I came to an epiphany after finishing University, and I have mentioned this to people several times. I knew that I didn't want my creative expressions to abide by a set of criteria. I was able to break away from the approval-driven process of school and university, and see the experience for what it was. Isolating. Detrimental to my personal growth, and my artwork. After finishing Honours, I realised I had a choice. To pursue my own direction in my arts career, or to succumb to a career of academia, research, papers. Kissing arse, all that again. After a life of competing, achieving high marks in school and trying to be better than other people so that I felt better about myself, I turned my nose up finally at the latter. 

Today I sit thinking about my art practice, why I do it, and what I want from it. I want to develop a voice, a confidence in style and authenticity in my work. I want to develop a depth and a level of conviction in what I produce. All of this wasn't possible in my four years of University study.

I want to not abide by a set of guidelines like I have for most of my life with university projects and school assignments, to not work according to direction and at the whims of other people. I will be teaching myself to paint, in a way I hope to be uniquely my own, and to find my soul within my subject matter. I want to learn to absorb myself in subjects and allow my individuality to shine through, without trying to tiptoe around different styles to try and find what fits best. I've experimented enough already; it is time to devote myself to mastery. I want develop a confidence in myself, and in what I make: an act of applying thought to paper, or feeling to canvas. This is my main goal: grasping new challenges, finding a special way to express my innermost depth. To not hold back any longer. Ever. To try and arc against this act of seeking approval from others all the time.

I have a lot of people approach me, asking me to draw for them, design their tattoos, paint wedding gifts for their friends. As much as I love improving people's days with my artwork, I feel undertaking commissions like this impede growth in my work; they impede this process of breaking away from convention and abiding by my individuality.

But part of me thinks that the moment it would be unwise to decline paid work, during this period of unemployment. People are coming to me to buy my art, I should just be happy with that. But is art rational or sensible? Should it be? Another part says, to the hell with money. Just be, just do.

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I have this gorgeous little black notebook that I bought from Berlin in 2011, that I haven't really found a use for yet. Well, now I have. I've just finished writing some of my ideas, aims and resolutions for 2013... I suppose some of my main focuses for this year will be improving my social skills, participation in the community and mental health... all of which were really kinda lacking in 2012.

2012 was a shit year. I felt constricted in myself, and my art practice, through undertaking an Honours year in research that only seemed set me backwards in my goals and well-being. I had little money, little time for myself, and little time to transform and grow in the way that I craved. I couldn't learn or express my visions in the way that I wanted. My research topic didn't feel true to me, my writing felt forced, dishonest and unauthentic as per the academic guidelines and my supervisor's direction, and by the end of it I was embarrassed and disappointed with the work I had created. Despite the hard work and tears that went into writing the paper and constructing the journal article, it was a mess. The written argument wasn't believable. It had chopped and changed too many times. My supervisor didn't know what he was doing. And to make matters worse, one of my examiners had failed me. Despite a hard-working year of so much hope, stress, emotion and energy.

What I have taken from this experience though is wisdom. I know now that poking my head curiously into the world of research was not the right thing to do. Not for me. I realised that the best learning and growing is done away from schools and universities. I've learned that competing for the best mark in the class, and searching for approval in peers is a waste of time and energy. I've learned that a qualification, or letters behind your name, does not mean you are in any way smarter, richer in life experience or more educated than the next person. And finally, I have learned that the combination of academia and art is a pathway that should never be crossed. You cannot push such a broad and subjective thing such as art into the narrow constraints of academic speak.  Art is subjective, true to the self, intuitive, ever-expanding, changing. Well it always has been for me. Even if I was to achieve the best possible grade in my Honours year, my thoughts on this situation wouldn't change.

I'm looking ahead cheerfully and I'm optimistic for 2013. I'm ready for a bright, healthy year full of engaging opportunities, money, mental well-being and happiness. For now, here are some of my plans for this year:

