Today, I know what I am and where I’m going. I have a show ahead in Geneva. I love to make art – these are my certainties. A curator from Geneva, over for a funeral (long story) came to look at my work and liked it. We talked, talked about advice I’d had from all sources, about how I spent so much time tracking what other artists were up to (and I’m afraid that includes blogs).
Turn the computer off, she said, get into the studio and stay there, stop listening to everyone around you, do what you do best and I will exhibit your work in 2010.
And so I have, and she was right, the ideas are coming and I feel on track again. So I’m not going to spend a day travelling to the discussion on art and motherhood at the Whitechapel on Friday. I know it’s a hugely worthwhile event and Id love to be involved (although it’s timed to fall right over school pick up) but right now I need to work, and no amount of networking comes before that. As a mother of four I can explore till the cows come home how hard it is to balance time for the children and studio time but when it comes down to it time spent discussing could be time spent working. Don’t get me wrong I think it’s vital these discussions take place and I believe good will come of them but for me, right now, with four children, no family and husband rarely around, studio time has to take precedence.
Life is continuing in overdrive at the moment with one set of relatives being replaced by another and two funerals this week. Workwise I’ve been putting together samples for a commission working with children in Swindon hospital. I emailed the photos which went down well, went out for an hour and came back to find the dog had taken the 3D samples off the noticeboard in the kitchen and eaten them. Also putting together a hanging sculpture for the local school with all the wishes of the children leaving for ‘big’ school written on decorated ribbons. So my head’s all over the place – as usual.
I’ve been working on this one piece, bit by bit, sewing the ‘stains’ from duvets, edging them with the words from a romantic novel ‘The business of Loving’ found in a jumble sale, part of a set with the original subscription details of the women who ordered them still pressed in the pages. The piece, I think, will be called ‘Bed time stories’.
I find the process so frustrating. With carpel tunnel syndrome in my wrists (don’t work with wire), I can only do a bit at a time. Like a lot of my work, I have no idea how successful the finished piece will be until all the elements are finally put together, it may be that the materials are entirely experimental and I’m not sure how they will evolve. That’s quite a gamble with a lot of invested time. I’m so hoping this will do what I want it to do. I wonder how other artists cope when an idea requires many months of time invested and an uncertain outcome. I look at Gormleys plinth and think, ‘Why can’t I be that sort of artist?’
Anyone interested in starting a crit group or something simiar?
If you live in and around Salisbury, Winchester, Swindon, S’Hampton etc. and would value some critical support and interaction, or just some professional contact with other visual artists, let me know!
I am soooooo tired I am ceasing to make sense at the moment, life has escalated to running at 200MPH, relatives have decended in a constant stream, sports days, hospital appointments, workshops, planning meetings, village carnivals – I am so strongly drawn to running away! I try not to talk about the participatory projects I run but trust me, I run plenty and while I love the interaction and creativity, they are damned hard work.
But I have a plan – three spaces, three installations by the end of the summer. I just have to make them now. No more phaffing around with half made ideas (excuse the spelling), by the end of the summer I will have some images of finished work – either that or I’ll be found dead upside down in the laundry basket (to quote my good friend Clare).
Last Tuesday Salisbury Art Café called a meeting. I have to tred lightly now as to my amazement, I have discovered local people read this blog. Historically, they have been an occassionally discruntled bunch, attempting to consolidate some sort of creative progress in the strange Burmuda triangly (triangle would be right but I prefer the latter) that is Salisbury Art. We wrote a lot of post-it notes of how we wished it could be, then a lot more of how it should be, then had a little wine (both sorts) and went home to leave the post-it notes to be meshed and sieved into some form of plan. All good, I will await the new and improved plans with quiet anticipation.
In the meantime though, I don’t see a crit group on the horizon until I make some practical moves forward. In line with my husbands marketing advice, I will create a seperate post. Work wise, I am returning to creating butterflies from beef gelatine. Although they were exhibited before, the space they were originally made for was changed prior to exhibiting and I lost all control over their context. I am revisiting this work again with the intention of installing them in their rightful context at last.
Could anyone be so lost! I went to see the Bournemouth degree show today with the intention of driving on to Kube gallery in Poole after. All went OK until I tried to find the Kube gallery from the Art Institute. I couldn’t find my mobile this morning so thought I’d go without it – we all survived before mobiles didn’t we? I was, in retrospect,rather laid back about the petrol situation.
Anyway I got horribly lost in the centre of Bournemouth, petrol on empty, no garage in site, no mobile and no recollection of the way back. I remembered how I had turned my nose up recently at my husbands offer of a sat nav for my birthday, prefering (naively now) some romantic notion of the challenge of map reading. How wrong can you be. Anyway, gave up, found my way out, managed to survive to a petrol station while cursing my R&D proposal and wondering what the hell I was doing visiting galleries when I could be sitting in the garden at home.
Anyway, crisis over, aged ten years, I began to give the day some more thought. I didn’t like being in a college. There was nothing wrong with the show particularly but, in a moments rare clarity I realised – I don’t think I want to go back and do an MA. Not now. I looked at the controlled spaces and somehow the whole college process seemed quite inward looking. I like being a visual artist in the outside world. It is horribly tough at times, but it’s woven into day to day life – and somehow, slowly, that’s bearing fruit for me creatively. I overheard a student saying there had been six firsts and I realised – I don’t want to be marked, I want to get on with work, to engage in the turmoil of ideas out there that emerge from everyday life. Perhaps I’ll change my mind tomorrow but today where I am feels surprisingly right.
