Art in one form or another has been a fundamental part of me since day one, yet oddly fraught with complication.
I began painting watercolours with my grandad from a young age. He was wonderful, a true artist. Painter, musician, carpenter. We lost him the day after my 15th birthday, and with him I lost my ability fo paint. My mind went blank, and remained so for a long time.
I spent years stifled enotionally. How are we meant to understand life without the important tools of expression? Then, I learned to process the world through writing. I performed poetry, started several novels (finished none of course), then enrolled in university as a mature student, studying a BA in English and Creative Writing, and then an MA in Creative Writing, which I loved. My dad passed away just before I started my studies, and writing became an essential lens to explore my grief and turn it into something positive, which was the only way I could stomach it.
Then, just last year, I fell pregnant and around the same time my mum was diagnosed with alzheimers. Sadly she didn’t get to meet my son, and passed a month before he was born.
Becoming a mother whilst coming to terms with the loss of my own mum, well, it pulled the carpet out from under me. Everything has changed. Being so close to both death and new life has changed my perception of almost everything. I’m still figuring things out, and I will be for the foreseeable. Writing has been useless. I just can’t convey what I’m feeling in the confines of words no matter how many clever tricks I try when putting them together.
Suddenly, like a light switching on, painting matters to me again, very much. I am screaming out for it. I didn’t know where to start, until I read up on the Artist in Residency In Motherhood Project, and that gave me the permission that for some reason I needed, to pick up where I left off so long ago…but with a lot of new ideas, and a desperate need for expression. I feel like I’m back on a path a drifted from long ago.
Why am I sharing this? Because to be transparent in these events means I talk about them, and I need to. I also hope to open a dialogue which is helpful to others. Life and death are two of the biggest themes out there, and I’ve got something to say on them. And honestly, these events have been all consuming, so through my art I am not only exploring them, but searching for myself in that chaos. The me that shall one day ermerge from the dust and sparks.
This story informs much of my work, so to understand this will help you understand my work better. I also paint pretty things for fun. Sometimes it’s nice to just let loose and not take life so seriously. And, when it comes to death, it’s all too easy to focus on the macabre, when the truth is life is still very, very beautiful.
Thank you for reading.
Bernadette Pamplin Art 