Loved By You Art . Design . Fashion . Handmade

As part of the Tate Modern's 10th anniversary celebrations the gallery will be hosting No Soul for Sale, a festival of consisting of 70 artist collectives, non-profits and independent art spaces.

One of the organisations taking part is the Museum of Everything whose below request for submissions I stumbled across recently whilst hanging about on Twitter:

"Are you a marginal or self-taught artist? Do people call your work strange, amateurish, obsessive, even ugly? Have you received a calling to depict new worlds? Or inherited a book of hand-drawn doodlings? Or are you simply an artist with a disability, whose creativity has yet to be discovered?

If this sounds like you, or someone you know, we exhort you to submit a work on paper or modest canvas to Exhibition #2 to be held on May 14th, 15th and 16th 2010 at London's Tate Modern".

As far as I know nobody has ever called my work ugly or strange although I admit that sewing over 1,000 buttons to a canvas could very well be considered obsessive. I do however have a disability which is probably the reason behind me taking up art again in the first place. Since I have been unable to work I have spent my time painting, crafting and trying to learn the skills to enable me to create what I can see in my head.

I've scoured books on photoshop and fashion illustration, found out how to create interesting paint effects with black bags (from a guy on youtube who sprays cars for a living) I've learnt the hard way that there are rules for painting with oils for a reason and that you can ruin a huge amount of brushes by leaving them covered in acrylic paint while you nip off to make a cuppa.

It hasn't been the easiest of tasks, anyone who suffers with my condition, Chiari Malformation*, will know that even the slightest physical exertion, including painting, can leave you unable to move for days (not to mention the inevitable arm numbness, eye problems and general feeling of being a space cadet who's had a head on collision with a small meteorite) but for some reason I still do it. I guess that's where the obsessiveness comes in, I know it's likely to make me ill but I carry on regardless.

So, bright and early tomorrow morning I'm heading off on the 5 hour trip to London to present my portfolio to the Museum of Everything's panel. Hopefully by the end of the day I will be able to say that I might not have a clue what I'm doing but I've 'exhibited at the Tate Modern'.