Confluence

Confluence 1
Pencil on Paper
29.7 x 21cm
© Cherry Jeffs

Maybe you make two sorts of art...It may pay you to...see if the two styles can be integrated into some third style that allows the best of both current styles to come together. Whatever you discover from that investigation—whether it’s to move forward in a new way or recommit to your current methods—you will have helped yourself better understand your artistic intentions.
Eric Maisel

When I recently came across this advice on 'Integrating your different threads' from Eric Maisel it seemed to have been written with me in mind, so exactly does it mirror my current thinking about bringing the different strands of my artwork together. (Discussed more fully in an earlier post.)

In case this wasn't sufficient encouragement, the heavens decide to give me another hint: During our summer escape, I found this piece in the collection of the Fundación de Rafael Alberti (Spanish poet and artist and a member of the Generation of '27, 1902-1999) in El Puerto de Santa María in the Cádiz province of Spain.

(Apologies for the light on my sneakily-taken photo, images of Alberti's work are terribly difficult to find on the internet.)

A recently-completed book spread had already decided me to move away from regular rectangular compositions towards organic flowing edges - as I did in these pieces from way back in 2006-7.

Cause and Effect
41.5 x 30cm
Mixed-media on paper
© Cherry Jeffs 2007

Beneath my feet
37 x 48cm
Mixed-media on paper
© Cherry Jeffs 2006

Alberti's piece also served to reinforce this idea and I am now working on a series that combinines figure drawings with abstract mark-making and bounded within non-rectangular frames. 

I am left feeling as if I'd had a pleasant visit from two favourite art mentors who whispered some sage advice in my ear and then went on their way.

Have you had any timely encounters of the mentoring kind recently? Do share in the comments below.

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