Elizabeth Barnett is a painter and printmaker living in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, where the landscape, seasons, family life and the everyday objects around her all find their way into her creative practice.
This is part of the Interviews with Creatives series, a curated library of conversations from the Creative Momentum with Meg podcast.
What stayed with me after talking with Elizabeth was how little separation there is between her creative life and the rest of her life. Her studio is in her home, her paintings respond to the landscape around her, and creativity finds its way into the gaps in family life. She draws at the soccer field, reads while putting the children to bed and knits when she needs to step away from a painting but still wants to keep looking.
Her creative practice is also much broader than painting. She has kept journals since she was fourteen, writes, reads, knits and has recently started writing a novel. She talks about recognising that she is a multidisciplinary artist rather than needing to define herself by one form.
There is a lovely thread of seasons running through the conversation too. Elizabeth notices the landscape changing around her, and those changes find their way into her work. At the same time, she knows that family life has its own seasons. Just when you think you’ve found a routine, something changes.
The Bridge Letters, her correspondence with artist Stacey McCall, are another expression of this slower, more expansive approach to creative life: two artists making space to talk about their work, their lives and the realities of making art.
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Prefer to listen? This conversation first appeared on Creative Momentum with Meg. Listen below or continue reading the full transcript.
For Elizabeth, creativity doesn’t seem to require perfect conditions. She keeps finding her way back to it, in different forms and at different times.
When I ask her what feels like home for her creative work, her answer brings the whole conversation together:
‘My creative work is home.’
In this conversation, Elizabeth talks about painting and printmaking, motherhood, the Macedon Ranges, journals, writing, knitting, music, the Bridge Letters and the everyday practices that help her keep making.
In this interview we explore
- Protecting creative time when you’re also parenting
- How seasons and the landscape influence Elizabeth’s paintings
- The Bridge Letters with Stacey McCall
- Journalling, drawing and allowing ideas to develop
- Rediscovering writing and beginning a novel
- Why knitting has become part of Elizabeth’s creative process
- Finding your way back to the studio when creative life gets disrupted
Read the full conversation below, or listen to the episode above.
Conversation with Elizabeth Barnett, Artist
EB: My name’s Elizabeth Barnett and I’m predominantly a painter and printmaker living in the Macedon Ranges in Victoria, on Wurundjeri Country. This is my studio that we’re chatting in today, and it’s in my home. I mainly do still life paintings with collected objects, branches and flowers from the garden. We live on a small acreage, so there’s lots to choose from, which is very nice.
MD: Are you working on your art every day? Is this your full-time kind of career?
EB: Yes, I am, when I’m not parenting.
Creative Routine
MD: What does your routine for your creative work look like?
EB: My routine is dropping the kids off at school and kinder, and then I often go to the gym or go for a walk. I like to raise my heart rate in the mornings. I think that gets the creative juices flowing. Then I come back to the studio and do some drawing in my journal or some writing, and then I start working more on canvas paintings or watercolours.
I try to turn my mind off to all the house chores. There’s always washing to do and stuff.
I’m pretty disciplined. I feel like my time is quite precious between drop-off and pick-up, so I try to say, ‘Okay, we’re not doing any cleaning now. That is later in the day,’ and I really focus on my work. It’s been sort of disjointed lately. I find that life kind of creeps into this time, and I really have to fend off all the appointments and try to carve out that time for myself.
MD: Has it been hard to establish that routine?
EB: It is hard. It’s a constant juggle, but I feel like I’ve been doing it. It’s what I know. Even before having children, I’m very disciplined, so being in the studio is really important for my soul. Making work and thinking about work, looking at other artists’ work, reading and writing are all very important parts of my life.
I think I built my family life around my work.
I’ve only really found in the last couple of years, as the kids get older and they’ve got more extracurricular activities, that it’s really impinging on my creative time. But you always find ways, don’t you?
Drawing in the car while I’m sitting at the soccer field, or reading while I’m putting the kids to bed. Always finding new ways.
MD: And it’s like with the whole parenting thing, as soon as we think we understand what the routine of the days are, it changes.
