Pencil Bouquets and Blank Pages

getting back to creating

After many false starts and starting agains with weird mumblings of random words. I am trying to circle my way back to my own why. Why did I sign up with a substack page way back in 2022.  Hopefully, I will get to it by the end of these ramblings.

The fact is I always loved graphics in all its beautiful shapes and colours and forms. I remember my mom giving me an old suitcase, when I was probably 8 years old, to keep all my “valuable visuals” together. I remember because I still have that very suitcase, it traveled halfway around the world with me from South Africa, where I grew up, to New Zealand when we relocated almost 8 years ago. (But that’s a story for another day). Another fact that very old suitcase reminds me: like many, I too struggle to let go, but mostly of images, especially the good ones! I want to hold on and remember that inspiration and how it made me feel. The beauty of a foreign image a new font, or a really good design. And really, why is that so bad?

But back to the story, a longtime online friend of mine, Shalagh Hogan, who writes at

recently had a blogpost

Wherever You are Curly, I finally Know My “Just One Thing”

Please go and read for the details, as background which stirred my thoughts,  she refers to the movie City Slickers (c.1991), quoting her here: “where Billy Crystal receives deep meaning-of-life advice from a weathered cowhand named Curly…… and the advice is; he needs to find his “Just One Thing” and stick with that. Everything else doesn’t mean squat. What is It? That’s yours to figure out……”

Okay, so I was fairly young, probably too young to really remember the details of the movie, the context was probably a bit lost on me. But now I obviously placed on the have to watch pile. In any event, her writing got me thinking about mine..

When I was 9, I was doing this extra-curricular art class, and I made this artwork for a competition, I’m guessing the theme was “Draw what you want to be when you grow up” because there’s a little note at the top and I drew myself as an artist. I don’t quite remember wanting to be one, as a kid I always wanted to be a writer, I loved stories and the adventure of learning to read and write was literally just that: an adventure. Add a crazy down-the rabbit hole imagination. A writer made a good fit.  But then in art class, I made this oil pastel artwork, not too sure why, maybe because it translated well into a picture. Maybe I envied my lovely teacher’s life. Who knows. Eventually though, much much later in life that ended up something I desperately wanted to be.

Me wanting to be an artist age 9, oil pastels on cardboard

Fast forward to university when I was doing an art course in paint and drawing. Something at that stage I didn’t really imagine (because of other backstories and detours during my high school years) but there I was painting. Dare I say being an artist and it felt so very right. I loved the experience. All of it. The newness of fellow students I didn’t know, my newish art toolbox, the feel of the paint brushes, the smell of turpentine, the crazy things oil paint could do, the paint under my nails. I felt so alive. Just trying to make marks and get images out of my head (based on art briefs of course) and very unsuccessfully naturally because skill versus ideas takes forever to actually meet somewhere. But that trying was delightful.

(I have to place a link to the very inspiring Ira Glass lecture here, maybe more for me but there.. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish

As part of the course I attended this workshop at the end of March that year. It focused on drawing and then creating with paint and there was so much inspiration. I wish I still had my notes. But some things do get lost with moves. There was lots of lectures and so.much.learning. So.Many.Thoughts.

Me circa 2003 working on my art for my course

But one idea stayed with me. (finally circling back to the one thing) There was a specific lecturer who told us that (in her opinion) the only artists who really “make” it* in art, were the ones who had something to say. Those who said that message through their art.

I remember she said it doesn’t matter the medium, or the details of the subject matter exactly and it most certainly doesn’t matter your skills. What matters is how you use art to say your say.

It goes without saying it can be anything. Faith, hope, children, animals, war, politics, conservation. The future, the past. It is about sharing what you have to say about that thing. And using your medium. Whether it’s paint or drawing, or sculpture. Big or small. Or only words.

All you really need is to figure out what it is you want to say.

Throughout my career; between everything else I learned over the years, all the “used it” and the “lost it” wisdoms. This one stayed. I can’t remember, sadly (and so very sorry to that very inspiring teacher at UNISA) her name but I live the message.

Find something to say and say it through your art.

So here I am, a lifetime later, writing a new blog. One that I want to use to work out what I want to say through my art. Because even in a world with so many messages, I do have my own. I have something to say, I just need to find my way. Through pixels, and paint on blank canvas and blank screens. Here I am creating graphics for me, my visions, my ideas. Using all the wonderful tools available. Some I know well, some I don’t so much. (Hello Ai) 

From pen to paint, to pixels and photos; here goes. Finding my why, saying my say. Through graphics.

One of many pencil bouquets on my desk

*I have to note that “making it in art” is such a relative concept. Because for many it could mean making a living from it. Earning your wage. But maybe really making it, in anything really is actually getting your message out to the world.