a huge amount of work to do in not a lot of time! it opens at the poly in falmouth on august 21st. the week i started working i had two encounters with birds. on the spiral staircase leading to my studio i found a dead baby blue tit - it didn't feel like a good omen. later in the week i came across a friend trying to free a coal tit. it was hanging upside down from a very bloody leg caught in the chain of a bird feeder. after an unsuccessful attempt to cut the chain or prise it apart i had a go at releasing the tension and miraculously the bird flew free. this felt a little more positive. and now i'm hoping for an experience with a fully healthy happy bird!