EB: It’s such a seasonal thing. I thought, ‘Yep, I’ve got this down,’ and then someone gets sick or I get sick and the plan goes out the window. So you really have to be quite flexible. I do get quite frustrated and always complain about it, but I have to remember that these things come in ebbs and flows. Having friends who have slightly older children is a lovely way to think, ‘Okay, so this is not forever. This is just a phase.’
The Bridge Letters
MD: I want the listeners to also know that you have this beautiful relationship with Stacey McCall and that you have something called the Bridge Letters.
EB: The Bridge Letters.
MD: Do you want to just talk to that? Because I think there is this beautiful connection with having an older…
EB: Stacey was someone I was thinking of when you mentioned thinking of people who have kids that are older. Stacey’s kids have finished school and mine are sort of starting and in the middle of school.
Anyway, back to the Bridge Letters. We started this blog where we write a letter to each other once a month. It’s really just talking about our lives and studio practice. We have lots of photos of our work and what’s happening, and talk about things we’re reading, challenges we’re coming up with or shows we’re preparing for. It was really just an idea to almost open the doors of the studio to our audience, to show them the process of making work.
I used to blog way back when blogging was the thing to do, and I really miss doing that, but I didn’t have the drive to do it on my own again. It feels nicer to have a conversation with someone about art. I’ve always been a letter writer and I love reading letters, and I still write lots of letters to friends.
Stacey and I have had a long history of chatting about our work, and we’re like, why don’t we just formalise this in a kind of blog sort of way? And almost as a reaction to that short-form media that we are so used to now, I wanted something that people could sit down with a cup of tea and read, really get their teeth into and come back to. I think as an artist it’s really validating when you read about someone else’s experience and recognise your own in it. It’s really tough to be a mother and a painter and you’re always juggling the different things, especially routines.
MD: Thank you for sharing that. I do love the Bridge Letters.
Creative Process
MD: Tell me a little bit about your process, so when you’re going from the start of an idea to the finished painting.
EB: Going back to the Bridge, it’s this idea that we make a body of work and there’s a bridge. It’s often a painting that you make at the end of a body of work that almost becomes the bridge to the next body. There’s often one that’s slightly different to the rest of the work you’ve made, and that becomes the starting point for the next. I often have one painting that I don’t maybe even include in a show, that I hold back, and that becomes a point from which I start a new body of work. It might not even be a painting. It might be a drawing or a weaving. I’ll make drawings and studies in my journal. I always have one of these little journals. I don’t even know the brand, but I buy lots of them and always the same.
I’ve actually covered this one with my own linen cover because the covers sort of fall off them. It’s a Daycraft journal, and they just have really nice, creamy white paper inside. It’s A5, I believe. I use a black pen or a pencil in it and I just draw tiny little drawings. Then I have a sketchbook where I will work up drawings or watercolours, extending on the little tiny drawings that I make.
I do a lot of writing, so I’m often reading and I’ll write quotes or passages that really caught my attention, and it all feeds in together. While I’m marinating ideas, I’ll be writing down little phrases that come to me. A word might become a title of a painting. Or I’ll be listening to an album of music. I often listen to music in the studio and there might be a lyric. Sometimes I’ll name paintings after song lyrics or an album name.
I have a couple of friends who are musicians, so I’ve used their music in the studio as almost a soundtrack to a body of work. There’s a lot of consumption of outside sources and then there’s a lot of making that happens. I have quite a long hallway in our house and I’ll line up all the paintings and kind of edit out paintings as I go when I’m working on a show. Depending on the timeframe I have, things get moved around and sometimes I’ll even paint over paintings if they’re not working with others or hold them back.
MD: Are you always listening to music while you’re painting?
EB: Listening to music or podcasts or audiobooks. I pretty much can’t work with nothing, which sounds crazy. Very occasionally I’ll turn the music off and just listen to the birds outside, but I really love music in my studio.
Creative Inspiration
MD: Where do you draw your inspiration from?
EB: Because we live out in the Macedon Ranges and I really love nature and walking, often the landscape around us is very inspiring. And then there are objects that I collect from op shops or things that I’ve had for a long time. I sort of bring them together on a table. Sometimes I think about putting them together, but other times I just throw them on a table and see what happens. The kids will come and move things around.
