Kirsty O'Leary-Leeson

Songs of Distant Memory

77 x 61 cm
Pencil on gesso primed wood

Image still looks very slightly bowed due to the lens distortion, but I think this is as good as it gets. Oh to be able to afford to get artwork professionally scanned. Finally it stopped raining long enough to take the drawing outside, I put out a sheet and laid it down on it, then got a stepladder and dangled precariously off it over the drawing, whilst taking photos.

Snow

Snowfall

Pencil on gesso

MERRY CHRISTMAS ONE AND ALL

The Price of Acceptance

So I decided to try my luck at open submissions again.  This time with the Royal Society Of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition at the Mall Galleries.  You apply online via the Mall galleries website.  You pay per entry, so just one for me, and upload your image.  Then check back to see if you have made it past the first round - yay! I did, I got the picture out… and promptly dropped it,  argghh, the dent on one corner was very tiny, but if the image is perfect, then so does the substrate need to be.  I had a week to get an emergency frame made - argh more expenditure, then booked train tickets as I needed to take the drawing and deliver it in person to the Mall Galleries for the final selection procedure.  

I decided to walk from Liverpool street to the Mall, 40 mins exercise would do me good, unfortunately my shoes weren’t so pleased at this choice and they began to rub. 
As I approached the Mall I began to panic, all the doors were closed, and I had less than an  hour to hand it in.  I checked my print out….nooooo, it was a different address, when it said online ‘hand in to the Mall galleries’ I had assumed it meant 'The’ mall galleries.  I phoned my husband, gave him the address and he found it on google maps and began to give me directions, apparently it wasn’t far away.  However some time was just spent with me standing in the middle of the roundabout next to Trafalgar Square arguing over the phone 
Husband:  You should have The Mall on your right and the square on your left
Me: Maybe I should have, but it’s not, the Mall is on my left…… blah blah blah.

Anyway eventually I managed to make it to the address, turns out we had used the postcode only and this was not accurate, more re-tracing of steps and finally made it to the actual address. By now my shoes had begun to fall apart, it was raining and I was miserable.
Worst of all, the hand in address was actually just the back door of the gallery, if I had walked a few more yards down the Mall I would have come to some steps that cut through to the back door.

Well I was pleased to finally offload the drawing, and stagger back to the train station and return home.

It had all been such a long and painful procedure with regards to money, time and feet to this point that I was sure I was doomed to be rejected.

Thanks be that I wasn’t, it made it into the exhibition and I even decided to go back down for the Private View.  Unfortunately the drinks weren’t free but a friendly waitress filled up my water bottle… (with water).
Dan Snow opened it, and I was quite excited as he walked around the exhibition and he drew nearer to my work, I was preparing to thrust one of my cards at him when suddenly he diverted and never came back to the corner where I was. Booo. 

My work was quite different from the majority of paintings there, and I got a lot of compliments with people saying it was their favourite, one woman said that if there was a fire mine would be the one she would grab and run away with, typically most of these comments came from fellow artists, or partners of artists, no-one with any ready cash.

Quite a few were being sold, a lady was wandering around with a pack of red dots and my heart would leap if she headed in my direction.  It was hard to loiter in front of my work as I would obscure other peoples art so I hung back and if anyone pointed at it I would jump in and thrust a card at them, hoping they were saying how marvellous it was and not 'don’t like that one’.

I left with it unsold, but it did sell before the end of the show, the 45% commission and the 20% VAT doesn’t leave me with much of a profit, but I am extremely grateful to the buyer as he has saved me from yet another trip down to London! Thankyou so much.

Loitering With Intent

Looking forward to loitering around next to my artwork at The Mall Galleries tomorrow, where one of my drawings is being shown in The Royal Society of Marine Artists Annual Exhibition.  I shall be hoping to convince men in pin stripe suits that purchasing it most definitely would be a fabulous investment.

Anybody in the vicinity pop along and say hi, I shall be there from 2.30 til 8.00pm.

Dan Snow will be opening it at 3.00, ooooh celebrity!

Work In Progress

The price of Rejection

So a few months back I as usual paid my fee and submitted a drawing to the Jerwood Drawing Prize, my husband took one look at my drawing and said “nah, it’s a drawing and it’s really good, it doesn’t stand a chance” he suggested  I make a print from the scratched up piece of perspex that has been screwed to the bottom of our back door, it protects the wood from the claws of our two dogs who scratch when they want to come in from the garden. Hmm, probably would have stood more of a chance.

Ok the Jerwood likes to push the boundaries… so what was displayed when I visited the exhibition a couple of years back.  Well there were one or two drawings which were technically brilliant/innovative, a great many abstract images, and very large semi abstracts, a couple of films which had been produced by women who showed evidence of midlife neuroses, and a couple of very badly executed drawings which defied any explanation for being included. One piece that sticks in my mind was a small coffee table with a mug ring stain on it, my husband (who is also an artist) was most indignant at this inclusion.  In what way can this be claimed as a drawing?  Well, drawing records an instant in time, it is the memory of something that no longer exists, so in that instance perhaps the ring stain could be related to the theory of drawing if not the practise, I still think it’s stretching it somewhat, as I consider that moment of existence to be more psychological than something so mundanely physical.

The exhibition though does show up how art has a tendency to fall into two categories, there are the drawings on the wall that you could sell, this is the world I exist in, I have to, I have bills to pay and do not have the luxury of a wealthy husband or benefactor; then there are the mug stain artists who produce work that wants to be considered cerebral but is unlikely to sell (unless you are an Emin or a Hirst) I have plenty of items of furniture around the house identical to that coffee table, why on earth would I want to add to the junk in my house.

Oh well, I will probably try again next year, and experience the joy of having to pay for rejection! I hope I can claim it on my tax return.