The end of my Berlin residency

I am now half-way through my time on Reside. It has gone so quickly. And, yet, I feel I have made some real progress since I started three months ago thinking that I would focus on experimenting with materials. Instead, I have rediscovered the simple pleasure of drawing tiny details of life, and then disrupting the resulting images using collage or sewing. As I prepare to reluctantly leave Berlin next week, ending my self-created residency, I am packing up a body of 20 collages on paper and 10 or so canvas drawings. I understand more clearly what I am trying to achieve through my work, partly through the process of writing it down here, and I have had some really positive feedback via this blog and from visitors. On Monday evening I will be presenting my work at an art critique at Werkstadt which will give me another opportunity to see how people respond to my work - old and new. I am spending a rainy Saturday afternoon preparing for it: taking photos in less than ideal circumstances, retaking them, and ordering my thoughts. 

I am not sure whether and what kind of work I will be able to make over the next couple of months. For the next few weeks I will be travelling through Germany, before a pitstop in the UK to pick up more winter clothes, and then onwards to Italy. I am going to spend two weeks in Florence on a traditional painting course where I am hoping to improve my technique (although, as we learn by copying old masters, I am not expecting to really make my own work). This blog may focus more on my response to the art that I see and read about.  I hope to write about Caspar David Friedrich, whose work I have seen a lot of over the past few months; Morandi, as my first stop in Italy is Bologna; and who and whatever catches my eye in Florence. I have small scraps on canvas and a sketchbook so I will post pictures of new drawings as I make them.