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How different a single month makes....this time last month, I had so many things I took for granted, like being able to go outside to the market and walk to the cathedral and interact with people in my events in London. Now I've been on lockdown for just a week and have gone out for food late in the evening to the corner shop, just once in that time. Shelves are very empty of things that I want to eat like, sweet potato or cucumber or strawberries or just any berries or any veg. I found a bag of frozen veg during my trip the other day to the corner shop and felt like I'd hit the jackpot which isn't how I expected my life to be at this stage. What an eye opening learning experience this is, to be participating in a nationwide lockdown and realising how very dependent I have been on so many things and how if I just changed what I need vs what I want and how to obtain these thing then how much better off the planet and myself might be. I dearly wish I had a garden or somewhere that I could grow fruits and vegetables without needing to go to the shops all the time for their produce. When this pandemic lifts and we're all able to come out and go about our lives again, I plan to sort out this garden need so I'm better equipped for a healthier future. I've been having to conduct my art events online which has been a challenge but is fun once I understand how to do it all. I'm not a techy person so when I realised I needed to adapt my events for online, I spent a week learning how to transpose everything I teach into an online format so that my students could get more for their money and still get to socialise with each other. Our online classes are small and not like how we used to be when we met at the museums and quite a lot of my students who prefer to meet in person have either left my group or dropped off the radar. I find that I'm thriving in isolation as it's time to think and time to create that I've needed. So I feel as if I'm on a strange badly funded artist residency that leaves me still very much unnoticed but able to work on projects I'd previously not been able to give much attention to. It's just the first week of course, so perhaps my feelings will change in a month from now. But currently, I'm delighted to have so much time to myself and my creative projects and I hope I can create some structure to get as much accomplished as possible. Below are two photos....on the left a snapshot from one of my online classes with everyone trying to get into a position to draw their own feet which was a tricky and amusing thing as we all became temporary contortionists while scribbling away furiously! The second image is of the aftermath of my class and the sketches I generated while sketching with my students and an example of how I was holding my foot with my hand. A fun class with my wonderfully talented members!
I think that once we're allowed to go out and meet up again in public, that some of my events may remain online to cater to those people who have difficulties joining in to the in person events. It's been interesting learning about some of my members who have not been able to attend my regular events due to long term illness or anxiety issues or because they just live too far away and I hope that they'll keep attending my online events even when I return to doing regular in person events. I'm meeting such wonderful new friends. In some ways, I'm glad we're all on lockdown, because I'd never have gotten to meet so many people if it wasn't for this current experience so perhaps that's some good to be had from our social distancing time.
I will leave it here with the hope that in the next blog post, the virus will be less and that my family and friends will be unscathed and in good spirits with hope on the horizon. Material Monday: Miniature Imagination4/11/2019 Though my blog posts took a long break, my studio practice has kept going steadily as creating is equal to circulating my blood in my life as an artist. So I'd like to share my experience experimenting and creating using the cheap materials from Tiger which sells very cheap art materials in price and in quality! I've been experimenting with the structure paste in my miniatures because I learned quite by accident that it creates a nice foamy water result:
So this Structure paste cost less than a few pounds and was quick to dry too so now I'm curious what else they have to offer and how I can use their products to further enhance my ongoing progress on my miniature. The miniature in the above left photo is something I've been working on for over a year now and can't seem to stop as there's always an idea that changes it somehow. It started out as the container to some coconut sugar and then developed into a half timbered house with hidden glass bottles where light can be streamed to charge the phosphorescent interior while also revealing little hidden rooms that I feel give the impression of just recently being vacated by someone tiny hiding in the shadows.
 To follow the progress of this miniature and other works, 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional please follow me on instagram: @Mirmarnia
Stay tuned for another Material Monday blog post in the next two weeks.
My Material Monday post is quite late today.......lots of activities going on and not really any time to create much anymore. So I'm writing this after a day of much needed studio time where I've been hidden in the magic of creating miniature tidal pools in oyster shells which I think is becoming an obsession. More to come later on this Oyster Shell project!
