this is how it feels...

Last weekend was the mighty open studio extravaganza in this corner of Scotland which is Spring Fling . Ninety-three artists and makers across our region opened their studio doors to welcome in the interested and curious public. There was an enormous amount of preparation to get my studio and all the work ready and a level of exciting adrenalin-fuelled panic that far surpassed rational sanity. The doors opened while the final signage was still being tied into place on Saturday morning at 10.30am and the fun began. Even though I have taken part in several Spring Flings by now, I was still surprised when nigh on nine hundred visitors came to my studio over three days. They smiled, looked bemused, chatted, asked very pertinent and informed questions, and explained how my painting based on feelings of loss of self, resembled a dolphin cavorting in the waves. Some managed to control the urge to reach out and touch textured surfaces and some did not even try, caressing the surprisi...

Last weekend marked the start of my new season of studio workshops . The Creative Process is one I'd offered several times before so it had been prepared and tweaked and honed and previously very well received. I had notes and inspirational book of quotes to hand. I had taken hours to tidy and prepare the studio for my visitors. Everything was in place: boxes and baskets of myriad fibres; fabric and threads to inspire; stacks of papers for drawing and printing; jars full of brushes; old yoghurt pots for decanting gesso, glue and paint. Canvases were sitting ready in the corner awaiting their first tentative markings. In the kitchen downstairs, a tasty, nourishing lunch awaited. Hot and cold refreshments were laid out in anticipation of workers needing to be comfortingly restored with the additional aid of shortbread and juicy grapes. The scene was indeed well and truly set. And I was nervous, really stomach quiveringly nervous just as I always am before a workshop begins...

"It's a Maggie line!" - shorthand instigated by my husband Kim, describing my obsessive preference for bendy, non-parallel soaring and sinuous lines usually observed in nature and enthusiastically photographed for future enterprises. Tree branches entwining skywards. Markings and rivulets left behind on lowtide beaches. Strata of stone layers on exposed rock formations. Random discoveries of tumbled pebbles. Twisted gnarled water-seeking roots revealed. Creases in the land where hills enfold fields. Crackings on mountainsides as water takes its course. And with the last snow and drifting of a couple of weeks or so ago, we saw the achingly stunning white folds and billows, creating yet more "Maggie lines" to wonder at. A joyful beholding of a sympathetic landscape. Here are just a small sample. Feel free to click on the images for larger versions

Nothing unusual in unlocking the door to my studio, except now I am forced to see it with the prospect of visitors walking around, taking notice of what's on display, being able to stand back for optimum appreciation. So now I have to transform my space and remove most of the evidence of my everyday working abandonment. When I work I am messy, careless and immediate. I allow no time for the tidy replacing of tools and materials. This in itself would be a fine illustration and conceivably quite sociologically of interest to those who would favour the artist in their natural habitat, but issues of health and safety must take their toll and force me to clean up my act. So it is a necessity to tidy away and order my accoutrements at least just enough to allow for the visitor to walk through the door and not immediately stumble over unfinished canvases, slide on dropped pastels and become entangled and immobilised by windings of thread and fibre. It's a tricky balance to achie...

In my last post I spoke a bit about the themes which drive my work. I realise these have been less explicit of late than when I started out with my blog. I think it is about time that I revisited them, not least for my own benefit. Over the last couple of years these themes have been no less important to me, but have influenced as a gently embracing undercurrent rather than as a forceful driving energy. I recognise I lose sight of the bigger picture so often and need to take time to re-evaluate and remember. When I started writing this blog I was motivated by a passion to communicate the meaning behind my abstract work. "Acceptable Flesh" as a concept was the focus I needed to make a body of work which I planned to exhibit as an immersive experience and as such, an entity in itself. In reality, every piece I make mines the same seam of inspiration. "Acceptable Flesh" is primarily about my struggle to deal with my socially unacceptable body. I have neither b...

