Forgive me, internet: it has been a long time since my last blog post.
Here comes that familiar phrase again: how time flies. So much has happened, both good and bad, as it always seems to these days, and in profusion. We live in a world overflowing with events, change and – increasingly - chaos. It seems that we must learn that nothing is constant, and everything changes
Towering over everything else, at the end of January 2024 my father died after a long illness. With all of the grief and anguish that comes with that (even when it is expected it still hits hard) art had to take a back seat for a while. It took me some months to work through the emotional and practical sides of Dad’s death, both personally and with my mother, sister and family. I am full of gratitude to all my loved ones and friends who stood with me through it all.
With all that said, once I felt able to return to art projects around late March 2024, and to re-address the backlog of ideas and questions that had been on hold, things started to happen and new ideas began to emerge. And now, a year later, a little recap seems a helpful thing - both for me as well as for anyone interested in where my art practice is currently.
Me and “Peace Comes Dropping Slow”, OAS Members’ Exhibition, March 2024. Copyright: Mark Clay.
So it was a great morale booster for me, at a time of sadness, to win the Guest Speaker’ Prize at the 2024 Oxford Art Society Members’ Exhibition for my pencil drawing “Peace Comes Dropping Slow”. I also really enjoyed talking with the guest speaker himself, the writer and curator David Boyd Haycock, about our mutual admiration for Paul Nash, especially his mystical landscapes. Nash was one my first artistic heroes, not least for his life-long path of creative development and discovery but also his sensitive approach to landscape, which I always aspire to bring to my own practice.
(Incidentally, I thoroughly recommend “A Crisis of Brilliance”, David’s absorbing and immersive book about key artists of the Slade School – including Nash – and the coming of the First World War. You can find out more about on David’s website here: https://www.davidboydhaycock.com/books/p/sand-atd82 )
A busy summer of art projects, activities and exhibitions then ensued. As well as taking on the leadership of the Botley Life Drawing Group, and continuing my commitments to the Portable Collective (and our friends and colleagues in Bonn, Germany), I also joined the committee of the Oxford Art Society.
And in November 2024, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Claire Waite-Brown, the founder of Creativity Found, a podcast that shares the stories of people like me who find a creative path later in life. As well as being a pleasure to do, it gave me a really helpful point to take stock of my (almost) 10-year journey thus far; a moment to pause and think about how far I had come. You can hear it here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1386667/episodes/15970469-mark-clay-refilling-the-creative-cup
It wasn’t until November that things calmed down. I had been feeling a distinct need to regroup and rest throughout this busy period. I won’t pretend that, at times, it didn’t feel like far too much, and what I really found myself wanting was to reconnect with drawing, the wellspring of my work as an artist. When winter draws in, I think that urge to retreat and rest is common for many of us. For me, I could feel the pendulum swinging away from a time of busy engagement with exhibitions, events and activity, towards a quiet reacquaintance with my drawing practice
This lead me to my current project: “A Never- Ending Way”. But that’s for a further blog entry to come.