It's also a challenge as I loathe deep dark water and instinctively avoid anything to do with going near great bodies of water - the Thames river being the closest to me here in London. But of course my desire to create is stronger than my fear of water which is an interesting and perplexing conundrum so I've been engaging myself in a series of water challenges to hopefully get over this unnatural fear of dark water - one of which is to go onto the Thames foreshore with a group of others which is fascinating as history and archaeology in particular wows me and it's also a chance to find more oyster shells which then seem to fuel my ongoing miniature tidal pools project. Today I've cleaned, painted and saturated the oyster shells I collected from my last visit with The London Cultureseekers and now of course I need more! On the other side of things, I joined this same group yesterday to a visit to a fascinating museum in south London which was a fun day out and also an attempt to forget that it was Father's Day. I failed completely to forget it as everything was advertising it everywhere I went but it was nice to meet other people and next time I've got to be more sociable rather than stuck in my own thoughts. I love my dad and hope I talk to him one day soon but yes, Father's Day is a challenge every year. Short blog post for today but hopefully more later in the week! Traditional Drawing in an Hour & a Half10/6/2019  For my Material Monday post, I'm sharing with you my Traditional Drawing class I teach every other Friday evening at the Victoria & Albert Museum to members of my Meetup group, London Art Museum Creatives.
I've been teaching drawing for over twenty years and my techniques have only evolved slightly since I attended art school long ago. In recent years, I've perfected this technique to just an hour and a half and each time I'm wowed by my students and how they respond to my methods. Most of my students come to me as complete beginners - often they're able to relate how they were never taught to draw or were put down as children when in art classes which I find unfortunate. There are also some who are convinced their skills are the worst yet and that they haven't got a creative bone in their body - this I see as a real challenge as I fully believe that I can teach anyone to draw in an hour and a half. It's my belief that it is not the student who cannot draw, but the original teacher who couldn't teach. As a teacher myself, it is my responsibility to learn how I can adapt my skills to help each individual student because no student learns exactly like another so I have to be flexible and adapt to all needs. In these classes, I try to "dislodge" my students with a series of exercises that force them to hold the pencil in a different way which gives their shoulders movement and limits perfectionism in the beginning of the drawing. I then need to observe how they perceive their subject matter and translate it to paper - seeing how their brains work this way, gives me the key to help them progress and then follows a series of more "dislodging" exercises that get their instincts flowing and loosens up everything. I really enjoy this dislodging process because it's almost like a window into the brain of the individual. It gives me so much information about how they observe and understand and map out the way they view this world. I love how everyone shows their style right in those first moments! So then from these exercises, I'm then able to rebuild their creative observation brains using geometry, mindfulness and spatial exploration and then this is where most of my students begin to start to actually "see" which is very exciting. I call these types of final drawings, "Lost in Space" drawings, because you can't wander too far from your starting point or you put yourself at risk of wandering too far into open space and getting lost in proportion and perspective. The above image is from my recent Friday evening Traditional Drawing class at the Victoria & Albert Museum which I enjoy very much as everyone is always so talented and keen to learn new techniques and most have never been taught to draw before! I have a system with this meetup class in that I charge just £10 for the first class and then only £1 for anyone who wants to repeat. I love seeing the progression of returning students and how much those returning students really inspire the newer members! After teaching this class, I'm always in a rush to get home because I simply can't wait to draw and then end up spending several hours working on my drawings because my students inspired me so much! My meetup group, London Art Museum Creatives is a place where I'm trying very hard to share with everyone interested what it is like to be a painter or an illustrator or a sculptor by trying those practices out in a friendly setting, while then going back to the art museums to really look at the artwork of famous artists and then have a clearer understanding of how much work it took to create a piece. It's like putting yourself in the shoes of the artists and getting a feel for what their lives must have been like. I find this fascinating as it ties into my fascination with history and I think it's the best way to properly understand artists who came before us. My Favourite Artists31/5/2019  I had intended to write about a talk I recently gave to my meetup group about John Singer Sargent, but after some thought and because I know my blog is in a sort of evolution, I decided I'd much rather share with you my favourite artists who still have a huge impact on my work many years after studying for my first degree. This first one, is Richard Diebenkorn above with the knife in the glass. I was first introduced to his work and all of the San Francisco Bay Area Figurative Painters by my incredible life drawing teacher at KCAI, Norma Cowdrick, who gave me such an incredible education in the art of understanding space and relationships in drawing! A few years ago there was an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Diebenkorn's