Feeling mildly unhinged recently. By that I mean most of the time I invest a lot of energy in keeping myself on the tracks as it were, focused, working, applying and generally moving forward hopefully. Every now and then though I turn around to look at the view and somehow derail myself.
The children are off school.
Recently I read a post on Facebook by Artlyst featuring a woman artist discussing how she managed a career in art with a young child ( despite trawling back through older posts I can’t find the name of the artist), the trials and tribulations and how she has surmounted these. Great, that’s definitely great, but I would so love to hear from the women artists with big families. It’s just a different ballgame altogether – with more balls as it were. Perhaps I’m just being unrealistic, perhaps I just need to put on my pinny, settle down to the ironing and realise it’s just a step too far. If someone would just tell that to my head that keeps pouring out ideas and to the knot in my stomach which disappears when I lose track of time in the studio. Get this, I was due to pick my daughter up from a sleepover at 10.15 yesterday. I was late. Why? I sat down to tie my shoelaces, noticed there was a pen and paper on the table beside me and decided to start writing a novel. What sort of crazy, freaky person (and somewhat hopeless parent) am I. What made me think that starting a novel when I had to leave in 5 min time was a good idea? ( I must point out here I’ve never written a novel before but have started more than a few), and yes, with all the inevitability that this situation held, I forgot about the time and ended up late.
A few years ago, when I decided to return to making work, I went to my first exhibition opening. I was late, nervous and alone. I got horribly lost in the new Forest and eventually found a little group huddled around a table of wine, in a gap in the trees just next to the shoreline. Nearby in the woods was a large site-specific sculpture which was the focus of the gathering. Frazzled by my loan adventure navigating my way pre-satnav, I took some wine and struck up a conversation with the artist. I genuinely loved the work and we talked for some time. We found out we both had large families, she had five, and I told her I was just returning to to exhibiting. She was really supportive and assured me that she had managed to get back to work quite successfully. That was, I now know, Phyllida Barlow, a hugely successful sculptor and her words at the time and her generosity at sharing her experience has stuck with me. She remains the only other artist I have met, myself, with a large family.
Anyway, time today to rally round, get my act together and get back in the studio.
