Sally Wakelin – Studies in Creativity
Paintings, drawings, sculpture and writing
I found another opportunity to try out photographing a subject through metal mesh, here the holes in the mesh are bigger and I was in the dark interior, the subject in full sunlight which gives the image a very different feel from the previous one I posted last week. I think they both have their merits, I would like to have more time to experiment with exposure and focus – both of these were taken on the fly.
I’m not sure exactly what time dawn happened but somewhere between 4:15 and 5am the light was enticing enough to get me out of bed. The door to the bathroom was made of glass sand-blasted on the inside so that it becomes almost opaque and the outer surface throws a milky cast over everything it reflects, the window-seat cushions with the blind half down, the curved lip of the bath and the oak floorboards. At first look it is confusing until you see the round steel recessed handle of the sliding door and see that it is a reflection.
Looking out through the windows toward the sea, this image is enriched by the floating reflection of all the other windows behind me in this house made of windows. The reflections all soft and pale contrasting with the bright sharpness of every single fence post and blade of grass in the early morning sunlight.
Grey as a colour theme is challenging but I found a couple of opportunities during a flying visit to Aberporth, a small village in Cardigan bay in West Wales. Whilst we ate fish and chips sitting at the aluminium tables outside the “Caffi”, the sun played hide and seek but then went elsewhere, so the light was helping to show up greyness. The soft colours and lack of contrast drew my eye to these delicate stems, no doubt soon to be bedraggled by wind and rain, the fine incised lines in the smooth concrete wall behind providing an opposing yet supporting structure.
Inside I caught a figure fleetingly through the metallic grey of the mesh panel in an open door, the grey seems almost to draw a line around his profile and the white beard merges into his sweater which makes the image other-wordly.
Light falling through gaps in the floorboards after the plasterboard lining had been removed. I was intrigued by the way the light continues down from the joist over the wall, where it splays out and also over the door where it becomes more focussed. I wish I had moved slightly to the right but someone was standing there and then the moment was gone.
I am continuing to explore creating shadows with simple forms. These 3/4 plaster spheres have been filed to make a slot and then all 49 placed in a grid with the slots randomly positioned. Who knows why but looking at it makes me feel calm and peaceful, (although a little annoyed that not every sphere is in focus) must try harder. The spheres are about the size of a mint imperial, no-one has been fooled yet luckily, they could be nasty if swallowed!
Somehow I seem to have found myself moving almost full circle in my use of scale. I began with intricate delicate jewellery in silver and moved abruptly in a dramatic change of scale to a few bulky fabrications in painted MDF, then mild steel sculpture as big as I could make it. I yearned to go bigger, larger than life but for that you need money, strength, a whole workshop full of specialist equipment, space and hopefully a commission. After a liberating but all too brief dalliance with pleated paper and an even briefer sojourn with copper sheet, I adopted a more restrained approach, all white sculpture on a domestic scale in a medium quite new to me until now, cast plaster. Gradually and almost without realising what was afoot, the scale has slid back down, close to jewellery sized pieces.
Throughout this whole exploration of materials and processes, runs my habitual theme of repetition, it seems to be the one constant, indeed it is undeniably quite my favourite. And of course my second favourite, the aspect that sits so well with repetition – cast shadows.
Sally Wakelin - Studies in Creativity 
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