Roisin Markham

For me, if I don’t get enough time to sit ponder, reflect, think – lets be clear not the staring off into space dreaming, lackadaisical non functioning – more a focused intentional space, I begin to not function on a cognitive level. I get grumpy, argumentative and sense (erhm!) I become more difficult to live with. Covid19 Lockdown has brought with it some challenges about headspace, using my studio, making work in non-dedicated space including questions about secluded creativity.
In early March I read Matt Haig’s first book ‘Reasons to stay alive’ finishing it just before Covid19 lockdown. He brought into language with conciseness how I process intensity. That’s been important for me.

My creative practice embraces the blank page. I love the creative act of producing something from nothing. It’s why I’m a good project manager it’s why I thrive in chaos. I can see the symmetry the interconnected, the patterns and process. Deep down I am an organiser, a designer of process, events, ideas, systems, services and peoples potential. In my studio it just so happens I am an organiser of materials, colour and objects until they shape, fall or streamline into a beautiful balanced element. With my art it’s my aesthetic that decides if it’s right, the colour, the line, the texture. If it sits right in my minds eye.

I started a canvas some weeks ago, my first in years. I’ve needed to just sit in front of it and figure out the next pieces of the painting. It feels new yet familiar. I put pressure on myself to go paint, yet in the studio I don’t, preferring physical making of small things, some photography and progressing artist prompts. Challenging as it is to get the time in my now shared office/studio space it seems the painting is not ready to happen yet. It needs space to breath. So today I made a decision I shall let it be until I am ready. I shall stop trying to prompt, cajole and guilt trip myself into the next. It will come when its ready. Creativity is many things.

What has Lockdown and Covid 19 taught you?