work and I went with my knees knocking together in sheer excitement because it's really rare to have an entire room full of Diebenkorn's so I spent hours in just the few rooms they had, literally trying to inhale everything on every canvas. He just has a way of laying out space and light that I can't get enough of and it unhinges me! Going to see several rooms full of his paintings is emotional to say the least. I'm clearly still an oil painter to my core. Even now, when I mix colour on my palette, I'm always transported back to my early years exploring the depths of colour theory. My painting teacher, Michael Walling was very organised and was an excellent guide to me when I was setting up and understanding my palette and mixing techniques especially when working with the life model. I developed relationships with cerulean blue and cadmium red and lemon yellow and my love of all the blues fell to the deep dark well of Prussian Blue that still halts my breath when spreading across my palette. Richard Diebenkorn was always in the forefront of my colour studies then and I'd study his paintings at the museum for hours and hours, trying to understand the chemistry behind his colour mixing on his palette. Sounds ridiculous, I realise but oil painting was my first passion and still a fierce addiction. So Richard Diebenkorn has been a direct influence on my two dimensional work since the end of the 1990's and continues to wow me. Then there is William Kentridge who I encountered a decade or so ago and who uses charcoal drawings animated in ways I'm intrigued by to tell political stories that touch the heart and make you think. I know my own activist work is influenced by what Kentridge is doing and I'm still intrigued because of the way he narrates his work and puts it into motion. It is potent, undiluted intensities that fuel me in so many ways. He is a master and I hope to meet him one day, though I fear I'd just stand there unable to form meaningful words. I remember going twice to the Kentridge exhibition when he came to Dallas when I lived there. The second time I visited the exhibition then was with my dad which was a few years before my dad had a huge heart attack. I still cling to memories of the conversations I had with my dad during that visit and since then have wondered if the impact Kentridge has on me now is somehow tied to the sadness and longing I have for what I can't get back. William Kentridge seems to convey human emotion almost in a dreamlike format, sometimes you feel part of it and sometimes you feel as if you're just an observer but always I feel caught up in the story line. Following this, is a painter who I'm recently acquainted with who painted mostly empty rooms with light streaming in - Vilhelm Hammershoi. They're really dull scenes, with very little happening but inadvertently this artist has had an impact on my miniature model making work as I'm intrigued by a lit space that is glimpsed at the moment when the occupants have just left or have ducked out of sight. For some reason this concept intrigues me and I'm still in the "magic" stage of this idea in my illustrations and my models. His paintings thrill me as I understand them in a way I don't think I would have done when I was younger. See one of his paintings below:  And following below one of my models with the photo taken in a similar way as the painting, to offer an idea of just having missed someone beyond a half closed door:  There are so many more artists who inspire my work but these three are at the top of those lists at the moment and seem to be remaining at the top for the last couple of decades.
Rejuvenating Studio Day!27/5/2019  What a relief it is to paint for eight hours after six full days of meetup events. I love socialising and enjoy meetup very much especially having become an organiser of my own events and as a member of other fun organisers events but wow a day in studio just for myself is like a deep breath on a clear day!
I attempted to ignore all communications and now I've stopped painting, I've discovered roughly 47 notifications and messages from my meetup members all asking various questions most of which can be resolved by reading event details but oh well, I'm glad to have so many eager members! In my current studio work, I've been attempting to refine my painting skills especially in decorative botanical painting because I believe it could help me find work if I perfected my skills. So my plan is to try to push myself to paint at least six hours every day which hopefully will give me a sharper eye for colour, detail and composition. I've never been a fan of landscape painting but I've evolved as a painter from what I was in my twenties to how I am now in my forties so I think this is the natural progression of my craft. I definitely feel I have a ways to go before I'm even remotely acceptable as a decorative painter so lots of practice is key. Another project I've begun this last week has been the introduction of an online shop here on my website which uses dropshipping via Printful as a source of merchandise which my artwork is printed on. So far my attempts to share this with my friends on social media has resulted in lots of friends "liking" but not buying anything which is infuriating! I've bought a bag for myself so I can potentially help promote myself by carrying it around so fingers crossed! Back to painting.....next up is a butterfly then after I've done this dutiful colour study, I thought it would be a good reward to do a few hours model making as its been ages. Stay tuned later in the week for an artist blog post about John Singer Sargent and my recent talk about him in the Tate Britain museum last week as well as next Monday for another Material Monday blog post which is just an update of my studio day. To visit my shop please click here.  