Another silent interlude. I’ve a post saved, half-written, about art fairs & gallerists, but it doesn’t seem relevant any more (& I’m sure that any readers will guess my views on the matter!). I’ve been battling bad luck at every turn, from financial difficulties to muscle injuries and mysterious, pervasive illness (I had some blood tests today which should make things more clear). In the face of all this, and the gusting wind & rain that’s been battering my corner of the country, I’ve been spending my time thinking, knitting, reading and writing, and coming (slowly) to certain realisations. A conversation with my philosophy-student friend M. on Wednesday cemented things further – it seems that he & I are working with very similar ideas at the moment, & it was great to share our thoughts & talk about them. I’m yet to work out if I have a philosophic approach to art-making or an artistic approach to philosophising! (I suspect it depends on when you ask me.)
So, progress has been made.
Progress has been made in other ways, too. I’m certainly feeling less angry & defensive than I did earlier in the year; but at the same time, I’m more and more certain about what I do and do not wish to associate myself with or be involved in. I’ve always been a very principled person, for better or for worse (and usually for worse), and though many of my old convictions & certainties have mellowed or disappeared as I’ve moved further through my 20s, many have endured. I suppose I can sum my attitude up quite simply by saying that I think the most important thing is to act with integrity, always. I haven’t managed it as often as I’d like of late, but I’m going to try my best to make sure I do so from now on. This includes not applying for projects that perpetuate a method of “doing” art with which I fundamentally disagree; not getting hung up on earnings as a mark of success; cutting down on endless comparisons & paralysing self-doubt because I work differently to others; and, most importantly, not getting drawn into some of the ugly interpersonal stuff I’ve observed.
It’s a sad consequence of the ubiquity of social networks that many interactions that would previously have been hidden from view are now intensely public. And so you get to see the ugly side of networking, where people publicly fawn over others about whom they’ve spoken quite disparagingly in private. Can I be the only person who witnesses all of this and wonders what’s being said about me when I am not there? Sometimes it takes distance, solitude & reflection to identify a pattern. But, of course, one can’t change other people; what I can do (what I will do) is change the way I behave. So: no more getting drawn into conversations that disparage others (they always make me feel so wretched afterwards); and definitely no more sharing of my own frustrations with people who participate in the above. From here on in, all of my energy is going into positivity, growth, joy. (I’ll be 28 in a few weeks; we’ll call it a new year’s resolution!)
Tonight I’ll be bundling up in woollen things & going to see the big firework display just around the corner in Sefton Park. What could be better?
