Gilly Huber | Artist

Around the beginning of this month my mojo went walkabout! Not lack of inspiration, I still have plenty of that. A head full of ideas and hundreds of reference photos to draw from that’s going to keep me going well into my dotage. But the motivation to get out into the Studio and actually do something, that just disappeared.  I felt completely stale, art-wise, and I think it’s all the commissions suddenly getting on top of me. My art went from being a fun and creative thing that I loved to do, to being a job! I don’t need a job. I paint because of a deep down compulsion to create the beautiful things that I see into, hopefully, beautiful paintings; to continually strive to be better; to make each artwork that I produce more skilful and more realistic than the previous one.

I’m still not knocking the commissions. But there’s been a pressure build-up because there have been so many and something in my brain suddenly said - enough! Yes, I have completed the fourth portrait for one client and it’s been approved, but at the moment I can’t push myself into starting the next one. The best thing to do was to take a complete break, laze around the house, walk the dog and do aerobics, and generally think of other things.

Another knock to the self-confidence, too, came from an exhibition curator. Now, this didn’t actually happen to me and it is mostly hearsay so no names, but two friends of mine entered work in a local but quite prestigious shire art exhibition. Both were rejected because they were ‘realist’ artists! They were told that realist art is not art, “.....anyone can copy, that doesn’t take any talent or skill. True art comes from the imagination and the innovative use of mediums, collages etc.” In other words, anyone who paints the world as they see it - still-life, wildlife, floral, landscape, seascape - is merely a copier, not an artist. I tell you, I was really angry. Not only was this exceptionally rude and insulting, it was also total discrimination against an entire branch of the art world. Would this so-called curator have rejected Rembrandt, Vermeer, Tom Roberts, or many of our wonderful modern-day realist painters such as Greg Postle, Lyn Diefenbach or Greg Tothill? I sincerely hope that when this exhibition is run again next year that they will specify they will only accept abstract or contemporary art.

I can only feel sad for this curator-person with their very narrow and limited view of the art world. This person has closed his/her mind to the immense wealth of talent, skill and creativity of thousands of artists and, for that, he/she is so much the poorer. Personally, I have no love for abstract/contemporary art - it means nothing to me, it doesn’t ‘move’ me in any way. But I would never dismiss it in such a cavalier manner. I can see the work and imagination that has gone into a piece of such artwork, I can appreciate the artist’s endeavour, I understand the spirit behind their work because I have the same spirit behind mine - and because of that shared spirit I would never, NEVER, undermine that artist’s self-confidence with such damaging and dismissive comments.

And even ‘though, as I said, that rejection didn’t happen to me directly, it made me step back for a moment and question what I was doing. Of course, then it took only a moment to remind myself that I do not paint for exhibition curators, I paint primarily for myself and I paint the way that I want to paint, so one can say, quite inelegantly - stuff you!!!!!!! However, it shook me for a while and didn’t help to relocate that missing mojo!

What did help was making a sale at St Brigid’s College Art Exhibition last weekend (see, people DO like realist art!), and that was also interesting. You may remember that in an earlier ‘blog’ I was debating about whether to have wrap-around canvases framed or not. Well, this particular painting had been in a couple of exhibitions unframed and, obviously, I brought it home again. So I had it framed. It sold immediately! Maybe that has taught me something!

I also decided to do a pastel painting that was not a commission - two more kookaburras as people seem to love them - and really enjoyed it. And now I’m pastelling a gift for the sister of a friend - her Clydesdale mare in Arizona, USA, and that has confirmed that the mojo has definitely returned! A relief and a joy. Welcome Back!!!!!!