When I began working on "Bloom", I felt a bit overwhelmed and excited at the same time. This piece is one of the largest I have worked on, measuring 100x150cm. But I do love to work on larger pieces, allowing more free rein to be bold and expressive. I think it feels a bit like being able to speak out louder and truer and more likely to be heard while the rest of the time in the "real world" it's more like voices lost to the wind. I suppose that's one of the most important aspects to me of being an artist: the work I make is witness to my feelings of being alive in this body even if my voice is unheard or pointedly ignored. I'll write more about this in my next post. "Bloom" is about a sense of growing stronger, more vital and vibrant. I built out from the canvas with wireform mesh stitched and stabbed through the surface to accentuate the idea of expansion and growth, not constrained by the tiny box which is deemed fit for us to in...

For the last couple of weeks I have mixed: beeswax damar resin chalk pastels India ink graphite powder carbon paper encaustic pigments silk fibres and yarn rusty metal shards torn cotton scrim paper fragments with heat from table top stove and blow torch with assorted natural hair paint brushes with various scraping, gouging and engraving devices with manipulative hands and a HUGE amount of wonder, excitement and fun This is what I made... All original pieces are 15cm x 15cm

I have been experimenting all week with my newest encaustic accoutrements and I have had such a good time! Melting, stirring, dipping, dripping, brushing, scraping, marking, embedding, rubbing, gouging. I have spent more time that was reasonably necessary smelling the beeswax and lifting still warm globules to mould with my fingers. Watching the bloom on the surface fade under the smoothing of my hand. Fusing the layers of wax to each other with my heat gun was fine when I was working on the little boards but when I progressed to the first bigger piece, I realised that I definitely needed something more powerful. I always knew I wanted a proper blow torch, although I think in my head I was confusing blow torch with flame thrower... There is a huge array of flaming tools out there! As I wended my confused way through the ranks of blow torches I worried over temperature degrees, weights, burning attachments, safety features and costs. All kinds of wild scenarios flashed befo...

With broad palette knife, thick acrylic structure paste was applied in adjoining swathes across my canvas. Next a well distressed strip of beaten mulberry bark pressed down repeatedly, making its mark and memory. Then as mirror image, the bark embedded for balance alongside its imprints and left to dry out. Paint poured and water sprayed and dropped from a height. Last thoughtful and well placed brush strokes and smudges. The marks we leave in thought and action as we move through our lives. To view more of this artwork, see it on my website here: http://www.maggieayres.co.uk/gallery/impressions.htm

I thought encaustic art was all about painting with a little electric iron and brightly coloured wax. That singular notion didn't offer enough for me to explore further with the result that a vast rich seam of gloriously sensual artistic activity passed me by for so long. I don't quite remember what led to the earth-moving moment when I looked again but I did and it did! I do remember I was left breathless when I saw work by artists such as Roberta Lee Woods and Alicia Tormey. I was enthralled and immediately set off on new travellings to unexpected and unconsidered places. There followed several weeks of gathering pieces of required paraphernalia including a little table-top stove, cradled boards, and surface thermometer. To these I added some tools I'd used for ceramics, along with carbon paper, pastels, graphite powder and India ink. My trusty heat gun would take on new fusing dimensions. I read books, looked at lots of images online and watched YouTube videos to...

"Flourish" is about letting go, allowing growth and not hiding from the world. I want it to say: "This is who I am, I'm going to fly and I am not apologising!" It taps right back into my concept of "Acceptable Flesh". (See " Not Whining But Screaming ") Oh for all of us to feel nurtured, nourished and valued unconditionally irrespective of our physical or monetary status! I suppose it is more the way I want to feel than how I am most days. Exuberantly aspirational... " When I think about how I made this piece it seems like I threw everything at it; highly textured painted canvas, fragments of polychromatic silkscreen printed calico, constructed silk fibres, dyed mulberry bark, mixed threads. And it's red, shoutingly RED! Because it had to seem bold and unapologetically blooming. Exuberantly alive. To view more of this artwork, see it on my website here: http://www.maggieayres.co.uk/gallery/flourish.htm

