Anne Armes studio notes….. “the journey starts here”

I am a textile artist, tutor and mentor but recently the arthritis in my hands, has forced me to look for a new challenge, I started following Alice Sheridan on Facebook last year and she introduced me to an online program for artists called the “Creative Visionary Program” CVP led by the American artist Nicholas Wilton and with much thought and trepidation I signed up. This has been life changing for me, it has given me the tools to create art that is both personal and authentic (or at least it will be with time), I’m enjoying the support of an amazing group of other students who are both inspiring and encouraging, in fact they already feel like old friends and we are planning a Uk meet up soon. It has also affected my life with its principles as I feel much more sure of what I want to achieve, how to get there and I have more confidence in myself and I’m happier generally, it’s been amazing.

This is my inspiration board from the first week of the course, very family textiles orientated which I had been using for my work on cloth, my head thought I should have a change of subject matter for CVP but my heart said otherwise.

The course has also made me learn some IT skills, I’m a real technophobe, I much prefer pencil and paper in my hands but I’ve tried to embrace social media as a way of connecting to everyone. So I’ve challenged myself to set up this blog, this is a real big thing for me, as those who know me will confirm, they realise how shy I am, except when talking textiles which I find so easy to communicate about.

I have reorganised my “studio” (spare room 😉) as I’ve now completed the course and am ready to put the principles I’ve been taught into practice, this is the difficult bit for someone who’s not painted since school, where I was told to do domestic science as I wasn’t good enough at art!

So I will document my journey “warts and all” here over the coming months, my plan is tomorrow 1st June 2018 I will stop procrastinating and make art a daily practice for me, snatching whatever time I can to give myself be be creative, even if it’s only half an hour. I’m documenting this here as an intention, so that it is black and white for all to see how I do, no going back now

So watch this space, fingers crossed you will see my progression as I work through the course materials again, using ideas I’ve learnt over the last twelve weeks.