Lovely Sarah Coghill - photo provided by her daughter, Catherine Mun-Gavin  My mum drawing in the sand Last Sunday it was Mother's Day in America which is where my mum lives so though I live in another country, I wanted to share with everyone how much of an influence she is in my life, especially as she was one of the reasons I also became an artist. I really wish I lived closer so we could see each other more often. My family is split across two countries and it's quite challenging and lonely to be so far apart from those I love. So I offer this blog post as a virtual hug to my mum for what I'm calling Happy Mother's Week! When I was growing up, I had two very inspiring creative women in my early explorations in the arts and those two women were my wonderful mother, Juliette McCullough and her dear friend, Sarah Coghill, both figurative oil painters. I was accustomed to being the subject of many of my mothers paintings and drawings and watching her mix colours and paint in her studio. I remember sitting and listening in fascination to the conversations between my mother and her friend Sarah when we would visit and it was in those early years that I knew I would also be an artist. From being a silent witness in both my mother's studio and Sarah's studio, I came to understand the set up of the palette and techniques and peculiarities of each artist. I grew up loving the rich aroma of linseed oil and the course scratchiness of palette knives across treated glass palettes. I learned to stretch a canvas by the age of two, was encouraged to discuss my opinions on art in a curatorial setting in exhibitions and studios and had thumbed through epic art book collections by the age of ten. No art school could do what my mother and Sarah did for me and I'm so aware how precious this upbringing was. My mother's paintings are gritty and full of the deep souls of our human existence - they thrum with their own heartbeat and I regard many of her works that she did during my childhood as equal as family members. They are well loved and intense and part of the fabric of the imagery that shaped me. Now her paintings are full of sinews and living textures that make her work come to life under the veil of paint. There are not words to accurately describe what I want to say about my mother's paintings, except that they are paintings that need to be shared because their message is something we need to have in our eyes because it shows us our own humanity which is so important. Sarah's paintings were like memories captured in a single moment, imbued with a colour intensity that poured into me as a synesthete and in colour spoke a language unwritten in words that for me was lyrical and poetic and full of the wind and sun and smell of the grass. Sarah seemed to channel the earth we stood on when she painted, it was rich and intense and echoed with family and friendships like a woven tapestry. I miss her dearly. My mother sculpts with oil paint. She is able to dig deep and pull to the surface of the painting, beings that we encounter in our subconscious to which my mother has somehow found the key to all that roots us to who we are in this existence and it awes me daily. She fuels my own artistic journey, especially in my own teaching because of course when I was young, my mother was my teacher. I did go to art school but it was my mother who taught me colour theory and how to actually "see" colour. It is now her teaching methods that I employ in my own teaching to my students. There is something really magical about learning to actually "see" and understand how to draw and paint that makes every blank paper or canvas a treat. So as far as mothers go, I have been incredibly fortunate! I'm genuinely grateful of the regular conversations I have with my mother, Juliette, on all things art related which keeps me firmly footed on this earth as the artist I am because of the journey she set me on over forty years ago. So Happy Mother's Week to my mum, Juliette and to Sarah too - the biggest impacts in my life as an artist.  One of Sarah's paintings - provided by her daughter, Catherine Mun-Gavin I feel like I'm a participant in her painting.....it's like I'm buffeted by the wind, and can feel the sun and smell the air. It's glorious and I want to inhale deep to capture it all!  "Anatomy 3" by Juliette McCullough - Collage. Follow my mum on instagram: @Juliette_McCullough
I just find this one so delicious in textures and colours and so alive! It's as if I can "feel" it's intensity in my own body. To visit my mother's website please go to: www.juliettemccullough.com Tide Pools in Oyster Shells13/5/2019  I've been creating miniature tide pools inside oyster shells which has been fun, smelly and time consuming! Two examples here from my project of clear resin filled oyster shells with blue ink and iridescent pearl, silver and gold paint. I began by submerging the shells in distilled white vinegar which was quite an interesting science experiment and made the entire flat smell like smelly feet......an unexpected eye watering treat! I used a lot of sandpaper as well as a metal engraver to get down to the original pearly surface of the shells. I'm thinking that the next oyster shells I work on should be glow in the dark and painted in patterns.....so I'm looking forward to collecting more oyster shells! I've got a selection of old broken clay pipes also from the same Thames foreshore visit previously mentioned in last weeks post, in which I'm now planning to draw with black ink. Apparently there's another artist out there who makes them into jewelry which is interesting but not really my thing. So illustrating them and then sculpting with them seems to be the next course of events. What do you think of my two oyster shells shared here?  As mentioned in previous posts, my blog schedule is changing as I'm trying to accommodate a career adjustment back into freelance mode so these #MaterialMondays will be a weekly event and cover whatever I'm currently working on in my studio while I'll still interview other artists but only on a monthly basis as well as I'll be writing about the latest art exhibitions I've been to every other Thursday of the month.
