On autonomy

All about carving your own path – in your art, your creative decisions and in, you know, life. Plus a tale of bold choices...

Another story from the past today. How did a Welsh miner’s son come to make this astonishing decision, to turn down a scholarship at the highly competitive and exclusive Royal College of Art (RCA) in the 1960s?

Let’s begin at the beginning.

This piece is dedicated to two incredible women artists. Both have tragically had their lives cut short by cancer. They were deeply committed creatives who reached others with their embroidery and dynamic portraiture. They carved their own paths and owned their decisions. To Lou Gardiner and Paulette Farrell - you have left rich legacies.

Black slag heaps, crisp snow

Any of you who have ever visited the Welsh mining valleys, not far from my studio and Skirrid Gallery, will know what a uniquely dramatic almost alien landscape it is. Wild, industrial terrain, often bleak and prone to *all* the weather. So it’s not hard to imagine abstract artist Roger Cecil (1942–2015) responding to all this from an early age. His sense of place fuelled many of his deeply felt, expressive artworks.

Art was his power

School was a struggle, especially when the dyslexia we can see in his notebooks was not understood. But with art there was no holding him back. This was acknowledged because he won a place in further education.

I have heard that he walked around 17 miles each day to study at Newport College of Art from the age of 15 to save on the bus fare.

By 20 he’d achieved the highest score (nationwide!) in the National Diploma for Design which granted him a scholarship to the RCA. Had he attended, this would have been an extraordinary example of upward social mobility in a country still beset by a rigid class system.

But Roger actively chose to turn this down. He listened to his gut and declared that in this environment his art would become “a bit of everybody” (recorded by BBC Wales in 1964, in a documentary film called “A Quiet Rebel”).

Labour

He lived his entire life in Abertillary, staying in the house he was born in. When he inherited the family home, the entire property was transformed into a live-in studio. To pay the bills, he laboured in the valleys, working in open-caste mining or on building sites to fund his art, which he rarely exhibited. When he had hardly any money, he used materials from his labouring jobs to make creative work.

He was an autodidact, determined to be the best painter he could be. By his own definition.

He never faltered in his creation of a vast body of mainly abstract paintings and 3-D works in various media.

He quietly gathered friends who admired and supported him, but he did not seek exposure or publicity. Eventually, his network led him to collectors and galleries. There was demand for his new work and he could afford expensive materials, but this was only after years and he hadn’t pursued sales or representation.

So he was often considered a difficult recluse. A secret artist who eschewed public appearances and the mainstream.

The ultimate trust

Should we consider these refusals to be acts of defiance? Or more softly put, acts of autonomy?

I see him embodying a kind of ultimate trust in the higher self. He combined this trust with an unwillingness to bend or be swayed by trying to woo others, by the market, by external pressures to succeed.

How do we match his inner strength? Is it necessarily the right thing to do, even? I’d love to hear what you think in the comments below.

An art education or a studio of one’s own?

I think of Roger’s story when I slip into reprimanding myself for not pursuing art as a career in a formal setting years ago. I loved art at school and flew through the exams with high marks. I don’t feel this is bragging because grades were awarded for technical skills. I found technique easy.

But there was a nagging voice. Even at the age of 15 or 16 I knew I was far from expressing something of myself. Instead I was making art for other people’s approval.

I was also very academic and, in retrospect, I didn’t dare to abandon myself to a life of curiosity and self discovery. So perhaps I didn’t aim for art college because I was scared I wouldn’t know what I wanted to say.

What if there was nothing to uncover and express?

None of the self

This fear kept me from art-making for around 25 years. So should I have tried for art college instead of Cambridge. My conclusion? I would have likely fallen at the first hurdle. I bet I would have desperately wanted to be part of the conceptual art movement on the rise at the time. I’m instinctively and most definitely not a conceptual artist.

Would I have scrabbled to get approval from my peers and my tutors? Or limited my curiosity and denied any emerging work because I deemed it “off trend”?

My art most likely would have been “a bit of everybody” and none of myself.

Tipping point

It took a pandemic for me to acknowledge I needed to dig deeper to find some self expression. And just let go really!! I keep telling myself that’s okay. Art making and self discovery is always work in progress. There’s no such thing as plan, whether that’s best laid or not.

If we’re honest with ourselves we’re balancing a tightrope between our interior worlds and exterior influences and judgement. Of course I still want my paintings to connect with people and that requires trust in them. Because I can’t make anything of value by trying to work out what they want then being reactionary. That’s just not authentic – not autonomous.

So I think I’m beginning to get closer to the core of the matter. To find a way to channel emotion, experience and atmosphere through hands and materials. And to make it more about pleasure in messy process.

Birdsong

It’s like birdsong, sometimes distant, wavering and hard to decipher, sometimes loud and gloriously insistent from the very top of a close-by tree. Sometimes you worry about the deathly quiet, then sometimes the dawn chorus is just too loud. You still want birdsong though. Always. So you take what you can get.

The highs and lows combine to compel, feed and sometimes delight us.

Talking about feeding, the next art recipe – I mean motivational video – is currently on the boil in the kitchen. It should ping into your inbox in readiness for next Sunday morning.

Until next time, enjoy your curiosity and trust your decisions.

I’m delighted to say that this community has grown to almost 100 creatives now. Welcome to those of you have just joined.

I had such an uplifting message from my last piece On Confidence - Audrey commented, “I received your email as I was putting together my proposals for my final year project and my thesis. Your words were so helpful and supportive. I was totally playing it safe and feeling quite inadequate. After reading your email I rewrote both”

If you know anyone who might benefit by joining KTC (remember most of it’s free) please do share to raise awareness. Thank you.