I also really love setting things up. We’ll have grown pumpkins and they’re all on our kitchen table at the moment, so I’ll arrange some lemons with them and then the kids might throw some of their toys in. They’re not thinking about that, but I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I like the colours of this with that,’ and then I’ll take that into the studio or make drawings while I’m in the kitchen. There are lots of different elements that come into the work. Sorry, I can’t really give you a straight answer because it really depends on the seasons. It depends what’s growing outside.
At the moment it’s winter and there are really dead grasses, and the wattles are actually starting, which is really nice. I feel like my eyes start doing that beautiful, hurting-with-the-yellow thing, so then I start bringing that colour into the work. I think you can really see that in my work. When it’s winter the works are quite moody and dark, as you can tell, with more muted colours, and in summer they get quite saturated. I’ve got this beautiful south-facing window in the studio, which keeps quite an even light, which helps for the daylight because I can’t really work with an unnatural light source.
MD: Do you choose that room specifically because of the lighting that it provides for your art?
EB: It’s like our second living room. The kids’ room and they walk through here to get to their rooms, so it’s sort of a bit of a thoroughfare, but it was the only large space in our home. I started off in a corner and I’ve basically extended out into the whole room. Eventually I’d love to build a purpose-built studio, but that’s down the track.
MD: I love your mention of the wattles. We drove home from Bendigo a couple of weeks ago and I was noticing all of the wattle everywhere. It’s that awakening. I recalled a writer who’d come to one of my retreats talking about how it’s there to awaken us from winter. It’s that wake-up call from nature.
EB: That’s right. It’s time to start waking up. And the Indigenous seasons, there is… I can’t remember the name of the season, but it literally means the wattle starts. So whatever the season is now, we’re at that start.
MD: And it’s that kind of promise of spring and all the glory that spring brings with it.
EB: I also associate it with the ducks. The ducks go and sit up in the gum trees and they’re mating. Because we’ve lived here for 10 years now, I can tell what’s about to happen and you can sort of feel it in the air.
MD: So that’s pretty exciting, to know a place that well. And so your work is inspired by what’s happening around you. If you were to look at your artwork, would you be able to go, ‘I was definitely painting those in winter. They were spring. They were summer’?
EB: I can tell. Totally.
Creative Wisdom
MD: If you were chatting with someone who is either in the early stages of picking up a paintbrush, pencil or pen, or if they were a little bit stuck or at a transition, what wisdom would you want to share with them from your years of making art?
EB: That’s a really good question. My journal is really important, so having that practice of writing every day. Not even thinking about what you’re writing, just writing something.
The same with drawing: just put marks on paper.
I think sometimes, especially when I’m teaching painting classes, people get, ‘Oh, I don’t know how to start,’ or ‘I don’t know what to do,’ and it’s like, just don’t even think about it. Just put marks down. It doesn’t even have to be the thing. You could just be listening to a piece of music or something and let your mind wander. I love that exercise of drawing without even looking at the paper and looking at your subject. Doing a few little drawing exercises that you can find easily online, I find that’s a really good way to start.
But for me it’s writing, I reckon.
Even writing a letter to a friend, because sometimes people even get funny about writing, ‘Dear diary, I started my day like this,’ but when you’re having a conversation with someone, I don’t know, it sort of makes it easier.
MD: It’s almost like the Julia Cameron Artist’s Way.
EB: Totally. I’ve actually never done that, but I hear it’s great. I know all about it.
MD: Well, you’re already doing it.
EB: I was thinking about it, actually. I pulled out all my journals this morning for another project and they’re all in boxes, and I’ve realised I’ve been writing a journal since I was 14. Not every day, but nearly every day. There’s a lot there. Just doing it is pretty cool.
MD: Do you like writing?
EB: I love it.
MD: Is it something that you would consider doing alongside the artwork?
EB: Yes. I think I mentioned to you recently that I’ve started writing a novel, which is why I pulled out all the journals. I used to write a lot of stories when I was a teenager into my early 20s, and I don’t know why it fell away. I think I lost confidence with it and thought, ‘No, I’m not a writer. I’m an artist. I’m a painter.’
I think you get very much funnelled into a way of doing things, and definitely listening to your podcasts helped, but I’m realising that I’m a multidisciplinary artist. I love reading so much, and I feel like I have this story in my head which I sort of started to put down.
It’s been an exercise in being kind to my younger self, because I was quite hard on myself as a 20-something and quite anxious and nervous of the world. It’s like saying, ‘Hey, you’re 40 now and you got through it.’