With being fairly new to Facebook and all its seemingly arcane workings, I was quite unprepared though hugely pleasantly surprised when my "win a notebook" competition achieved 105 shares. I have received some really lovely positive comments too. It has been so heart-warming and I am really grateful to everyone who took the time and entered to show support. So here is the big announcement... ...and the winner is Maggi Birchenough! Congratulations! As a thank you to everyone, I have arranged a 20% discount (£2) on the soft back version of my notebook until Sunday. http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3380405-graphite-ink Thank you!

Creative potential at the heart of all... or The paint does it by itself... "Core" is important to me for two reasons. It was one of the first pieces I made when I moved into my studio just over two years ago, remaining in my mind as a revolutionary time. Yet more memorable still was the beginnings of a new way of working with paint that has carried me on ever since. I had been using an acrylic structuring paste for some years already that had allowed me to add texture with fibres and threads to my canvases. It was only when I started to paint "Core" that I realised how porous this made the surface as the acrylic paint (mixed wetter than usual) was bleeding out like watercolour. A door opened enticingly! I proceeded to water down my paints even more, laid the canvas on the floor and poured colour in tentative streams from above to splash and puddle and swirl. I added more sprays and drips of water to encourage movement. Quite often there was a flood over t...

There is currently an exhibition at The Artroom in Dumfries of textile work in response to the life and work of poet Robert Burns. Eight Spring Fling artists, including me, are showing work at this new exhibiting venue until February 23rd. Our pieces are so varied in both technique and style yet I think complement each other so interestingly. Gloamin Grey by Maggie Ayres Mine is called " Gloamin Grey ", taken from the poem The Lea-Rig. (Gloaming is the Scots word for twilight). It is suspended in the space and casts shadows against the wall behind. I wanted to make the hanging light and airy to evoke the magical in between time of day and night. Detail of Gloamin Grey I worked the piece using a mix of dyed silk fibres (tops, throwsters waste and laps) and merino wool tops with Solufleece dissolvable stabiliser and free machine stitching. I also incorporated some split silk carrier rods and rows of hand stitching. The Lea-rig is one of my favourite Burns' song...

I have created a notebook, which features 10 of my graphite and ink drawings to inspire your own imaginative explorations along with 28 blank unlined pages for sketches and musings – also available for sale at blurb.com: http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3380405-graphite-ink Graphite & Ink by Maggie Ayres | Make Your Own Book . For the chance to win a free copy then you need to make sure you have "liked" my Maggie Ayres Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/maggieayresart and then you need to "share" the post about this draw I will randomly draw the winning name on Monday 18th Feb. Good luck!

For months now I have been aware that my website - www.maggieayres.co.uk - needed to be overhauled and revamped. With huge thanks to my ever patient and indulgent husband Kim , the latest incarnation is born and I present it to the world with chest fair bursting with pride! The main attraction for me (and I hope for visitors) are the new gallery images which are enhanced by the clean uncluttered look of the site. Big white space always does it for me! I love the fact that it is an uncomplicated doorway to the rest of my online presence including Pinterest and Facebook. It keeps everything simple and that suits me well.

I kept hearing about Pinterest. I would love it. It would feed my creativity. It was a great way of sharing. It was not only inspirational but fun too! I didn't go and look - dismissing it to the ever-growing pile of never ending "things I should know about/ be interested in, if only I could find the time". I kept on ignoring in ignorance until one day inspiring Julie said "Take a look at my Pinterest pages. Here's the link!" Eventually I opened my eyes and dared to steal a look and a glorious world of potential flew around me. I'm just peeping through the windows still. But I love it. Thank you Julie --- If you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, then click here: http://pinterest.com/maggieayres/