Happy Mother's Week To Two Powerful Creative Women!

​Lovely Sarah Coghill - photo provided by her daughter, Catherine Mun-Gavin

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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. 
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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