…The meeting turned out to be a really enjoyable couple of hours in which the time flew by. At the end the curator said she had come to the meeting not knowing what she could offer me (and to be honest neither had I) but actually she would like to make a proposal. Would I allow her to mentor me? Not only that, but that she had a contact (who turned out to be curator B) who she felt she should also get on board to offer me a different angle of support. At this point I explained about RE:view, how I may be able to pay her for her time and how I had coincidentally left a message with curator B quite some time ago, asking whether she would like to be involved in a mentoring role.
We left with an agreement that she would contact curator B, that I would attempt to get the RE:view funding re-directed to support sessions with both of them, and that we would arrange some further dates to meet. I was then surprised to find, when I got home and looked at my e-mail , that during our meeting I had actually been contacted by curator B, who had apologised for the long delay, being abroad at the time, and who would be happy to offer some sessions of critical support with whatever payment I was able to contribute.
So in the end, by a rather wiggily and organic pathway, I have ended up with the three curators I wanted to engage with in the first place.
Unlike other recipients, I do not have a specific project to work through with these mentors, but rather I feel it will be a much more intuitive and organic process, leading me to where I’m not quite sure.
In one sense though, the process is already bearing fruit, as the first discussion I have had with curator A has reignited my enthusiasm for some quite ambitious projects that I had cast aside and have now taken the first steps to bring them alive again. This also coincided with a chance meeting with a much younger artist than me, discussing how difficult it was to take that first step with a project that took you right out of your comfort zone, but how important it was to get on and take it.
What all this has taught me, and what Re:view is revealing, is just how essential engagement with others is to constantly moving your work forward – that relationships need to be worked on and developed, and that of all the tools you can have as an artist, people are perhaps the most vital tool of all.
You can view ‘In my father’s house…’ at https://vimeo.com/66062510
