Welcome to the blog!

Hello! The person in the photo above struggling to hold a giant wrench that's grappling an equally giant spider. That's me.

I suppose it was inevitable really...that I'd end up involved with an organization called 'SAW'. Pretty ironic I think. After all I had spent the last two years of my degree drawing, painting, printing and collecting the things. Saws, that is. Well, not just saws but the whole box of tools to put it more correctly. My interest and fascination with them became quite obsessive which is just as well because it got me my degree. I studied a BA in Fine Art at Somerset College graduating last year and have been left to venture into the 'big world' of the arts outside ever since.

A few murals, some sketchbooks (and maybe a drink or two) later and I find myself here setting up and posting what is to be the first of many blogs on this, titled 'SAW blog' (I hope you like the name, I know its not entirely original but it keeps it straight to the point). I don't know if sitting in a modestly sized office in the small town of Langport was exactly what I pictured when I originally 'ventured into the artworld outside' but it is one of the many things I have come to learn and experience and is why I write this blog today.

To clarify, I am twenty-three years old and I have lived in Somerset my entire life. I am now in the presently discovering what it is like to be an artist in Somerset, perhaps more specifically, an emerging artist in Somerset. In my practice I enjoy taking the ordinary (in my case tools most of the time) and trying to make it extraordinary. I aim to represent and re-present the ordinary and make it more dynamic and interesting exploring different means of achieving this through painting, drawing, printmaking and collage (see images in this blog of my work). Since leaving the academic setting I have thrived in for the considerable majority of my life I have had to make new networks of people involved in the arts, apply for commissions, develop my portfolio and many more skills needed to become a more professional artist. This is an ongoing process and one that I thought might be useful to other artists.

Hence this blog! It aims to be a source of information, events, debates, opinions and happenings within the artworld in Somerset. I hope you'll find it useful or entertaining and as a different way to interact and 'get involved' with SAW and see examples of how Somerset through its art and artists also relates to current contemporary practice in the arts as a whole.

If you have any ideas for blogs, if you want to write a blog, if you have any news, images please let me know. You can contact me on press@somersetartworks.org.uk or comment on any of the posts directly on here.

So stay tuned for more posts coming to you from me, Natalie Parsley your new blogger in residence for Somerset Art Works.