Starting in Vanuatu

I had the pleasure of meeting Faith Hodder in Vanuatu. Faith is an accomplished artist working in silk and watercolour and also (I think) in acrylics. Faith will never know how much she inspired me (unless of course she reads this blog!) I met Faith through a mutual friend and she mentioned that she was an artist and invited me to come and see her work. As the evening wore on I thought she is just a person, an ordinary everyday busy Mum type, not at all like the picture I had of an artist (the bohemian in an attic). That picture was someone who was not Faith, not me and really not like anyone I know. I think I thought 'artists' were extraterrestrials or something! Anyway I did not count myself as one despite having done courses in pottery, folkart, watercolours and pottering around with sketching and doodling on and off for all my life. I never got serious about it - never really turned it into a discipline as I had with my work and my mothering and being a wife.........you know what I mean........well you do if you are a mother, wife and worker!

So anyway off I went to Faith's house to visit and see what her work was - and I was just bowled over. She paints the most fabulous vibrant and colourful water pictures - seascapes of the coral and the fish that live in and on the reefs of Vanuatu. She paints with dye on silk and it is a joyous celebration of what Faith sees in her surroundings. It fills you with a love of the Pacific and the beauty of Vanuatu. She also paints street scapes and flora and probably a whole lot more but I only got to see what she had to show that day. I was in awe. And then she said something that floored me. I can't remember exactly what it was but she spoke about her work not being perfect, about trying hard to work on her style, about not knowing initially what she was doing and going through a phase of experimentation to get to where she is now. She also mentioned that she was still developing and that she never had enough time to do the paintings she wanted to do. She actually led me to believe that she was on a bit of a quest with her art - that it had more to give her and more that she could give it. Well now my picture of a real artist is changing indeed - I thought they were just inherently good at what they do and they knew it and just sat back and produced painting after painting without too much trouble at all. I felt a door opening - I wasn;t sure what it would lead to but I thought about what I had seen and thought "I wonder if I could do that?" I am still wondering. You see I still don't have the disciplone, neither do I have the skills, nor do I know anything really about what I am wanting to do and how to go about it. I went home from Faiths and decided when I get the time - you know "when I get a round tuit" - I would try to learn to paint. 

Anyway prior to leaving Vanuatu Faith also delivered another dose of inspiration. She told me she was having an exhibition of artists who have never exhibited before. Faith said that many people had the same reaction when meeting her and they would say "love your work, I really wish I could paint, I have often thought about it but never really done it......". So being a woman of action Faith decided she would put together an exhibition and that meant putting the hard word on all those "woudlbeesiftheycouldbees". She gave us some lead in time and was a hard task master - calling or emailing every little while to encourage us - and threaten death if we let her down! So, simply because she now terrified me, I did a piece of work in watercolour. It was a pair of flippers on a pair of legs, diving into the ocean and it was called "Flipping Out in Vanuatu". I sent it off and placed a price on it and then I disappeared off to Australia just knowing that when I got back it would have been returned to me and I could probably put it up behind the loo door and dream as I contempleted my life each morning. Well, blow me down, someone BOUGHT it. They actually paid hard cash for it - not much - but hard cash! I had my first 'sale' of a piece of art that I actually did myself........and money in my hand. I can't tell you how confirming this is to someone who has no confidence in their abillity! Unfortunatley I was so sure the piece would spend the rest of it's life with me that I didn't photograph it or keep any record of it at all. So I can't post it here. Not long after that we left Vanuatu and I got busy again and didn't paint for some months. That is another story for another post. I will leave you here and post again soon.