• Go out more. Be social. Attend gallery openings. There's an interesting person capable of great conversation beneath that social anxiety.
• Attend foodie events. Attend permie events. Get in touch with those social groups around Townsville that have been neglected on Facebook. Go to their events. Meet people.
• Attend dancing classes and yoga classes. Check in more at Movimiento on Flinders.
• Host more gatherings/parties.
• Think about "thinking" - understand the causes of emotional duress and negative thought processes. Remove myself from self destructive, harmful, "figure 8" thoughts.
• Write emotional problems down. If control of the situation and rational thought is completely out of reach, allow the feelings to pass through. Cry and scream into a pillow. Fall asleep. Wake up and assess the situation again. Find what went wrong. Accept myself. Forgive myself. I am good, I am human. I am worthwhile. An emotional imbalance does not make me a bad person.
• Try to let go of the ego and drive to achieve the highest possible level. It's okay to want to achieve and to strive towards improvement but don't let  achievements be a validation of self worth.
• Learn that statistics and Facebook "likes" are not proof or validation for how "cool" or "good" I am. Find the beautiful person beneath.
• Stop comparing myself to others! Just because this artist, musician or model is getting more attention does not mean they are a better person.
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle. Eating raw food and home grown veggies is not a diet, it's a lifestyle. For 2013, replace anti-depressants with an awesome foodie diet full of the right minerals, nutrients and good stuff.
• Get a gym membership.
• Graduate out of that stupid University.
• Bond with my brother. He may be totally different to me and say some nasty things sometimes, but he's the closest thing I have physically. He's made up of all the same genes and all that jazz. Plus, he says funny things sometimes.
• Less judgement of others.
• Earn some money, and.....
• Re-locate to Melbourne to kick-start an awesome, creative career in the arts.

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After all of the events of Christmas, I've finally been able to sit and reflect on my thought processes of the past few days. To sit and reflect here, to write, to think about all of this in my blog.

This past week hasn't been easy. This emotional burden, or monster, inside of me has been playing havoc with my thinking quite constantly. I remember a few days ago sitting on the couch, trying to iron out the creases of my mind, writing a list of my insecurities and delusions in an old notebook, and feeling strangely surreal. I felt the lights in the room were dimmer than usual. The world felt barren, grey, dead, odd. I was disorientated, exhausted, confused. The world felt collapsed. Like an apocalypse. A feeling passing over me like someone close to me had died. That feeling of strangeness, of numbness. Things in my mind were in a disorder. It was a type of depression.

I have a disorder of the ego, or the self. I have worked that out now. There are a lot of emotional and mental issues that accompany my imbalances but I feel like my sense of self is the core, or root of the problem. Anxieties, depression, emotional episodes aside.

My sense of who I am is damaged. I don't know who this thing is in the mirror, that looks back at me. I know she succeeds, she achieves, she's intellectual, she paints and draws nice pictures. Those are just things she does. But what about the deepest self? The self away from all achievements, all "things", attachments in life. All I know, or feel, is that I hate that self inside. There are always feelings of hate. Feelings of worthlessness, anger. Huge insecurities.

Any compliments about me, maybe something about my personality, who I am, or simply the way I look - feel like a lie. Like an abstract comment, something I can't believe, or at the very least, can't see. Of course, no one probably knows that. I'll always smile, say thank you and respond in a pleasant way. But in times of total darkness, when my moods begin to take over me and patterns of thought and emotions cloud my rational mind like a disgusting veil, I have thoughts of damaging myself in terrible ways. Because of how awful I feel. Inside this body. As me.

I seem to rely on my ego, my achievements, the approval of others, as a kind of food, validation or supplement for this broken sense of self. What I do, makes me feel better about "who" I am. I'm looking for new ways to find peace away from the ego. I'm reaching out all the time, and working on it everyday.

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Recently I've had the privilege of being commissioned by a talented young Australian music composer residing in Brisbane. He asked me to paint a few portraits of his friends for Christmas, which has been a wonderful experience. I hope to collaborate with this young man in the future. You can view his website here. http://christopherhealey.net/

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This is also an approach I try to incorporate when I paint. In this case, I've used watercolour - an intense fury of colours applied in an unpredictable and expressive manner. Watercolour is a difficult medium to control, and I think it should be treated as such - its unpredictability should not be fought with, but rather used to it's highest potential. Splash that shit around!

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The past week has been quite busy, because we have been shifting our belongings from our flat, to the house out the front of our property, which will be our home for the next 6 - 12 months before we move down south, to Melbourne.

I have set up a new space in our living room for drawing and painting - which comes as a huge benefit, because before our living area in the flat was extremely small - our kitchen, study and living area shared the same space! So drawing and painting on a large scale in this space was difficult:

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Hi everyone!
So indeed it has been about a month since my last post, I apologise for the delay in my update, I've been really busy with Uni, general life plus other assorted randomness.

