LIVING WITH ART

"ONE IS NOT BORN A WOMAN 

ONE BECOMES A WOMAN "sIMON DE BEAUVOIR

'ONE IS NOT BORN A PAINTER ,

ARTIST / POET YES '";ANNE RUSSELL

 It Started In Childhood Dancing  by improvising

 dances to My Grandmothers Improvised And Inspired

 Piano-Playing. I Wrote And Illustrated My Own Poetry

 As A Little Girl, I Drew And Painted And As A Teenager,

 Became A Professional Performer Dancing, Acting

And Singing . I Have Been Dedicated To Expressing

 Feelings Which Have Become More Intense And

 Deeply Felt As I Have Grown older. whilst my world

became more mysterious ,complicated ,clumsy

and demanding .

By 1969 I Was A Successful “Scottish”Actress working

 with The Edinburgh  Traverse Theatre workshop Company

 ,an Experimental Group Improvising Daily As Part Of Our

Remit To develop The Work Of New Writers. When

I Was coerced By Lindsay Kemp To Join His Troupe In

1969. I Was A Successful Actress he needed me .It Was

 Because Of My Performance in the Traverse theatre company

of "Anne Jelicos'play "Sport of my mad mother"  Which Was Pure

 Butoh ,  A Mime And Expressed Overpowering Feeling.
My Time With The Troupe Ended In 1975 When

The Performance Of Oscar Wildes'"Salome" In Which

I Played The Title Role To Great Acclaim (At The Traverse Theatre)

 .The invitation to bring the show to londons west end

   Was Scupperred Lindsay Who Wanted To Play The

Role Himself which he eventally did a few years later.

 It Finished Me With The Theatre . I Became Very unwell

 At The Loss Of What I Felt To Be The Apex Of My Career .
After This Painful Experience ,I Lost My Self Esteem

 to support my son and myself A" Burlesque" Artiste Working

,Amongst Other Places, At The Windmill Theatre and Raymond review bar

.In London. In 1983 I Went To Art-College. I Graduated In 1986

Having Staggered Through An Intellectual Conceptual Bramble

 Patch. I Understood Nothing . More Than One Tutor Thought

 I Aught Not To Be There   they because they “had  nothing to

 teach me” And I Agree.

I Made Videos And Did Performance While There without any

Support Or  Understanding . Frankly, None Of The Tutors

Had A Clue Where I Was Coming From .What I wanted to learn

 was how to create my own work that is to say "the creative process"
After Graduating I Started Painting As The One And Only

 Thing I Had Learned Was That It Did Not Matter What  creative path

 I now chose and painting seemed managable .

To begin , I Went Straight To My Heart , To My Feelings As My Resource

As that was all   All I Had to go on .I had not had any "training  "or

 direction as to how to paint  .But I did understand that it was a

 process and that one began

 and  went on a journey of discovery. Having begun with feelings

I continued on my  road as a self taught painter. 

I Have Been Painting For 40  Years And Since Then Have Synthesized

A Love Of Colour Line And Form With The Wildness Of My Nature

 ,Love Of Exploration ,Improvisation , Poetry , The Wilderness ,

Flora And Fauna . Inspired By Textiles And Design Of All Forms that

 I am Surrounded By In Cosmopolitan Contemporary London ,

 I Paint Religiously Intuitively ,ingenuislyAnd Figuratively With Verve