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A Room of One’s Own
“A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.” (Virginia Woolf) Right? Well, not necessarily. My writing days are over, but when I did consider myself primarily a writer I did my best work when I didn’t have a room of my own. When, in fact, I…
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My End of Year Review
It seems wrong to list my 2023 successes when it seems like the world is going to hell in a handcart, but for me, as I suspect it is for many people, art – making art, consuming art, reading about art – provides an oasis of calm, a space to reflect, an escape from the…
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Instagram: Shark-infested waters
If, like me, you’re a decent, trusting sort of person, it can come as a bitter blow to learn that there is a seemingly endless number of people out there in cyberspace who are prepared to use every trick in the book to take advantage of that trust to hack you, scam you, and otherwise…
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Selling Art on Etsy
I recently made my 100th sale on Etsy, which feels like a good time to reflect on my experiences as an Etsy seller and share some tips for anyone considering setting up their own shop. My first collage zine I made my first Etsy sale back in July 2021, when I revived an Etsy shop…
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Sourcing Ephemera
My random collection of what I can only describe as stuff is an important source of inspiration as well as the raw material for my work. It’s possible I will only ever use a fraction of it, but its presence is necessary. This urge to collect, to gather, to surround ourselves with objects that please…
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Making a Zine
Back in the early 2000s, when I was a stay-at-home mum with two young children, one of the things I most valued was the people I connected with on LiveJournal, which was a fabulous place to find your tribe, ruined when it was sold in 2007, and to a large extent now replaced with other…
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Joseph Cornell and the Boxes
I’m currently reading ‘Art making, Collections & Obsessions’ by Lynne Perrella, which is an absolute treat for any mixed media artist who can’t resist collecting All The Things. As Perrella says, ‘Once a collector, always a collector’. As a child I collected stamps and Wade Whimsies. As an adult, I collected books and records. There…
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Checking In
It’s been a while since I posted here – not through lack of interest, just simple lack of time. I meant to get so much done in 2023, but the year is running away with me. I do have a tendency to try to juggle multiple projects at the same time (maybe I worry that…
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The Appeal of Collage
Collage has played a significant part in just about every major art movement of the 20th century, notably Dadism, Futurism, Surrealism, and the 20th century Russian avant-garde. Relief, Vladimir Tatlin, 1913 Pablo Picasso is usually cited as ‘inventing’ collage in 1912 with Still Life with Chair Caning. In this work (below), a piece of oilcloth…
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Impostor Syndrome
Impostor syndrome is something I’ve been dealing with since the age of 10, when I was informed by another child in my class that I hadn’t actually passed the 11+ to go to grammar school. According to this child, the head teacher had just randomly stuck a pin in my name. In hindsight that sounds…
Helen Kitson
Mixed media collage artist
Helen Kitson 