Laura Boswell ARE – Printmaker

Take the Plunge

This week’s blog will have to serve for two weeks of podcasts. I took Christmas week off writing to indulge in cooking. The cooking was huge fun, the post-visit laundry less so, but hey it was a good Christmas and I hope your Christmas was a good one too.

We covered criticism on Ask an Artist last week and I hope you listened. Dealing with critics is not just for art, but for Christmas too. A graceful fielding of family critics is always a good skill to possess. I used to get wildly angry with a Christmas relative who added ‘little’ when referring to anything I did. It was a clever ploy; even a NATO accord is belittled by ‘little’. I’d love to tell you how I managed to defuse the situation with witty words, but in reality I learned the wise lesson to let go and that some little things can be dismissed with a little smile.

Come on in – the water’s lovely!

This week the podcast is about finding your own style. It’s something we all need as artists, but I’m beginning to believe that it’s one of those elusive things that arrive the more you do and the less you think. Bit like my swimming lessons. Swimming I’ve always found easy, thanks to my brother who, in the name of ‘teach your small sister to swim’, tipped me into the deep end of the swimming pool and saw to it that I didn’t actually drown. The after-swim flake from the vending machine and the attention of a heroically older brother was more than enough reward for me to embrace the whole proceeding with gusto and to clamour for more.

Artistic identity is a little the same I think. More about jumping into the deep end and paddling hard, less about thinking things through. Individuality will out and, as skills develop, will become more pronounced. A case of loving what you do and following where your interests lie. My initial interest in swimming lay in impressing my brother and eating chocolate, but ended up resulting in a strong and confident swimmer with what I would certainly describe as an ‘individual’ style.

As mentioned, this week’s Ask An Artist is all about individual artistic identity; how to develop your unique style, how to keep it fresh and how to avoid the pitfalls of becoming a one trick pony. Don’t forget to subscribe on your favourite podcast provider!

Author: Laura

Laura Boswell is a printmaker working exclusively with linocut and traditional Japanese woodblock printing. She has a degree in Art History/Visual Art from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and has been elected to the Royal Society of Painter Printmakers.

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