It is a sheer privilege to sit with a group of artists around a table, with a fabulous curator (Kitty Anderson of The Common Guild, Glasgow), and talk. Not only talk, but ask questions, those simple but sometimes allusive questions that we never really get the chance to ask, or indeed, even know how to ask. Its hard being an artist…lets be honest, we constantly bang our heads against doors, we write things because we think we should write them, we blunder around trying to navigate the vast complexities of the art world, its twists and turns, whilst trying to keep our heads above water. It is hard enough to actually make the artwork itself, let alone the rest of it.
This is now my second day at StudioBook, I have learnt so much already, part of me wants to shout…”pause”….so I can put into action already what I have learnt….the other part of me hungers for more. But mostly I just want to shout….THANK YOU….this is brilliant….THANK YOU.
The facilitation and quality of the speakers, the care that Mark Devereux Projects has put into StudioBook…is quite frankly, excellent. I’m on a high….because so many doors have been opened inside my head, I know there is absolutely loads of work on my side still to do, but I can see a clearer path how to get there now.
I am not going to even to try and attempt to write some of the things I have learnt, but just going to finish this blog entry with a few sentences; some I had completely forgotten and some I needed reminding of, and some I did not know at all.
It’s ok just to be an artist, why box yourself in with a subtitle?
Its ok to write how you speak….why construct something that bares no relation to yourself, it’s your artwork after all!
It’s ok to say no, that’s not the way I work.
Did you know its ok to be you?
