For Plymouth artist Juliet Cornell, Spring is a time to see the changes in the sea and landscape around her and an opportunity to make different art from the season before.
Her art will be among those featured in Drawn to the Valley’s latest exhibition, Drawn to Spring at Ocean Studios in the Royal William Yard.
Juliet said:
“Until I started cold water swimming during the years of Covid restrictions I thought my creativity existed in its own area of my brain, Isolated from the more mundane activities of life.
“Since then, I have regularly swum year-round at the same spot, Tranquility Bay, on the Stonehouse Peninsula. I realise now that doing the same thing in the same place is extraordinarily creatively stimulating.
I am tuned in to the place and the ever-changing seascape in such a way that I constantly want to represent my experience in a two dimensional way.
“Many of these creations are just snippets of creative thoughts jotted down on paper by hand or created as manipulated photography. Hardly any of them will find their way to fully finished works of art. But by creating them after a cold-water swim or a bracing walk, watching others tackle the sea, I learn something new about my creative process and the materials I have to hand.
“This translates into the work that does make it into the public domain. The repetition of a weekly swim, for four years in the same place allows me to find something new to focus on every time. Somehow this has revitalised the way I make marks or consider colour. A most unexpected outcome of regularly getting rather cold in Plymouth Sound.”
Another Plymouth artist taking part in the Drawn to Spring Exhibition is Stuart Morrissey, a mosaicist. Having recently presented a mosaic piece to the RSPB, Stuart says that birds have been a lifelong interest.
“The chance to craft a mosaic that both promotes the RSPB and shows off my skills was a great opportunity. It has given me the theme for my work for the upcoming Spring Exhibition. Birds made by me will be there, in mosaic form.”
To see Juliet and Stuart’s work along with other artists’ interpretation of Spring in the Tamar Valley, Drawn to Spring will be at Ocean Studios, Plymouth, Royal William Yard, from April 2 to April 6 from 9am to 4pm Wednesday to Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 3pm. Entry is free.
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