I want to get better
Me. Charmaine Barber. Age 56. I am not a shallow person and can be over-sensitive or go the other way and am hurtful without realising. Life is a challenge and art takes very little place in my life at the moment. I want it to have more place but I’m self-employed and sell Polish pottery instead.
I grew up in a caravan and then in a children’s home and then was left to my own devices. I tried to commit suicide. Not what I wanted or needed in my life. Several other things happened to me which I won’t go into detail about as they affect other people in my life. Then I managed to stop crying after 20 years and started to get my life straight after an extremely hard episode.
I have taken on the challenge of running a half marathon for the first time in my life. I am doing it for a friend who died of motor neurone disease in 2015, she was only in her mid forties. I’ve only started running in October last year.
I have broken the training down into small steps, bite size chunks so that I can cope. I am tough and resilient and completed my last hard training day for it yesterday by running 21 km, the equivalent of a half marathon, now I have to just do it on the day! I have trained too hard because my ankles hurt a lot of the time so I’m doing the exercises to strengthen them. This is how I see my artistic life unfolding in front of me in bite size chunks but hopefully not so painful!
This has changed my perspective on life and I want to study art more than anything so to do this course would be fantastic. I’d love to go to Florence to study but no time or money for it. The Old Masters Academy course is perfect for giving me the chance to learn properly in a structured way the things I need to learn.
A second cousin of mine whom I only met a couple of years ago for the first time has asked me to illustrate his children’s books. I feel honoured but scared. I will try and do it. He’s never seen my work..
I want to learn how to navigate the human body with ease with whatever medium I use and to represent it in a way which will make me satisfied that I have done it to the best of my ability. To show emotions they way they should be shown and to evoke emotion in the viewer. I want to paint corners of life where normally no-one looks, like finding dust under the bed but in the middle of it a gleaming real diamond or coin you didn’t know you had. To
I have painted in acrylic, water colours and oils. I’ve used oil pastels and chalk ones as well as water soluble coloured crayons and fine line pens and birds. Oils are my favourite.
I painted a portrait of my partners father and was very pleased with it at the beginning but not now. Now I see the muddy colours that make up a mediocre painting and I want to get better by doing this course with the Old Masters Academy. I need structure to take me by the hand, lead me and show me the way, then I will be able to cut my shackles and fly.
I can’t force anyone to vote for me, you will make your own mind up.
Thank you for giving me the chance to be me.
Leave a Reply