It seems ironic to me that over the past few weeks, I feel like I’ve had everything and yet nothing to say. It’s been three weeks since I posted here, at which point I wrote about tying black gags around the mouths of assorted ceramic figurines. The figurines were all female – innocent and child-like in their appearances – pretty, essentially – to be ‘seen but not heard.’
I had a vague sense of what it meant when I was carrying out the physical act of tying on the gags – ie. in response to the stop domestic violence posters I’d seen in the local area in the lead up to Christmas – but it’s taken time to understand the full significance of why I did what I did.
Retrospectively, I realise that so much of what I wrote about gagging and keeping quiet was symbolic of the way I’d been feeling; the physical act of literally shutting up the figurines was a strong personal statement and is a classic example of how much my emotional life impacts on what I make. Through quite literally shutting the mouths of the figurines and keeping them quiet, I was acting out a desire to stay quiet myself, albeit unconsciously at the time.
That’s the crux of it for me, really – it’s a recurring theme when writing this blog – what to say, versus what not to; what’s important and what isn’t. Certainly, there have been times when, through keeping one eye on the ball of what’s happening in the big wide world out there, I’ve felt that what I have to say just pales into insignificance – and I’ve always been conscious of not wanting to navel gaze, to engage in ‘excessive introspection, self-absorption, or concentration on a single issue.‘ Reminding myself of the recent UK floods, what’s happening in Ukraine at this very moment in time for example, is all part of my desire to keep an eye on the bigger picture, to ultimately keep a perspective on real life, as a practising artist.
Every so often, things seem to stand still and a nagging inner voice forces me to take stock of things, to check in with how I’m really feeling – the life/work/family balance and how to sustain being an artist, in every sense of the word. I haven’t felt particularly inspired in the studio recently, but I’m learning through experience to anticipate these rather barren periods, to accept them and to manage them as effectively as possible – hanging on in there, keeping the faith and so on.
There’s no doubt that it’s infinitely easier to write here when work is being made, focusing more on the process rather than writing about vague, abstract ideas around it.
But creativity, I’m learning, can’t just be turned on like a tap – there are peaks and troughs in even the most successful creative practices. But the mantra ‘just do it’ is one I always seem to return to and do my best to act on – because, however uninspired I might feel, however inadequate, bored, uncertain – it’s the doing it, making the work – that’s important. Back to the studio then, I suppose – fired up at least, with a new idea to experiment and play with.
