Writing the visual

A principal question I continue to address in my research is an examination of the cross-over between my two practices: the visual and the written word. I am interested in making connections between writing and the visual, through essays on the work of other artists, and my own fiction and memoir. In both my fiction and my academic work, I describe process and the feminine; how women use strategies of intimacy to make their work; how the domestic and creative cross-over, and sometimes collide, undermine one another. As a practitioner, I can enter the space of the artist/put myself into the position of maker, rather than taking a drier, academic viewpoint of the historian or academic. My writing has also helped me to re-examine the value of painting practice itself. The unspoken quality of a work – the way it can embody an idea, and exist in the present. There is a lovely piece of writing by Helen Cixous, ‘The Last Painting’, where she says: ‘I would like to write like a painter. I would like to write like painting…what I can tell you a painter would show you.’ Outputs so far which go under this heading: Short story for Untitled Books. http://untitledbooks.com/fiction/short-stories/bourgeois-by-mikey-cuddihy/ Lost in Leytonstone – a short story on Paula Kane’s landscape paintings, for her book, Studio Wall. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/2133/ http://www.cornerhouse.org/bookstore/product/paula-kane University of Brighton, Painting degree show essay, 2011. My memoir, which is written as a novel, in the first person present. Leading to that, I submitted a piece to the Observer, which was published in 2011. Observer article/ Memoir extract: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/aug/21/mikey-cuddihy-artist-joan-baez-guitar-lessons In June 2012, I signed with literary agent Jemima Hunt at the Writer’s Practice. I have recently accepted a publishing deal with Margaret Stead at Atlantic Books, who plan to publish my memoir in 2014. www.thewriterspractice.com/authors-2