Jacqueline Ford in conversation
As we enjoy hosting Jacqueline’s debut solo exhibition in the gallery, we had time to have a little chat and learn more about her and how this show came together. The exhibition focuses on a collection of original paintings created during a 100 days, many featuring Jacq’s happy place of St Ives, Cornwall.
Vitamin SEA is open now every day - Tuesday to Saturday until the 29th of July 2023.
Alarm welcome to Vitamin SEA at Emerald Gallery
Why is St Ives your happy place?
I first visited St Ives back in the early 90s - taking the train from St Erth and experiencing that most scenic of train rides along the coast. Mum and I were immediately captivated by the harbour - the expanse of sand and the light. I clearly remember standing on the harbour wall looking down at the patterns made by the ropes on the sand as the boats awaited the tide. I have visited many times since and from 2017 have taken myself on an annual ‘pilgrimage’ to fill up on Vitamin SEA.
Tell us a bit about the 100 Day Project and how you decided on Vitamin SEA as the theme for this exhibition?
After plucking up the courage to ask (gallery manager) Ali in 2022 to consider me for a future exhibition at Emerald I started thinking about what I would like this to be about.
I discovered the 100 Day Project by Lindsay Jean Thompson back in 2021 during lockdown. It’s an opportunity for a small act of creativity every day in whatever form works best. I chose to have adventures with phases of the moon and then holey pebbles but knew a set of 100 two-inch squares was clearly not going to be the right scale for here!
When I was offered a solo exhibition in July 2023, I knew that it had to be coastal related and ‘Vitamin SEA’ (a name I had seen on a cottage in St Ives years before) seemed fitting. Using the 100 days as a container to indulge my love of the sea and my happy places - and produce a body of work - what could be better!
Vitamin SEA by Jacqueline Ford
Tell us how the Horizon series of works came about?
On my annual visit to St Ives in 2021 I had a day trip to Penzance to visit Cornwall Contemporary, a lovely gallery on Parade Street / Chapel Street at the top of the town. Looking down Chapel Street I saw the most amazing play of light on the sea - it was white with a blue band where the water met the sky. I was beside myself with delight at this as have never seen that light play on Mounts Bay (or elsewhere!). There was no one around to share my ‘just look at that excitement’ with and so a photo had to do. The day before I had bought a porcelain teacup in one of the galleries in St Ives and it had a horizon line with the colours the other way around. It made me think which way is up and which was is down and gave me the seed to explore in this series. I love that some of them work together as a pair or even a triple - as well as on their own. The horizon line features strongly in my other works too - and there is still more to come out.
Inspiration for the paintings can be found in Jacq’s photos
I know you work full time - how have you managed to do this too?
Looking at it all together in one place now I don’t really know! I did take a week off work in April and a second week in May (although much of that was used to help with the publicity and set up of our local art society show in Marlow). I dedicated time at weekends to paint and have time each day to just look at the work - to identify where I was happy and where I could see a need to develop more.
I’ve always worked in a series as it is a good way to produced coherent work. I work in layers and passes which means that as soon as I get too fussy or stuck, I pause and pass on to the next. The most artworks I have ever produced on a single series before is five works - creating two series of 12 works and one of 9 works is a major step up from that!
When I started, I also made the commitment that I could only use the materials that I already had and this placed a limit of sorts as I only had twelve 12 x 12 inch panels and nine 10 x 10 inch - I had a few spare 8 x 8 inch left but the ‘horizon’ inspired series of smaller works naturally paused at twelve.
Tell us about your studio space?
Hahaha. My kitchen? I gave up the desire to host dinner parties (I’m no Nigella on the culinary front) many moons ago and gave over my kitchen table to my art. For this body of work, I actually worked off two 57 x 57 cm cardboard packaging squares from IKEA! I used one to protect my cooker and a second the adjacent countertop. I now find it easier to work standing up as you can get a better flow with your body.
Cath at Emerald gifted me a huge piece of cardboard that I used to protect the carpet in my front room and put works on to dry / rotate as I worked on them. I also used my stairs and constructed drying racks outside for the picture frames (visit @look.what.jacq.made on Instagram to see work in progress space innovation!).
This is your first solo exhibition - how did it feel to see your work all together?
Emotional and unbelievable. To see everything up on the wall and not dotted around different areas in my small home really bought home the scale of what I have accomplished over the 100 days. It also showed my visual vocabulary in the way that I look at the world and compose pictures and that the core colour palette tones create a harmony across the works. I did have a cry when I got into my car and when I got home as a solo exhibition has been a desire of mine for many years. To get to share subject matter that has come from my heart with a new audience at Emerald is a true privilege and I hope this comes across in the work. Thank you Cath and Ali.
💗 We do hope you can visit 💗