I’m writing this on the train. Life seems to have got so busy I haven’t written the blog for a while and its now a year and a month since I started my artist’s residency in motherhood. I haven’t really stuck to my plan to write once a week, but its been in the back of my mind a lot of the time and I’ve continued to work on several ideas through the year. Its been lovely to work on these ideas with no sense of a deadline or predictable outcome.
Recently we’ve got really into painting and I have been keeping every piece of paper with the plan of doing something with the painted pieces. Its been really fun and liberating as I haven’t painted since I was at school, where I lost all joy in it. I took Abie for his first trip to the art shop to buy materials and he chose some chunky brushes.
One of the nice things I have felt during this residency has been the fact that being with a 1 or 2 year old slows you down. This is counter-intuitive in our highly productive, highly mediated society but it has allowed me to look at things in closer detail and appreciate the mundane.
I’ve been photographing lost toys for over a year and I’ve now started to put these on instagram (so yes, I am getting into the mediated world) as a way of archiving the photos. I’ve also been drawing the leftovers of the day in our house, and taking pictures of swings in different parts of the country. I’m not sure yet where all this will lead but it feels like the beginnings of a longer project which will emerge in its own time. One thing I’ve thought about is the geographies of play which you become so aware of with a small child – which spaces in the city are open and available to play, how visible or hidden they are etc.
I get the sense that this residency isn’t going to be of a short duration, and instead will extend over the years as my son grows and changes and the activities we do together also change. So I think I will keep the blog going sporadically.
