Sophie Ashdown

On Wednesday I had my first one-to-one tutorial with Jonathan.  I hadn’t expected it to be such a thought-provoking and even emotional experience!

Jonathan asked what is a strength of mine and I was unsure of whether to answer based on a strength as an artist or strength as a person.  I decided to go with a strength as a person of being very adaptable, because that in itself can be adapted to work as a strength as an artist.  I have lived all over the world and have often had to adapt myself quickly to understand and survive in the new environment, and make friends too.  In my corporate career in IT and project management, it was all about adapting quickly to new situations, new problems, conflicting personalities, unfamiliar responsibilities, etc.  I learned to pivot myself quickly into (and sometimes out of!) unusual situations.  Sometimes this meant pretending to know what I was doing when in reality I was figuring it out as I went along.  I’m sure this is relevant to art practice also! 

I find pleasure in making order out of chaos, which is probably why I have this obsession with patterns, both in my head and on the canvas.  For years I thought that everyone thinks in patterns the way that I do, but only realised in the past few years that this is not the case.  Jonathan described it as the “Sophie way of thinking!”

Another question was what I want to get out of the course, and I described wanting to find my “path” as an artist.  Previously I have said that I wanted to find my “niche” but I think that could be too limiting, so I settled on “path” instead because that would mean that I know who I am as an artist and the style that works for me, but there is still room for forward movement, for advancing my practice and taking it somewhere new while staying along the same lines.

We talked about what my art practice can be and what I want to do.  I said that I felt that the opportunities for my art practice are wide open, and I can go in many different directions on the journey to finding my path.  As I was describing this I was moving my hands around and trying to replicate to Jonathan what I was thinking. Then Jonathan asked the most intriguing question.  He asked what that looked like.  That really made me stop and think.  What does it look like?  How can my ambitions and plans and objectives have a shape or a colour?  Then I realised that yes I definitely can describe it.  It is like an enormous white plain around me that is huge and open, but it is around me not above me.  I have the opportunity to go in any direction I want to discover and explore new adventures with my art, and how excited I am about that.  There is a sense of apprehension or fear too because what if I go in one direction and I miss out on something else in another direction?  How far can I go?  What if I fall off a cliff at some point?

Describing the physicality of where I want to go with my art was really fascinating.  The more we talked about it the more I could see it.  It wasn’t just flat but layers of white translucent plains that were just slightly undulating.  And I felt super comfortable being surrounded by so much white.  Jonathan asked if there was colour or texture to it but I said that no currently it is just white, but I imagine that over time I will add colour and patterns to it. 

I think now that it is very significant to me that my art exploration is around me but not over me.  I have had some significant trauma in my life, especially over the past five years, and often felt like there was a dark ominous cloud above my head that was oppressive and pushing me down.  When I get stressed I feel like there is a crushing weight coming from above.  But not with this, not with my art, not with this course.  I feel like there are so many opportunities ahead, time to explore, time to let my imagination fun free, and the hope and expectation of discovering a new version of me.  This course has come at a perfect time for me.  I’m lucky now that most of the horrors of the past few years have been resolved and I am able to move on with my life in a much healthier and happier way.   

Towards the end of the session I asked Jonathan about his PhD and found it fascinating to describe what he is doing and how he thinks about the art education.  I feel very lucky that we have such a unique educator as our course leader.  I’m really excited about the next two years.