Back to uni today- assessment presentations. But not for me I was observing and then doing my utmost to get some money for food.
First off was a year 2 part time student (me this time next year) researching skin. I wasn’t tuned in to be honest until the work was unveiled. Delicate drawings in pencil and watercolour of bellies and armpits. Edible, delicious and then the display in the dark with just a spotlight – intimate and dramatic.
Full-time was next- so much text and folders and explaination about explainations and filing and organising and then a film that made us cringe then paintings without a hint of ability in the use of the medium and finally the climax a digital print that said everything- I wish they had have just shown us that we had been let sit there for 30minutes taking it in. Would it have been as awesome without the lengthy and tedious stroll around the mind?
And so on it went inspiring and difficult, awesome and awkward.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung
Then to the Job Centre. After 2 hours of explainations and proving and promising and signing I found that I was entitled to nothing. So the rest of the day has been spent looking for meanial, unskilled, minumum wage part time employment. I need a break – please world give me a chance and I can show you what I am capable of and it will blow your mind and mine.
Cleared out the storage room but didn’t like it in the end. Art’s hard!
Spent most of today looking for jobs and ways to create some kind of income. Even resorted to selling drawings on ebay.
There’s a few interesting art opportunities I in the midst of applying for. If I could get even one of those I’d be laughing.
No idea how I will pay my course fees, going to job center on Tuesday to sign on hopefully.
Yesterday’s productivity obviously took it out of me. I didn’t wake up til 1 today and that’s only because I was called for lunch.
I was planning to empty that room to install work and photograph but instead I just lay around and finished the book on workplace bullying at art colleges.
Hoping tomorrow is a better day.
A struggle to begin with but eventually I pulled myself into a reasonably vertical position in order to face the day.
My tutor was off sick but was kind enough to set me up with Sharon. I wondered about not bothering. What was the point and now I was running late I’d have to explain myself so someone who was doing there best to fill in in Lisa’s absence.
I made the bus and the tutorial. Sharon wasn’t insulted by the fact I was half an hour late, or if she was she didn’t show it. In reaction to my work she was pretty positive and suggested i move on to installing it is a relevant space or creating a relevant space to install it.
I saw Shiro in the library. I didn’t chat, he’s full time and they have to hand in their work from phase one next week. I wrote a bit, chose some images, tackled the photocopier then left for my studio.
There was much to be jolly about at the studio all were in high spirits and the flow of artists continued until there were five of us discussing a week of performances possibly branching out to the local pub.
When the high jinks settled I went off o my space to tidy again. Steve had some music on so I took some photographs of the Von Bochs. I wanted to use up the roll so I can get it developed and see what I have. It’s expensive but very fun.
When I snapped a whole roll of 36 and made a 1 minute film on the Flip Steve peeped out from behind his canvas. ‘You’re more high art aren’t you? I’m happy being low art, then I don’t have to explain myself.’
This induced a lengthy conversation about whether it was important to ‘get it’ and whether justifying your work meant justifying yourself and was that right? Is it right to have to justify yourself to the world? Is it just a kind of narcissism? Isn’t all art narcissistic in some way? Am I not doing it for me? To be more than a passing grain of sand to exist beyond just my body to widen my mind and then is it me or the world that requires me to share this?
what would you do?
