18th June 2020

This is the second in a series of interviews with creative and inspiring people, chatting all things human and what it takes to ‘be’. The aim being not only to promote their work but to uncover their journey, learn about technique and pass on tips and advice. I’m hoping these conversations will inspire others to be unique, take risks and understand the beauty in failure … we have but one life, lets make it creative !

I’m fascinated with people’s journey’s, how they get to where they’re at …. would we end up in the same place even if another route was taken ? Talking to one of my closest and oldest friends we discuss creative DNA and even if your personal work is put on ice, the heart still beats …

Helen and I have been friends for many years. She’s an artist, teacher and thought leader in educating children creatively.

We were on the same fashion design degree at Central St Martins which started in the summer of 1994 … We became friends almost immediately. It’s fair to say we had a colourful time together and with a beautiful twist Helen is now my sister in law (ish). When making Helen’s wedding dress we hatched a blind date plan for Lucy, Helen’s sister and John, my brother …. long story short they’re married with two of the most beautiful and thoughtful kids I know…. Much to my brothers irritation, Helen and I will still be telling the story for years to come !

I would recommend seeing the full conversation here , Helen is fascinating on so many different levels.

TOP TAKE AWAYS

We can learn technical skills but it’s the energy of catching a moment which is important. To appreciate that magic you need to give your work time to settle. Hang it up, take a step back, leave it over night. When given time it communicates that thing which was happening in the moment.

BUT

You have to have enough technical skill to embrace whatever is coming out… it opens up a confidence in being able to draw what feels right or the energy you were feeling.

* Typed verbatim*

In terms of mark making, when do you know when to stop ?

I let it settle and walk away but sometimes you have to go too far. Take away the precious nature of control. If you don’t take the risk you’ll always do the same kind of drawing.

The drawings you’ve been doing of the hugs really show the energy, you can really feel them, you don’t look to see if the arm is in the right position or if its in balance or if the proportion’s right, you just look and see the energy and feel the warmth.

Ah, I’m really glad you said that because Brett and I have lots of discussions where I think this one‘s easy to read, this one ‘looks ‘ like a good painting, you can see skills, you can see legs properly, you can see the way I’ve drawn the hand, and hands are hard so that looks good, and then there’s this goal I always have of trying to reduce the marks that you make on the paper to the least amount of information you need to get the feeling that I want to come across, it’s sort of abstracting it but its being quite reductive I suppose, it’s about how much fuss you need in a piece of work in order to get the thing you want to communicate. and for someone who makes their own work, often other artists really get that because they realise that if you only get one or two chances because you’re only doing one or two lines that is where the skill comes from and that energy when a painting works happens when you get one or two lines right. Where if you just go like do this, do this ( drawing small lines and marks ) I call it pimping up the painting so you can always make a drawing look great because if I add that Lilac, if I add that magenta, if I add a bit of tape, but its plastering over the cracks, wether you got that original essence down correctly or not …. and that’s what I’m searching for and sometimes when Brett and I chat, I say ‘What do you think about this, what do you think about that’, often we have this dichotomy if the painting is readable or not.

What would you say to parents now (post lockdown), in case they feel like they havent’t done their best in regards to home schooling. What advice would you give them, how are the schools going to take responsibility and get the kids caught up to the level they need to be.

I think its like this, a school will be thinking really deeply, I was speaking to a head today about it, and you know it’s a whole different ball game. Good teaching is not delivering content, good teaching is about being able to read a situation and see what those children really need. That’s a teachers job, thats what we love doing, thats what a really outstanding teacher does. So they are right ( referring back to a statement about a teacher saying that a child is better not doing homeschool work in a happy calm environment as apposed to working in stress ), if your children have come out of this having a better time with their family then that’s amazing. All those arguments that you’ve had are things that you think have made a big difference but they really don’t sit as big in your child’s minds they do in your mind.

This is just a few pearls of wisdom from our conversation … so much more on the full IGTV version x

Helen can be found at Instagram @helengirling