To receive daily updates on my studio practice please follow me on instagram: @toothpickmuse @mirmarnia Dragon Eggs & River Monsters6/5/2019  In studio lately, I've been fixated on dragon eggs and have begun to create my own little miniature scene of multicoloured dragon eggs in what I hope will be a phosphorescent den that I'm going to insert into a miniature I've been working on for the last few years. These eggs are made from assorted Fimo clay and are entirely of my imagination. See below a detail of part of the miniature I've been building. I don't think the eggs will go in that space but perhaps in a dark exterior somewhere.  Meanwhile, aside from making miniatures, I've been drawing in the Victoria & Albert Museum and it's been a bit of a struggle this last week as my interest in model making has taken over. This week too, I received a rejection email from the Royal Drawing School who have for whatever reason decided that my drawing abilities are not good enough for their graduate programme. (I should point out that I'm not unfamiliar with rejections because I receive hundreds a month from either job applications or art opportunities, but enough is enough. I wanted a boost out of poverty and struggle and the Royal Drawing School would have offered the boost I needed but never mind.....moving on) So this last week, I've decided to ditch my five year long pointless job search and return to being a freelance artist instead which just means no days off, lots of work and hopefully more income than the last time I tried to live like this! Previously, I worked as a freelance artist from the late 1990's to 2014 but having struggled with the instability of the work, I broke away to try to find a steady job because I was longing for financial stability but apparently that isn't going to happen so it's back to freelance. Joy. I'm hopeful that this time around, it's easier because I'm that much wiser! (insert sarcasm here!) Being a freelance artist feels like I'm walking a plank over sharks or something and each time I take a step, I've got to build the plank ahead of me in order to survive as an artist. Here's hoping I don't fall in! So I've been actively involved in attending meetup groups and even organising my own events all of course related in some way to my own art practice. I've also given myself a challenge for the Cast Courts at the Victoria & Albert Museum as I feel like my drawing ability has been knocked down a notch from that rejection so I'm going to revamp my technique and try to crank out some well worked drawings while just focusing on the sculptures by Michelangelo. Below, an image taken the other day in the Cast Courts. I've got to now work on compositions that are interesting and not typical so that I can push myself in drawing.  And lastly below this an image of some of the items discovered along the Thames foreshore when I joined an event lead by the London Cultureseekers, a group on Meetup. It was an interesting day listening to what the archaeologist had to say and show, as well as discovering for myself all the fascinating finds along the shoreline and then conversing with other members about previous discoveries they've made. As suggested by the London Cultureseekers organiser Robert, I'm trying to find ways to make these finds into some sort of art project so I'll hopefully update with this project in the coming weeks. This blog title, River Monsters, referring to my ridiculous fear of deep dark water and the only monsters spotted during this event were in my imagination, thankfully! I must say, it was absolutely fascinating and I'll definitely do it again, with hopefully a more knowledgeable eye and less jumpiness to the churning dark river!  If you're keen to follow me and my ongoing art projects then please stay tuned each Monday at 9am UK time for more #MaterialMondays.
If you simply cannot wait till next Monday then quickly step over to my 4 instagram accounts where I update my art projects daily: @Toothpickmuse @Mirmarnia If you're interested in archaeology and other cultural events in London then check out my friend, Robert's meetup group: London Cultureseekers
If you've read my blog post for yesterday, you'll see that this week I'm giving myself a rest from being an extrovert so I'm offering you myself. Yesterday it was a tour of my creative space and today I'm answering a series of questions that my lovely friends, Juliana Graham and A. Michelle Young-Wilson have asked me.
