Threads

“Can the unsettling feelings of rootlessness be conveyed through the subversion of traditional observational drawings?”

I asked this question earlier this year, and it’s written on a bit of paper pinned to my studio wall.

Alongside the phrase “Assembled Utterances”

This blog post popped up when I was looking at my website stats – always interesting to check out and re-read what other people are reading… I’ve often found it provides a useful reminder…

https://elenathomas.co.uk/2024/03/19/exhibition-and-other-words-beginning-with-ex/?_gl=1*1sho0nb*_gcl_au*OTc2OTc4NjUxLjE3MzMwMDU1MjA.

This feels timely… as I am about to embark on a course using Tim Ingold’s Lines as a guiding text. I’m reading that again, or at least dipping in and out to particular relevant chapters, also Correspondences… both of these hold ideas that are helping me to contextualise the different and often seemingly disparate aspects of my practice.

I already feel a winding down happening, and I do feel I need a break. But I have a plan of action in mind for the new year. A need to “stock up” with input to work from. A trip to the School of Art library with my alumni ticket, and a trip to the Lapworth museum of geology with my sketch book.

My brain needs feeding. So I need to observe and document, read and consider…

I need to make some observed utterances before I can assemble them, and I need to assemble them before I can understand what’s going on. I often feel if I just DO the thing in front of me, draw, write, gather information, then gradually things become clearer.

The gathering of things around me adds to the feelings of rootlessness. Until there is a weight of material… to sift through, find connections and lines between, I find a correspondence between what I see and draw and hear and write…

It’s almost like nest building?

Then there’s a settling, things start to make sense again…. A cycle…

Over the last few days I have recognised that I am at another one of those points on the mountain where I can take a seat, look at the view and reassess where I am and where I go next.

You’d think this was obvious, but sometimes it’s not.

It is in preparing for the course in January that has caused this pause and recognition of this stage. I expect that working through from January to July I will figure some more stuff out, but for now I am making notes of my thoughts.

https://www.singingapplepress.com/workshops

I’m doing new work, and I am asking questions about it:

Is the work about pushing the metaphor and exploring the semiotics?

Or is it about the materiality?

Can it be both?

Do I need to tell the viewer about any of it?

Are the thoughts valid, even if they remain in my own head?

They are probably best for now in my own head, because they are not particularly clear.

Historically my work has been representational: This stands for that… I am now wondering which way to go, because at the moment either that is not going deep enough, or maybe it’s too much and I need to concentrate for a while on the materials. I have a very broad practice, and I can sometimes flit about between different aspects and materials. But for the first time in a while I feel I need to set up camp in a particular place and concentrate on one particular thing.

The stones have been uppermost in my thoughts, because basically I don’t know what they are for. I don’t really know what they stand for. When I think about the sticks, they only became significant once I had worked with them A LOT. So this is what I am going to do with the stones. I need to follow the lines and learn about them. I have plans.

I believe the LINES are important. The lines that I make, yes. But also the lines that are drawn between works that I make, have made. I can see the time line form from fifteen years ago… assisted by the Full Circle retrospective at The Weeks Gallery in Jamestown New York… to the current work. 

https://elenathomas.co.uk/archive/full-circle-a-retrospective/ 

It’s a strong line, in my head at least. It branches off, returns, branches off again… but the path is there. It has led me to the stones. There’s been a paring back, a stripping out, and now I feel I need to study the elemental. The rock… beneath our feet, beneath the soil, from which the trees grow, and discard their twigs…for me to pick up… there are lines there to be followed.

I will always, I think, think in metaphors. But sometimes in order to find the right ones, I need to immerse myself in the real world first.

Sometimes I find it hard to let go of old ways of thinking. I have done it in the past, because my work now does look different to how it did a few years ago, I am able to move on, it’s just that sometimes it’s difficult to let go of the comforting things, where you feel secure, and where you feel you know what you are doing. 

But… in order to make progress you do have to let things go, take risks, follow up on the interesting things.

I find it hard especially to let go of work that has taken a long time to make. That value is all entangled with time and effort. But it’s not is it?

Also… trains of thought… and opinions… you have something in your sights, a target, an ambition. And you’re really pleased to get there, but then discover it isn’t quite what you thought. Do you continue along that path or do you cut your losses and step back, even if it has taken years to get there? Should I be swayed by the opinions of others?

I really feel I am at the point where I need to reassess my focus. 

Which things are too much like hard work for no return?

Which things are hard work but worth it?

Which things just feel like natural progressions to be followed up on?

Am I spreading myself too thin?

Am I stretching the metaphors so much they need to be broken so I can get on with making?

Is materiality enough?

What do I want to be making?

Who do I want to work with? …and perhaps more importantly who DON’T I want to work with?

One of the things that is troubling me at the moment is the selecting of work to be hung in the ground floor gallery at RBSA in February. It is, for all intents and purposes, a retail space rather than a gallery space. All work hung here has to be for sale. It would be nice to raise some money, but I’m really struggling trying to decide what work goes up. I don’t want to spend a fortune framing or making work just to sell, I have plenty of work, but no idea what to pick, or how to display it in this environment. 

