Talking with Cara Ayers in venue 1
Rochford Life: Cara, we’ve met before. You were at the Pre-
Cara: That’s right. The ones in Ellis’s are oil paintings
RL: And your bio in the window in South Street says that you have taught but now have your own studio and are painting full time? Is that right?
Cara: It is. I didn’t want to go back into teaching and so I have set up my studio in Canewdon and am trying to just put as much work together as I can, and get it seen in exhibitions. I have just sold one in Wales in a museum there.
RL: These paintings here in the Pavilion are very different to those in Ellis’s window. How would you describe these?
Cara: These are all hand painted lino prints, so basically I cut the lino, totally, so I don’t keep printing over and over, I cut it totally for the design, totally cut like a woodcut, I print it and then I paint each section in individually with inks.
RL: It must take an incredible amount of time to cut out each of these?
Cara: It does. They take me about thirty hours to cut. The printing is the quick bit and then I have to hand paint in all the colour work. I take the print, a black and white print with all the gaps where I have cut out, and paint in all the colours with inks, so that is why there is such a variation of colour on each one. For the complete picture it’s probably about fifty hours of work, but I do enjoy it. It’s actually something I learnt when teaching children at school because we didn’t have time to do traditional lino cuts with print cut and then print cut, and so this was a way I managed to get them to experience lino without doing it traditionally.
RL: But you also do oil paintings as well, as we see in Ellis’s. What’s the balance between the two?
Cara: I try and balance them out and do both. This comes more naturally to me in a way, because of the design side, because I studied in graphics and illustration at Southend Art School. I tend to find it easier in a way because it is design and that’s my past. With the oil painting I am almost self-
RL: It’s a question I always ask, but how long have you been painting?
Cara: I’ve always done painting. Even when I was doing teaching I did my own work at home but obviously not as much has I do now. Now I am practicing every day and I work in my studio from about nine in the morning until about five-
RL: Well Cara, thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure to talk to you and learn about how these amazing works of art come into being. Thank you again.
Below are two of Cara’s paintings from Venue 4
Contact e-
As the the Rochford Art Trail gets under way we we dropped in on Venue 1, the Pavilion of the Rochford Hotel good to pick up on one or two of the artists displaying there. The first was visual painter Cara Ayers
