Show Notes:
- Sandra Bliim is an artist and sculptor
- Sandra and Felicity recently met at the Manly Art Gallery at an event called Creative Women’s Circle
- Back in the early 2000s Sandra (or Sandy) started going to TAFE taking the Fine Arts Course
- This is an important opportunity for women who wanted to get back into the workforce and also for people who are in retirement and looking to live a creative life
- Sandy thinks that all that travelling, observing and living has given her some good ideas and gives her something to say visually
- She got her Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours at the National Arts School
- For a long time, she never considered herself as an artist and felt that she was just a student
- Calling yourself an artist is the hardest thing – Do I deserve the title? Am I good enough? Do I need a degree to prove it?
- You need a body of work because it helps to prove to yourself that you are progressing and developing and that gives you pleasure and helps your visual expression
- Even when you are selling, always keep a record of your work because you can always look back and say “That was really quite good!” and something that you can build on in the future since nothing ever stays the same
- Getting that circle of intimate friends who you trust is very important and it will give you the confidence to take your work into exhibition
- Getting an unbiased response to work is also valuable
- People in isolated areas can connect with like-minded people through social media (i.e. Facebook groups – such as From the Easel)
- If you are unable to go to a local art society, do it in a local school as there are some really great, interesting people
- Entering competitions, particularly for sculptors, is actually a really good way to maintain momentum with your practice because it gives you a deadline
- Different materials have their own problems, but that is part of the adventure
- It is a great idea to get on the mailing list of galleries feasible for you to reach and to make work around a busy life
- Big shows are quite expensive to enter so it is always worthwhile to check out the local scene as a way of imposing yourself some discipline to keep proceeding
- Artists need to be practical and make art that is achievable
- Residencies can be tremendously enhancing for your practice because it’s all about you and your practice. They select you because they see you as an artist – something that resonates with the place where the residency is
- To be successful at it you do have to be business-like unless you have a patron or someone who will do all those unpleasant tasks for you – start by making lists
- Drawing is the most fundamental skill in art form. It is the basic language of art
- Sandy’s parents were expats who lived outside of Australia and she has 3 older sisters. When her sisters went to boarding school, she found herself as a kid to be creative in her play since she was on her own
- Not being able to grow up in Australia gave her the notion of “who am I? and where did I come from?” and it is quite strong which is why a lot of her work shows that sense of displacement and talks to memory
- What she has is a heritage from childhood is not necessarily tangible but they are memories
- She’s hoping that when she comes back from Europe she’ll have an exhibition to show some of the works she’ll have produced while she was on residency in Paris and from her Italian trip
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