But there has been a number of things that have happened since I've last written in my blog:



1. I'm hosting my second solo exhibition this Friday, for my Honours research.
It's been a big learning curve for me, because I've had to do everything myself! For instance, I have designed all of the promotional material myself - the catalogue, posters & flyers. I've had to frame all the work myself, along with curating the space, marketing the exhibition and catering.
Six of my large framed original watercolours will be exhibited, along with two digital projections - one of an image, and one of a video, plus five monitors displaying digital work. If you're in Townsville next Friday, please come along to my exhibition - Colours of Eroticism, because even if you find the work boring (but, I promise you it's not), there's going to be lots of yummy food. So you can get your fingers dirty around the platter table:

2. I've updated my online shops with hand- painted book pages.
Book pages, you say? I actually find them wonderful surfaces to work on. Admittedly, you have to add less water when you're working in watercolour, because the pages are fragile and can easily ripple. But it makes for an interesting piece of original art, and you can't deny, a book page is a more interesting background than plain white. I have so many vintage book pages here entrusted to me by a friend, so please, by all means go & check it out! I'll be adding lots more.

Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/JasmineJMartin
Madeit: www.madeit.com.au/JasmineJean



My first entry involves a sketch of Grimes, an abstract up & coming singer that reminds me of Bjork. I like this woman, her look interests me. She's a real trend-setter. I prefer to draw from my imagination, and let my thoughts soar when I create art. Which is why everything ends up so unusual and abstract, I love it.


I ended up digitizing this sketch too. After I scanned it in, I painted over it using my Wacom Intuos 3 graphics tablet. Again, fancy colours.

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Last Friday I hosted my second solo exhibition, which was organised and carried out as part of my Honours research.

My research concerns erotic art of tropical North Queensland, and the colours that are used by North Queenslanders to reflect an aesthetic relevant to their working region. The basis of my Honours has been to construct a colour study by extracting colours by North Queensland artists, and incorporating it into my own work for trial.

The turn out was impressive (for me at least!) and it was so lovely and humbling to receive so many compliments and positive remarks about my exhibition, which I've worked hard towards this year.

The exhibition will run until the 2nd October, and is located in the eMerge Gallery at the School of Creative Arts at James Cook University, in Townsville, North Queensland.

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For the next few weeks (or months), I will be drawing a portrait of myself every day.

I'm weaning off my anti-depressants which I've been on for about four years. To accompany what I envisage to be a very difficult and emotionally rocky time, I've decided that I'll be doing drawing a portrait of myself, for
each day that I wean, and record my dosages, and my experiences. 

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Last Friday I hosted my second solo exhibition, which was organised and carried out as part of my Honours research.

My research concerns erotic art of tropical North Queensland, and the colours that are used by North Queenslanders to reflect an aesthetic relevant to their working region. The basis of my Honours has been to construct a colour study by extracting colours by North Queensland artists, and incorporating it into my own work for trial.

The turn out was impressive (for me at least!) and it was so lovely and humbling to receive so many compliments and positive remarks about my exhibition, which I've worked hard towards this year.

The exhibition will run until the 2nd October, and is located in the eMerge Gallery at the School of Creative Arts at James Cook University, in Townsville, North Queensland.

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Hi everyone!
So indeed it has been about a month since my last post, I apologise for the delay in my update, I've been really busy with Uni, general life plus other assorted randomness.

But there has been a number of things that have happened since I've last written in my blog:



1. I'm hosting my second solo exhibition this Friday, for my Honours research.
It's been a big learning curve for me, because I've had to do everything myself! For instance, I have designed all of the promotional material myself - the catalogue, posters & flyers. I've had to frame all the work myself, along with curating the space, marketing the exhibition and catering.
Six of my large framed original watercolours will be exhibited, along with two digital projections - one of an image, and one of a video, plus five monitors displaying digital work. If you're in Townsville next Friday, please come along to my exhibition - Colours of Eroticism, because even if you find the work boring (but, I promise you it's not), there's going to be lots of yummy food. So you can get your fingers dirty around the platter table:

2. I've updated my online shops with hand- painted book pages.
Book pages, you say? I actually find them wonderful surfaces to work on. Admittedly, you have to add less water when you're working in watercolour, because the pages are fragile and can easily ripple. But it makes for an interesting piece of original art, and you can't deny, a book page is a more interesting background than plain white. I have so many vintage book pages here entrusted to me by a friend, so please, by all means go & check it out! I'll be adding lots more.

Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/JasmineJMartin
Madeit: www.madeit.com.au/JasmineJean



My first entry involves a sketch of Grimes, an abstract up & coming singer that reminds me of Bjork. I like this woman, her look interests me. She's a real trend-setter. I prefer to draw from my imagination, and let my thoughts soar when I create art. Which is why everything ends up so unusual and abstract, I love it.


I ended up digitizing this sketch too. After I scanned it in, I painted over it using my Wacom Intuos 3 graphics tablet. Again, fancy colours.

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