Nicola Dale’s Brushes

“Whenever I tell people I’m an artist, they usually reply: “What do you paint?” and I feel a rising sense of confusion as I respond, “Oh, I don’t paint at all…”

(That’s not to say I don’t like painting. A successful painting is always magical: how amazing it is that this gloopy, sticky, unruly stuff transforms into image, idea, feeling. At school, I imagined that if I became an artist, I would surely be a painter?! At that time, painting and drawing were all I really knew. But that’s not how things turned out. As I moved into higher education, I realised very quickly that I was not a painter at all. My skills lie elsewhere.)

“…I work in the crevice between sculpture and performance.” Another way of saying this is: I’m interested in how people, objects and actions come together. In recent years, I’ve been making works for the body – sculptures that can be entered into, picked up and/or worn. Sometimes those objects are for me, sometimes they’re for other people.

I still use the skills honed through drawing and painting: my sculptures often resemble drawings in space and I sometimes veer into the world of colour; but it’s rare that I need a brush. In thinking about the tools I do and don’t use, I keep coming back to brushes. What would brushes for an artist like me look like? What if my brushes’ hair had grown long after years of neglect? What if, instead of being used to produce art, they became art – sculptures in their own right?  

I am extremely grateful to Rosemary for being so generous with her skills and time in order to make these imagined brushes real. They are strangely beautiful and I can’t wait to share them.”

– Nicola

“Over the past 40 years, I have made brushes in possibly every shape and using every natural hair and synthetic fibre imaginable.

Then Nicola came along!  This was probably one of the most complicated missions I have faced, but not mission impossible.

I enjoy a challenge and therefore accepted Nicola’s idea and set to work. I’m thrilled Nicola likes them and they are what she imagined.

Oh ! and No! We won’t be adding these to our catalogue, folks.”

– Rosemary

Find Nicola’s projects and website here.

These brushes were made especially by Rosemary. Please note we cannot accept any more special requests at this time!