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Images courtesy of the artist: Lizzie Wood, 2024
March - June 2024
We are delighted to introduce Lizzie Wood as our 2024 Circus Fellow.
“A lifelong reader and student of literature, I was never fully convinced that words alone can do justice to the stories I wanted to tell. As a recent convert to graphic narratives, I have been exploring the medium’s quality of non-verbal, unwritten communication - a visual conversation supported, not dictated, by words. I’m interested in the way in which experiences can be captured through different means, especially those things that are hard to articulate.” Lizzie Wood
Lizzie graduated in 2022 and her practice has ranged from literary criticism, nature writing, visual poetry to memoir. She is currently writing a script for a full length graphic essay, which explores the specific psychological space of Scottish hills in winter, the encroachment of climate change on that space, and the way personal grief is often indistinguishable from the grief of the land.
A passionate walker and mountaineer, Lizzie has undertaken self-directed walking residencies along the Pacific Crest Trail and the Pyrenean High Route - documenting the routes visually to create a series of watercolour paintings. More recently her comic, ‘Solastalgia’, was selected for online publication by the Scottish Mountaineering Press and the original artwork is was on display at the John Muir Trust’s spring exhibition ‘Creative Freedom’ in Pitlochry’s Wild Space until May 2024.
Follow on Instagram @lizzieawood
The 2024 Fellowship has been kindly supported by The Highland Society of London - thanks to them for the ongoing support.
Lizzie's Reflective Blog - Time, Space and Talk, July 2024
What can I say about this team of five wonderful artists that will not sound obliging or trivial or performatively grateful. And while I would like to thank Kirsten, Lorna, Nicky, Cat and Richard profusely for this incredible opportunity… I would like to somehow get across what it actually means to be given a sense of self and validation as a person who creates art, and how they have helped me do that over the course of being a Circus Artspace fellow.
The most valuable thing about these 3 months, is ironically, how short they have felt. When you are a professional procrastinator (how late this blog is being written being case in point) there is nothing more motivating than a defined time window. And its amazing how time stretches out inside that window, and how much can be done! Being part of the team has recentered a creative practice which I have never really given due time to, and for 3 months I acted as if I was an artist… and it turns out that's a lot of what it takes to be one. To show up most weeks and spend time in the studio is 95% of the work… which brings me onto the next thing
Space…
Oh god, I don't think I ever thought it was possible for me to have a mythical, magical, lofty and yet also kinda rundown (I still love you, Carsegate!) Studio! Only proper artists get studios. But I got a whole corner of one all to myself just to create and paint and noodle about aimlessly. I filled it with 1.5m watercolour paper on the roll, and started making work bigger than before… My natural instinct was to physically fill this huge dedicated arting space with art. It turns out that extra massive is not quite my style… but I loved the chance to try it out. The most wonderful legacy to my time with Circus is that I have somehow ended up with a permanent spot in the building, and can continue acting like a proper artist all the time (I wonder when it stops being an act…).
Well I guess it doesn't feel like acting when the people around you believe it's no act, and talk to you like a real-life person, not a character in a play, and the curtains don't close at the end. I’m still not fully convinced that there isn't a director hiding in the wings, but I’ve come closer in these past 3 months than I have before to believing that art is for grown ups too and I am allowed to make it. For all the one-to-ones, advice, inclusion in projects and plans, suggestions, encouragement, potlucks, supermarket pancakes, cuppas and general human warmth, my cup is so filled.
It's been a blast, what more can I say! Thank you.
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