I don’t know if I’m quite ready to do the end of year review… but in preparation I have glanced through my year of blogging to get a feel for the year. There are the obvious Covid-19 related things, but not as much as I thought there would be, and it’s mostly related to how it has affected the work.
I have only started doing this review thing in recent years. I never felt the need for it, or saw the value of it. I have started to though. I hate New Year celebrations, but I think it is good to take a period of time, an anniversary, and look back, in order to move forward. So why not in the winter, when the days are short and we are biologically inclined to be inward-looking and a little melancholy? We prepare ourselves for the drawing out of days in January, and for signs of life and growth. So I give in!
What I noticed when skimming through was that my constant themes are still there. For which I am glad… because I had wondered with such a massive shift of materials and method, whether they would fall away in some way. And also, given the global pandemic, that forbids touch, how can I make work about touch? And yet I have. I think… to me… some of the work is closer, more intimate… more intense… precisely because we are physically absent…
The music I am making, the words I am writing… the work is feeling close and intense and tight… like there may be an explosion… a climax even? (steady on!)
I can feel my breathing in this…
To come back down to earth, to touch the soil, the water and the trees for a moment, this has been made possible through funding from ACE. The strain and determination of 2019 and the first 8 months of 2020, the closing down, the restrictions, I now feel free. Whatever the restriction politically, physically, socially, emotionally… I feel totally free to think and work and breathe. The touch I feel with my skin might be missing, or less, but I feel it in so many other ways. The communication through art is bigger than ever these days. I feel so connected to some of the people I live and work with. I feel privilege and honour and without getting in any way religious (because I’m not) I do feel somewhat blessed.
Thank you to all those I have touched, and have been touched by.
Cause and Effect.
(That probably was my end of year review, now I read it back)
