Jackie Adshead - Where my life and art are intertwined

Blog

Love accepted

It’s a reflective time, and certainly a strange one.

People are wishing me a Happy Christmas full of good cheer and bonhomie and all I can think about is a funeral to arrange. Christmas seems a long way away………

I open the cards that the postman brings, and am not prepared for what is there inside. A mix of  the expected “Have a Happy Christmas full of sparkle and  merriment” along with the sentiments of “So sorry to hear that you’ve got divorced but all the best for the future” and the “So sorry to hear the sad news about your Mum and we’re thinking of you at this sad time” cards. I put them in two seperate places within the same room. To keep them apart. Happy and Sad.

Never the two shall meet.

But then, aren’t they actually saying the same thing?

I think they are.

They are saying that people care, that they are thinking of me, and want to tell me so via a few words in a card. They are passing on love in various forms.

And isn’t that what life is all about?

Death and illness are a huge part of life. But illness can be a terrible thing and hard to live with in the long term. Death will come to us all, its just hoping that we don’t suffer too much when we get there! We’re born, and we die, its just that we hope for some happy times inbetween – which is where love comes in. Love of life, love of things that make us happy, love of experiences and places, love of material things and less tangible ones. And love of people. That is the one that brings it all together – that is what life is ALL about.

I am ever the eternal optimist which has brought me joy, even when things are bad (like this year!) there have been lots of really good times too – it just depends on how you look at life. I avoid being around negative people as much as I can, as they will try and suck the positives out of you and bring you down to their miserable level. I look at the glass as always being “half full” rather than “half empty”. I am also a realist though – and know that you can’t have good things all the time (and how boring life would be if we did!) – but its accepting the bad and dealing with it when it arrives, but trying to avoid it the best we can in the meantime too. And looking for the silver linings in clouds as they are always there to be found.

So, a funeral is obviously a very sad time. But it is also bringing along with it the renewed bond of old friends and close cousins, uncles and aunts, and new friends too. All special in their own unique way.

Which brings me to the kindness of family and friends.
Thankyou my friends for thinking of me, I think of you in turn as I read your words, and that brings me close to you.

My Mum would have loved that.

And I do too.

I've been an artist all of my life, and my paintings now hang on walls in Europe, USA and Canada. I'm working on getting them on the other continents! My wide range of artwork has been exhibited nearer to home in the East Midlands, with the Guild of Erotic Artists at Beaumont Hall Studios in Hertfordshire, and at "Erotica", Olympia, London. I have also been featured alongside my work in the Guild of Erotic Artists book (volume 2). I love to create dramatic interest in my pictures, whether it’s to paint an unusual landscape, or just to utilise dramatic lighting in my figure drawings or strong colour in my animal portraits. Delighting in the spontaneous tendencies of watercolour adds an interesting and distinctive look to my paintings, some of which are purposefully ambiguous, enabling the viewer to use their own interpretation of my artwork. I also love to hide images, and humour within my paintings, whether it’s a secret message, or an erotic couple hidden within a landscape, or even an erotic landscape where the couple are camouflaged as the features of the land itself. I am equally happy painting in oils, acrylics or watercolours and love to draw with pencil or ink. I have also developed the very effective method of drawing using white pencil on black card which creates dramatic pictures by just picking out where the light catches the body and leaving the rest of the image to the imagination, in darkness. I can also utilise many different styles, whether it is realistic, abstract, surrealistic, erotic, fantasy or camouflage art where something is hidden within the painting. I'm just passionate about my art, whatever I paint! But, it doesn't matter how many landscapes or pet portraits I paint, its always the erotic stuff that people are interested in! I started blogging to share some of the strange conversations I have with the people I meet. But its evolved into far more than that now.