A year on

It is now a full year after completing my hons degree in fine art, and looking back on it now, I feel I have accomplished quite a lot, though some of it has been difficult.
I had a deadline for the RSA show which was in March 2012, and I was one of the artists working on a residency in North Uist called the 'Secret Sea'. The residency ran from Sept 2011 through to may 2012. with an exhibition that ran from march to may.
For the RSA, I had a choice of putting in my degree show work, new work, or a mixture of the two. I decided to do a mix of work from the degree show, and new work, but mainly new work as the focus, so I continued my work on the stag project which I had started, but not submitted for marking during the degree. This gave me something to focus on and made sure that I pushed myself to create artwork even when I didn't feel like it, which I know was the best plan for me, otherwise I would have just sat back and not been creative at all which would have caused a blockage. The main  reason being that I was exhausted after all the years of study, as well as in a lot of pain, ( I cannot do my job at the moment because of my health issues) so I needed to recover, yet at the same time, I knew that if I pushed myself into making artwork, I would carry on growing as an artist. So I did a little each day to give myself an incentive, and having a deadline made sure that I had to push myself to complete the work. I suppose you could say that it was me being my own tutor, continually questioning why I was making the work, doing research, and looking at other artists. I was also encouraged by the fact that in the residency, it would be totally new work I was creating, with new inspirations ( the deer stag work sometimes felt as if it was going stale because I had been working on it for so long, even though it was constantly evolving and changing. ) I had two films on a loop together of performances in the landscape. one of them was stag in Grimsay, and the other one was a collaboration with Anne monk, called stag in the sea. The film was interrupted by a real deer's stag head, which was very old. This meant not only was there a shadow of the stag on the wall in the film but that the film was projected onto the stag head as well. Three deer costumes were on plinths in the exhibition in front of the large cyanotype self portrait with stag remains. Each of the deer had a hand made deer tag of silver with my own hallmark and the Edinburgh assay mark on them. On the wall were two photographs on aluminium, of me as a deer during my performances, with my hand written book of a 'Legend of North |Uist' which has an etched silver cover in between them. Lastly, there was my artists book 'performances in the landscape. I was pleased with the result, and had some good feedback as well.
In the secret sea residency, a group of us undertook some journeys by boat to uninhabited Islands in North Uist. During these trips, we gathered information which we would later use for artworks.
 My blog during the residency:
http://taigh-chearsabhagh.org/2011/10/secret-sea/
Exhibition, I had some remnants of items I had collected on our journeys at the start of the residency, which I had turned in to pure silver. Behind these were six large digital macro photos of  lichens called 'Breathe.' these had a blue tinge which I had created with the use of filters. I had another artists book, called secret sea residency. The film stag in the sea was also in the exhibition, projected on to a piece of cellophane, quite small, and high up.
Andy Mackinnon made a film of some of our artwork during the exhibition:
http://vimeo.com/40304123

For my professional practise, I applied for various residencies, which I found very hard to do, but concentrated on one in particular, ( cove park.) I was really disappointed that I didn't get on to it, mainly because I was keen on meeting new artists, and being in a different environment to see if I would be able to create art work somewhere new. I will now have to get over that and start applying again for more of them.

I joined axisweb as an artist:

http://www.axisweb.org/seCVPG.aspx?ARTISTID=15914

some of the artwork from the two exhibitions can be seen here.

I also have an art page on facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Deborah-Anne-Macvicar-Art/108356822527452

After the secret sea residency and exhibition was over, I decided to get over my blockage with painting again, just because I have always found that it is my first love. It took a long time and  I became quite anxious, but I have managed it. I started by going out into the landscape and drawing in my sketchbook. I wanted to capture my feelings from being in the place on paper, so as usual, the sounds and smells were in my mark making as well as the light and the beauty of the place I was in. I used a limited pallet, with inks, pencil, water colours and oil bars as well as a candle for resist. Then in the studio, I am using my drawings and the remembered feelings to create expressive paintings. I am trying out a few different styles at the moment. I still prefer oil paint when in the studio, rather than acrylics, because of the feel of the medium. I love the smells and the creaminess of it as I apply it either by brush or pallet knife. even when I try to use acrylics for reasons of fast drying, I tend to finish off afterwards with oils on top. Acrylics just looks so flat when dry, compared to oils too. I quite like the combinations of the two so have been leaving some flat areas. I painted three oils for the 'Art on the Map' exhibition, ( which Marnie, Anne and myself are holding together in the cow shed at Baleshare) along with my drawings and some photos and dry point etchings.

My newest work though is for the Alumini of Moray College, UHI. I have exhibited a large photograph of Ronay made with my Horizon camera on my last journey to the Isle of Ronay while the secret sea exhibition was on, and I was the artist on the trip with members of the public.