(Images above - left to right - "Pagan Year" ink drawing, "Barnacle Pod" toothpick sculpture, me as a child, scaling a tree in the shadow of the castle in Wales.) So I hope you don't mind the change this week, we'll get back to normal next week for sure. Thank you lovely Juliana and Michelle for kindly putting forth some really good questions! So onwards: Michelle: What was it like being raised by an artist and a musician and how did that affect your decision to study the arts? Franceska: I do feel fortunate to have had such a creative upbringing as I realise now how unique it was. Growing up, it was standard that my brother, the cat and I often spent afternoons under the grand piano while my dad practiced through Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Liszt. While my mother maintained her painting studio and exposed us to a universe of visual expression. I knew I was going to be an artist by the time I was three....I had a fierce determination to see it through and I knew without a doubt that my family would accept this so it was just logical. Michelle: You often draw from your childhood memories. Can you tell us what keeps you delving into themes from your childhood in Southern Wales? Franceska: Though challenging at times, (growing up dyslexic in a time when dyslexia wasn't recognised or supported by the Welsh schools), my childhood was full of magic. We lived in such a beautiful part of the world and growing up, I was guided by a wonderful imaginative grandmother who helped me see the world through different eyes. She definitely influenced my artwork. My dad taught music at Atlantic College which was housed in a 12th century castle surrounded by beautiful countryside which we children explored in every way possible. When we moved to America, it was such a blow....it was before the internet and even making a long distance phone call was such an ordeal. It was so difficult being so far from the sea and everything we knew. I remember that I felt like our family was a little island in a sea of Texans. If we'd had the internet, it would have been so much easier. Adding what I remember from my childhood into my drawings was a way of coping with the transition, I think. Michelle: Who or what sparked your interest in string theory, multi-verses, planet's orbits and other space themes that inspired your toothpick sculptures? Franceska: Brian Greene wrote a book called, "The Elegant Universe" which I think was published in the late 1990's when I was just graduating from Kansas City Art Institute. I remember still living in Kansas City and being quite poor so I couldn't buy his book but I'd spend my free days at the bookshop and tried to read as much of it as I could in eight hour sittings....I was intrigued then because what he was describing seemed to fit with how I was sculpting so I developed a serious appetite for learning about String Theory even though I'm absolutely useless at mathematics! I also love science fiction and have always been fascinated by the universe. Once I discovered Sacred Geometry and applied it to my sculptures, I kept getting deeper and deeper into cross referencing patterns in nature vs orbital planetary pathways and now I've reached the point of no return, delving deeply into black holes, gravitational waves and light in the vacuum of space. Michelle: How does synesthesia affect your art? Franceska: I have many types of synesthesia. They're all part of my daily functioning as a human being so they affect my whole being as well as the art I create. I can't imagine how others without synesthesia can function so it's difficult to know how to explain how it affects me as I feel like it's like asking how my skin affects me......but I'll say that perhaps I rely very heavily on my visuals in shapes and colours when I see sounds as patterns to create structures to my sculptures. I use my youtube channel to "collect" specific colours of sounds so I can use that colour/sound combination when needed! My experience of the passage of Time does affect how I map out my website or how I visually describe something to someone as for me, all dates in my history that are past are to my left and my future is to my right with each date in a specific position in space around me with their own colours. Hard to explain! I learned to spell and count by mixing colours of the letters and digits and have an intense understanding of the colour wheel because each specific colour represents meaning in language and everything I know. I'm frowning trying to explain this! Ha! So not sure if it's making sense! Michelle: What artist most inspires you today? Franceska: Difficult to pick one......I'd say William Kentridge is fairly prominent in my inspirations currently though I have to mention, Richard Diebenkorn whose paintings consistently bring me to a standstill. Juliana: Are there any techniques that you feel you haven't fully mastered yet? Franceska: Gosh, loads.....I'm constantly researching, discovering and relearning and perfecting. Currently (for the last decade) I've been re-evaluating my techniques on understanding perspective in illustration and I'm never satisfied but completely obsessed with the process. Juliana: Are there any artistic styles/movements that you personally dislike and why? Franceska: Yes.....can't stand Brutalist architecture....I don't like the abruptness of the structures as it unsettles me. I'm too much of a traditional artist possibly! As for movements, I'm not sure because I'm fascinated by all. Juliana: What is the painting that you would save if the gallery of all the world's art was on fire? Franceska: A difficult question that I can't think of an answer for, except that I'd try to put the fire out and hope that all images were photographed before the fire broke out. I think my answer is greatly influenced by the deaths of older family members and a dear friend and items I've inherited that has put me into a conflicted place where I want to cherish precious things but that I'm also in favour of not seeing loss as an end but seeing rebirth from tragedy instead......remember, never forget, educate and create more and move forward. ------ Thank you so much to both for tolerating my daftness and asking me such great questions! I hope I've answered satisfactorily! Please comment below if you would like to share your thoughts. Next week I'll return to normal hopefully but a rest from being an extrovert has been nice! *If you'd like to see more artist interviews then please stay tuned every Friday at 9am UK time for more! 
AuthorMy name is Franceska McCullough and I'm the owner and artist of Toothpickmoon. Here I will share my studio practice in all it's forms. *Disclosure: The links I'm using on this blog will only ever relate to the products I myself use in my own practice.
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