In my post on October 9th I wrote about editing my life because of my health. Then my last post talked about organisation and time management. In fact, as I look back there have been several posts about this sort of thing. Yes, the work, but also in the way I go about it, and the “admin” of it. It has come initially out of a desire to streamline things so my energy is used in the right place, with the focus on the work.

So I find myself now, on the cusp of December, feeling that things are in order. I now have a pre-op appointment for my knee, hopefully followed closely by the knee replacement operation itself. Possibly in February or March. This has focussed the mind somewhat!

I have an exhibition space booked in the ground floor gallery at RBSA from the last week in February to the first week in April. I’m hoping that I can get an op date after the hanging, and before the take down. I can send in friends and family to do the take down if necessary, but I need to hang it myself.

I’ve also booked in to do an online course with writer Camilla Nelson, called Towards an Experimental Ecology of Line. My friend and fellow artist Helen Garbett is also doing it. I’m thinking that because it is online, and I have a friend by my side, I can do it while I recuperate, and if I have to miss anything, she will be able to fill in the gaps for me. I’m really excited reading the course outline. I think it will definitely have an effect on the work I am making, and plan to make.

So for the first time in many years, I go towards the end of the year feeling positive, and looking forward. This is often a grim time of year, for many people for many reasons. I’m looking forward very much to 2025!

Luxury, and/or Necessity?

In the early hours of this morning I listened to this…

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.mixcloud.com/BrumRadio/the-glass-age-feat-chris-cleverley-051124-w-dan-whitehouse/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3ApYIqJ4v4fbjYeoAkZXWLKMDnJWopnka199Qt8vE7u67hC3GKuNciVAg_aem_I4fr_LaM12SoL31pLObqCQ&h=AT1_s8esn_FarpKaSBAajM184LJGvu8bW7vxDR1FNUPQr9770ogjNmB4FqH8CIFymMtYMZmkgcGc3dsx7w-uT-2fFPzIsuGfwU_aSS_aN2uYp3yACfepsi1XWplBCIVyApCFXwI&__tn__=-UK-R

It is a regular show on Brum Radio by my friend Dan Whitehouse, and in this episode he interviews another songwriting friend, Chris Cleverley.

I’m a big fan of Chris, he has his feet steeped in quite traditional folk music, but over the years I have known him his songs have become more contemporary, and more “him”. We also have quite a lot of favourite music in common, which always helps! It’s an interesting process I think. It’s a thing that happens to visual artists too. It takes a while to soak up enough “stuff” and do enough of it to then be able to use what you know to produce something unique.

The show is worth a listen, as in addition to the songs, there is a good discussion on the nature of songwriting, and how it happens, and how you push the process along sometimes, and how sometimes you let it sit awhile. Again, much like the visual art process.

Dan quotes Bob Dylan…’It is the first line that gives the inspiration and then it’s like riding a bull. Either you just stick with it, or you don’t.’

This really struck me… because that is what I do. A good first line is key. If it grabs me, and draws me in, gives me somewhere to go, is an intriguing set-up… then it’s worth pursuing. Occasionally in the edit, or the music writing, that first line might not end up being the first thing you hear, but it will be there, somewhere prominent.

In my note book there are many “first lines” that have remained as that, just one or two lines, sat there just waiting for the rest to follow. But sometimes, the rest just flows out thick and fast!*

Chris also talked about the routine of his days. This is something I’ve not been very good at in the past. When I worked for other people my routine was theirs. But since being freelance, I haven’t been very good at this. I am trying to change. Chris talked about the daily routine of getting the “admin” of life out of the way first so that he could then concentrate on his day: writing, playing his guitar, and looking after his voice. He sounds very disciplined.

I can’t really do a daily routine like that, but I am trying to establish a weekly rhythm to my artist life, by changing how I frame things.

I do this thing, if I’m not careful, that when I am in the studio, I think about the things I should have done at home, and then when I am at home I am always thinking of the things I want to do in the studio. It’s bonkers to always wish I was somewhere else, or feel guilty about it.

But Art is not a luxury, Art is a necessity. It is important, and I have to use the majority of my time with Art… or perish.

A suggestion from a friend has changed that completely! So now, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I “prepare for being in the studio”. This entails batch cooking, housework, laundry, shopping… whatever is required to set me up for the week. Then on Thursday to Sunday when I am in the studio, I know there’s nothing to be done at home, or if there is, it can wait till Monday! This is such a simple change to my internal script, but after three weeks, it has been revolutionary! Why didn’t I think of it sooner? Thanks Kate!

*Some of my first lines:

BUTTONS:
He knew where all her buttons were
And used them at his will

UNDERTAKER BEES
I learned today about undertaker bees
And a kindness dressed up as cruel

EIGHTY SEVEN
She counted every one every day
Eighty seven steps to the top floor