Proximity

Proximity /prɒkˈsɪmɪti/
noun

nearness in space, time, or relationship.

“Proximity” by Tiina Lilja (2020) embroidery and oil paint on board

I’ve had some great news last Thursday: I’m finally going to be off furlough and back to work as a studio painter.  It has been a privilege to dedicate this much time for making my own art, but to be completely honest, I am really keen on returning to a form of normal in September.

Unlike my husband who has been working from home throughout and following lockdown, I have needed to set my own challenges during the Covid-19 crisis.  I would definitely say I was in a bit of a creative slump before the pandemic and the only way to move forward towards the new normal was to change the way I make art.  Focussing only on the positives, the last several months have made me more confident in exploring new ways of making visual art as well as tackling more overtly personal subject matter than ever before.  The first of these experiments, begun in early spring and finished in late July, is Proximity: a piece about my father who I haven’t been able to see since last summer.

proximity detail

“1986” and “Proximity” by Tiina Lilja

Proximity is a mixed media piece, slightly larger than an A4 sheet of paper, combining two oil painted miniatures sitting within an embroidered frame.  The portraits, one featuring a young boy around the age of 7 and the other of a slightly younger girl with her head cropped out, are those of my father and me.  In the photographs my painted portraits are based on, we are wearing the same pair of tasselled leather trousers, although by the time I had the honour of doing so, nearly 25 years ago now, they had been cut into shorts.

proximity detail

proximity detail

proximity detail

The reason Proximity took so long to finish was largely due to my indecisiveness.  Having finished the embroidered cover, largely using cotton thread and acrylic yarn, I simply could not choose what I wanted to paint.  Overtly Covid-centred subjects would have felt false – I am not that type of an artist and everything else seemed too mundane.  I left Finland over ten years ago now, but I have never felt this far away from home before.  Of all the things I have missed during lockdown: family, friends and my home in France… it was my dad Juha who I missed the most.  He’s a typical Finnish bloke, not the type to video chat or hang around social media and I have really cherished our long phone calls during this difficult time.

For better or for worse, Proximity is my main lockdown piece.  I have already improved on some of the ideas I first explored with this piece; others I have completely abandoned for now, but it shall always have a special place among my artworks.  I turned thirty just a week ago and the most important thing I am trying to implement, having reached this milestone, is to spend less energy on worrying about what other people think of me.  I lost quite a few followers off my Instagram when I started posting images of these types of mixed media- and textile pieces, but I’ve gained new ones since.  Life is too short to obsess over social media, and not worth living if you are just going to regret every risk and change of direction.

So: take risks, create and don’t lose sight of the things that matter the most – that’s the new normal public service announcement from me to you.

Tiina x

A word with the Micromanager

Anybody else struggling with motivation lately?

Seems like this is all I talk about these days; I am not really built for the anxieties of the new normal.  Where I tend to be pretty good at setting my own goals and sticking by them, lately the uncertainty with work and life in general has really started to affect my productivity.  Add in a generous helping of self-doubt and you end up with this hard-to-shake feeling of existential dread.

Not the best of times to revisit a finished artwork, I know, but here we are.  Remember “1997” – I wrote a blog about the meaning behind the picture some weeks back and logged it as finished on my studio inventory.  Case closed.  Yet I have not stopped thinking about the wee thing.  It is a piece that means a lot to me, being a sort of self-portrait and all, but I kept thinking it should somehow be… well, better.

1997 before revision

1997 by Tiina Lilja (2020) oil on board

This is by no means the first time I have started again: just last summer I completely repainted one of the faces in Two Brides.  It was a calculated risk that paid off, but not an easy decision to make at the time.  The materials I work with, mostly oil- and acrylic paints, are non-reversible.  They can be removed using solvents or brute force for sure, but generally speaking you cannot restore areas that are overpainted once the paint has dried.  A strict one-way system of sorts.  The reason a conservator would use specialist pigments in restorative overpainting is so that their work can be safely removed when necessary.  As an artist however, a maker of things, this is not a practical way to build artworks.

Personally, I thought the multi-coloured elements I added on top of the black and white portrait in 1997 were a bit heavy handed.  I did not want to remove this layer fully, but rather integrate it better with the portrait underneath, by making areas on the face more translucent.  I could have added more paint, or sanded down parts of the coloured top layer, but I opted out for a riskier strategy of a solvent, turpentine to be precise.  The main reason I felt this painting was not working previously, was the dull precision of its parts, making it all too uniform for my taste.  By choosing to remove some paint in this unpredictable way, I managed to re-introduce character that I felt was previously lost.

“1997” by Tiina Lilja (2020) oil on board

1997 by Tiina Lilja (2020) oil on board

I am really pleased how it turned out, but again it was not a decision I took lightly.  At the end of the day, any artist is responsible for their own quality control.  Is this piece sign-off quality?  Could I be displeased about it simply because I feel down about most of my work just now?  Is the time used reworking this piece time/money well spent?  Question yourself before taking steps that are irreversible.  Measure twice, cut once etc.

