What a Year It’s Been…Here’s to 2023!!
I don’t really know where to start with this recap of the year, I know the beginning is always a good place 😉 So much has happened, when I started the year I had lots of exciting things that I wanted to achieve but I had no idea what was ahead of me.
Starting the year with the launch of the The Drift Art Review Book was incredible. To have my work in focus, alongside so many incredible Cornish artists seemed so surreal?! It was one of the first times I actually thought, maybe I am a real artist? Imposter syndrome is such a stinker… This realisation spurred me on more to push my ideas, to think outside of the box and my excitement to try new things became uncontrollable.
That lead me to combine two of my greatest loves – fashion and art – by hand painting my shoreline scenes onto footwear. As many of you know I actually trained in fashion at university and have worked as a Buyer in the industry since 2005. So being able to link my two passions was something I had been thinking about for a while. From Vans to Converse I was so shocked by the reaction to them! They are a joy to paint as they are so intricate, working so precisely around the soles and the lace eyelets. I find them very therapeutic to work on and I hope I create many more of them in the future.
Linking again to my love of fashion, my dream came true when I got to see my name and my work in British Vogue magazine not once, but twice. I collected the magazine when I was younger, its beautiful glossy pages inspiring me to go into fashion from a very early age. I never in a million years thought my art journey would lead to that, my Little Gemma dream coming true.
One of the best decisions I have made since I started my business was to work with the very talented team at The Logical Choice Group. Artisan printers to some of the biggest fashion magazines, luxury publications, galleries and artists in the world, I have always been like an excitable puppy when I wander around their studio – I am sure I drive them all mad…. But when they asked if I’d like to experiment with printing one of my pieces onto fibreglass to create a surfboard it started a whole change of direction for me and my business. Immediately I thought about linking it with working with Brad Rochfort from Rochfort Surfboards, a friend for years through my day job I knew he recycled old surfboards. He patched them up and worked with the charity Surfers Not Street Children, so I knew I wanted to work with him. I loved the idea of re-using something that was going to be thrown on the scrap heap, whilst helping a charity in the process.
That first board was so exciting to work on, seeing how the print picked up all the texture of my original painting, watching Brad laminate it onto the old board once he’d worked his magic on fixing it up. It coincided perfectly with a meeting I had scheduled with the team at The Ugly Butterfly Restaurant in Carbis Bay. I went in with the expectation that they may be open to me displaying a painting, maybe a print in the restaurant in some way, but to my complete surprise they gave me the entire lobby area to create a collection. And they wanted to display the surfboard!!
That collection was my chance to really explore the re-purposed idea, as Adam Handlings food and ethos at The Ugly Butterfly is all about zero waste. They use every peeling, every bit of produce that comes into the kitchen. That collection was one of my most stressful, yet most rewarding to date. I used even more fibreglass offcuts than I had before, took the texture to another level, used beach plastics that I found on Carbis Bay. I focused the entire body of work on the restaurant and its surroundings and it took every ounce of creativity I could give to feel happy with it. I was so nervous dropping it all off – it didn’t help that I got flat tyre on my way to them!! All was well in the end though and I’ve had so much incredible feedback and connections come from it.
With this and working on a very special auction for the charity Surfers Against Sewage, I started thinking about things in a more sustainable way and that led me to make some other changes in my business. I started supporting Ecologi who plant a tree in the UK for every £1 I donate to them, I now support the RNLI who protect us and our loved ones from the unknowing power of the ocean that I love so much. I also moved all my prints over to sustainable Bamboo paper, a product which is much less harmful to the environment in its production than cotton and grows much, much faster than other alternatives.
Another avenue I developed was the wedding commissions, with so many weddings on Cornwall’s beaches I couldn’t think of anything better than to encapsulate everything from that special day into a painting for a happy couple. To create a keepsake that they can hand down generation to generation of their special moment. I am a bit of a sucker for a good old Rom Com, so I was very excited about this arm of the business. Working with my first couple Adam and Emily was amazing, it turned into so much more than just the wedding day painting. I created a piece for their wedding invites, 5 mini paintings that were their table plan and then captured the light, the waves, the exact moment they said I do.
Everything I do, everything I create is to share my expression of the ocean with people, to bring that magic that it has to people, to help them to relive a cherished memory. Displaying my work in some of Cornwall’s finest hotels and restaurants, the weddings they all do exactly that. But as an Artist I knew I wanted to have my work in some more traditional art exhibitions, I was very lucky to be able to do that in Brighton and Rock, Cornwall. Both exhibitions showcasing collections of work based solely on the locations of the galleries.
I was so honoured to show work alongside some of the country’s best up and coming artists, getting a chance to meet them, talk all things art. But there was one more thing around the corner for me, a way to display my art and bring that ocean magic to people while they work on one of the biggest projects in the country’s history. Spaceport Cornwall….
I will never forget the call I took asking me to be a part of this, the whirlwind 2 weeks that followed with The Logical Choice Group team in scanning my original painting, watching it be scaled up and installed on a 16 metre x 9 metre wall… When I saw it for the first time I was completely speechless (that doesn’t happen often), I could see every grain of sand, every fibre from the fibreglass, all blown up to the size of my head! What followed was mind blowing, from the official opening of the building, being interviewed by ITV news, my work being shown on news features across the world, to meeting HRH Princess Anne on her royal visit. We talked about beach combing, she suggested I use some driftwood in my pieces 😉
As I said right at the start of this, what a year! Believe me it has been incredible but there have been some very tough times and I have hardly slept or seen family and friends for most of the year. I love being busy, always have, but even I have had to admit doing all of this alongside being a fashion buyer was too much at times. My art business has become my baby, my work bringing me so much joy. So in December I had to make one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make, but the right one for me to move forward. I am saying goodbye to my Buying job and to my fashion career, to the little family I have been a part of for nearly 10 years, I will be very sad to leave in January. But it is meaning that I can really take things with my business to the next level. The most exciting thing of all is that I am going to be offering painting workshops!
I have a number of exciting locations where I will be running them from, with groups of up to 8 people or one to one sessions, I am going to share how you can re-purpose to create a textured art piece, help you to create your very own expression of the ocean.
Interested in coming to paint with me? Keep your eyes peeled for the first announcements of dates and locations…
Happy New Year Everyone! Thank you as always for your incredible support this year, I haven’t even talked about all the wonderful commissions I have had the joy to work on for you! Please keep them coming, they really are my favourite thing to work on.
I cannot wait to see where the next 12 months take me.
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