So it’s been really fun.
I’ve been listening to a few of your podcasts and, because I’m not a ‘writer’, I thought, ‘Do people go to bed and they can’t sleep and you’ve got your characters and you’ve got this scene?’ And I’m like, yes, this is the thing people do.
I can’t stop thinking about these two characters that I’ve been writing about, and I want to go back through some of my journals from art school because my characters are set in sort of art school days, so I’m going to go back through and see what I thought.
MD: I love that so much, and also the fact that so many creatives I talk with aren’t just doing one thing.
EB: Well, as you know, I’m also a knitter, so the textiles are part of my process as well. Sometimes if I can’t get started I’ll just be knitting and looking. For me, it’s almost like searing an image onto my eyes. I’ll sit and knit because I can knit without looking at it, thankfully, but I can look at what I’m painting. I’ve got my setup in front of me, so I’ll be looking at that from different angles and then I’ll come back to my canvas and start mapping that out with paint.
MD: Which is so interesting, because I will also step away and just sit and have a knit for a bit and allow the idea grown.
EB: I think there’s something in that left-right brain that happens with knitting that’s really important. It’s the same motion as walking, so there’s that sort of movement that happens in your brain and it’s really important for creative flow, apparently.
MD: I wonder, maybe someone out there who’s listening might know if there’s ever been a paper done on that. I think there has been. I’m sure I read this.
EB: I’m pretty sure there has been, and if not, then it should be.
MD: Also, how many creative people are knitting as well? I know the more I mention it, the more I meet. It’s amazing, and it is such a beautiful way to spend time.
EB: It’s very calming, unless the project’s very frustrating, and then it’s not.
MD: But you do get to a point and that’s part of it too. That’s right, it’s okay to frog it.
EB: I love that. Having a knitting pattern, it’s almost like a bit crunchy for the brain. You’re like, ‘Okay, I just need to get over this hurdle of this lace pattern or cable or whatever.’ I find that really helps with thinking out paintings or even writing stuff as well.
MD: My latest project is coming up with a tartan pattern for a vest and it is breaking my brain.
EB: That’s amazing.
MD: But it’s like brain gymnastics.
EB: I love that, and I’m sure that’s good for your brain for writing. It has to be.
MD: I’m having to solve a big problem with my writing at the moment and I think it’s showing me that I can solve a problem. It is kind of one stitch at a time, so it is one word, one sentence at a time.
EB: And I can find that with the painting lately too. I sometimes look at a painting and go, ‘This is going nowhere and I don’t love it,’ and then you put them all together and you’re like, ‘Oh, actually, they’re not that bad.’
MD: It’s like stepping back.
EB: And it’s also that thing of adding a row. Even if it’s one row every day, that’s still 365 rows by the end of the year. Same with painting, same with writing. Just dedicating that time to it.
Filling the Creative Cup
MD: What do you do to fill up your cup, your creative cup?
EB: Going for a walk definitely, or a run, or going to the gym. I think exercise for me gets those creative juices flowing. Knitting, definitely.
Sometimes just walking away from the studio and doing something completely different, like playing with the kids or playing doll’s house.
There are so many things I could mention. Gardening as well. Reading a book. I always have a few books on the go, so just finding a new book to read.
Home for Creativity
MD: Tell me what feels like home for you and your creative work.
EB: I’ve been thinking about this question because I knew you would ask me. Home for me has many layers to it. I feel home for me is definitely my family. Wherever they are is home.
But for myself, I think the studio or my journal is home. My creative work is home.
If I’m not making, I get really agitated, and my family say, ‘Get in the studio. You’re not very fun to be around. Go do some painting.’ And I always just feel so much better afterwards.
So that feels like home. Or even looking at other artists’ work. A favourite is Bonnard, so I’ll get out a book of his work and it feels like coming home.
Connect with Elizabeth
- Elizabeth Barnett: www.elizabethbarnett.com
- Instagram: @elizabethbarnett
- The Bridge Letters Creative Practice blog by Elizabeth Barnett and Stacey McCall: www.thebridgeletters.com.au
- Flinders Lane Gallery: https://flg.com.au/pages/artists/elizabeth-barnett
- Youtube video about her practice
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