If you need to think whether an artwork is finished, it probably is not.  Conversely, there is a fine line between sensible quality control and micromanagement.  You can set any picture (or a problem) aside and return to it when you are feeling better/more confident/re-inspired.

Or simply, ask a friend – if there’s one thing I have learned from the Covid-19 crisis it is that we’re all in this shite together.

Work in Progress

I don’t know about you, but I am really struggling to get anything finished these days.

So, in the spirit of keeping calm and carrying on, I thought I’d give you a few work-in progress-snaps.  Y’know, in case you too are browsing the underbelly of internet rather than getting back to work.  I would know… after all, I am writing this to actively avoid getting any painting done.

As you can see, my little family of portraits is steadily growing and I do promise to get on with it all.

Tomorrow, maybe.

In general, I do find working on multiple paintings pretty useful.  Mainly, as it stops me from getting bored of my own work.  Also, when using oil paints, this will give you something dry enough to paint on each day.  That is the theory anyway.  Right now I have a studio full of little paintings, like a closet full of clothes and nothing to wear.

Work in progress Portrait of my sister as a kid by Tiina Lilja

Work in progress portrait of John

Work in progress Self portrait as a kid by Tiina Lilja

The latest additions are my wee sister (left) and me (right), captured around 1996-1997 or so, and my husband’s dad (centre).  I never got to meet John, which makes rendering a likeness quite difficult, but we are getting there.  Painting a portrait from a photograph alone can be a bit tricky, but luckily I have my hubby to guide me through it.  As silly as it sounds, sometimes you can paint the most perfect copy of a photograph, yet as a portrait it looks nothing like the person photographed.  This wasn’t a problem when I was painting my dad, for example, as I know his features better than my own.  I loved being able to spot any rogue brush strokes immediately, but here I am not quite so sure of myself.

We’ll just going to have to wait and see how this portrait develops.

Work in progress Rainbow painting

work in progress

Work in progress rainbow painting

The other thing I’ve been working on is the vibrant rainbow swirl pictured above.  It started out as a colour test for another project, really, but could mature into a piece of its own.  I am currently waiting for the paint to dry on this one so I could start adding new elements on top of the oil painted base-layer.

So stay tuned – how long can it take to find inspiration locked in a small cottage in the middle of a pandemic?  Right!?

Oh, and allow me to toot my own horn a bit.  If you fancy more of these work in progress type of posts, head over to my Instagram;  you’ll get your fix there.

Cheerio.

Tx

If first you don’t succeed…

Having spent some time with my Double Exposure-project and learned a bit of printmaking, I am now back in the atelier, working to finish my portrait of the two brides from the 1930’s.  Although I initially enjoyed working on people and costumes again, one detail kept giving me nightmares: the second bride had a really unpleasant face.  Compared to a pretty successful portrait of the left hand figure, this one seemed both incomplete and overworked at the same time, making the whole painting feel unbalanced.  Now, I am not one to give up lightly, but having tried improving this face several times without significant success there was only one thing for it: paint it over and start again.

Two Brides by Tiina Lilja – work in progress, detail

Two Brides, work in progress by Tiina Lilja – details of the old face before repainting

So, following a bit of doubt and self-pity, this is exactly what I proceeded to do… and boy I wish I had done it sooner!  Some weeks have passed since I got rid of the old face – when covering up large details with oil paint you must be careful about allowing adequate drying time, and I am now making great progress with this piece.  The new face is just how I wanted it: calm and soft featured, the perfect counterpart to my first figure whose confident form has hardly changed since I began the painting.

It is never easy to start again, having admitted defeat, even when you are confident about being able to turn things around.  I was terrified the old face was the best I could achieve and that kept me from making any radical changes for a long time.  Ultimately, if everyone was this terrified of failure, there would be not be a Guernica, or Sistine Chapel… no Jimson Weed.  True failure is not about ability or achievement at all – it is what you choose to carry with you when moving on from an adversary event.  In a society where an instant reward is expected to follow the slightest of efforts, it is natural to consider the absolutes of failure or victory as the only acceptable outcomes regarding work, education or personal development.  In reality, there is a huge and productive grey area between the two.

Two Brides by Tiina Lilja – work in progress, detail

Two Brides, work in progress by Tiina Lilja – after repainting one of the faces

If I would only stick to painting what I know well my work would be pretty dull.  I paint high end goods for a luxury market so the pieces I put forward must be of a good standard, consistently.  This does not mean, however, avoiding challenging myself or aiming to create pieces that are merely good enough rather than good.  The world of fine art can be fickle; trends fly by and what constitutes as good varies from person to person.  The only way I can be confident about my work is to paint to a standard where I am happy with everything, first and foremost.

Two Brides, work in progress by Tiina Lilja

Two Brides, work in progress by Tiina Lilja – adding small details

Two Brides, work in progress by Tiina Lilja

There is still a bit to go before Two Brides is finished, but I am on the right track again.  Being at peace with the faces, I feel optimistic about cracking on with other important details.  Today I am particularly excited about the pearl embellished head-dress of the first bride and the second ones capped veil – small details that are suddenly very visible without the distraction of that awful face.

‘till next blog,

Tiina x