It seems like a long time since I last wrote. Since then a whole heap of things have happened, on a very personal level. The thing about art though, it is so very personal, it's impossible, for me anyway, to extract one from the other. Hence the gap in communication. The things – right, well –
Within a fortnight I had left my four children for the aforesaid lavishly decadent four days in Marrakesh at my nieces wedding. As Jewish and Christian blessings were performed over the sound of the muslim call to prayer, a man with Buddhist leanings talked about the future of faith in a pluralist world. Within days I had left the luxury hotel and returned to the UK to pack and take the children to Butlins, Minehead to join 8000 others at the Christian conference, Spring Harvest (yes – I know I said that word – dont panic, I don't think anyone reads this anyway) to join some of the worlds greatest thinkers, talkers and theologians discussing, taking apart and looking at, social justice in an aching world.
Into the bargain, while this was going on, I was diagnosed with diabetes, which, added to my coeliac disease means all I can virtually eat for the rest of my days are leaves, Add on a husband whose having a mid life crisis on the career front and you can see I had a lot to process.
Back in the studio, I'm just about finished the hospital commission that has dragged on from last year – it has been so modified in order to adhere to the rigourous regulations avoiding vandalism, I'm not sure where I am in it. More time at last though, to concentrate on my ACE funded R&D.
On reflection, yesterdays post was a bit of a rant and not entirely helpful or informative to anyone so I shall try to redress that. Looking at the other contributing parents I quickly noted only one 'Dad' entry that I could see. It's a great read actually and refreshing amongst a heap of great 'Mummy' entries but I wont attempt to open that up now.
I am an entirely different person since my four children arrived and I'm happy about that. I took a step out of a very self obsessed world, always concerned with the next project or the following years exhibition, to find it was possible just to live, just to absorb life as it is.
After ten years though something stirred inside me. Plans to wait till they were all at school fell apart as my head filled with ideas and a drive to work just took over that I couldn't hold back. I struggled with the guilt of spending precious time furthering my own development but I was kidding myself that I could be anything other than what I am. And that's my conclusion. This is who I am and I shall try to be the best parent I can be within that.
I love sharing my work with my children. They comment on it, help make decisions, come to openings, are confident to enjoy their own making and creativity. I help teach and direct the art content in their local school which in turn affects many of the children in our village. It is my overall aim that they will all grow up feeling confident to walk into a gallery, to partake in an art event, to comment on and enjoy the work as a valid part of their life experience. And so far so good.
In writing this, I have been interupted countless times to break up fights, nurse sore knees, remove slippers from unruly puppies. And interwoven in all this is the ongoing development of my work, impossible to extract one from the other. Looking at the parent blogs together, there is clearly a substantial contribution evolving from this experience. It will be interesting to see it's affect in the work we see over the coming years.
How ironic is this? Andrew Bryant contacted me requesting I write about the struggle of mixing art and parenthood and I never got the email as I was in Marrakech, lying on a bed of rose petals, being scrubbed down, oiled and massaged, in a luxury Moroccan haman (spa) – completely child free!
Now, I know what you're thinking – but seriously, most of my life is spent at the Tesco check out or rummaging in the laundry basket for school uniforms while going through a thousand lists in my head. But this weekend my lovely niece was getting married in a lavishly decandent hotel in Morocco – and we could only afford for me to go!
But seriously, back to real life. At times trying to survive as a female artist with a large family is at the best, frustrating and at the worst, damn near impossible. I love my children to distraction – I need my art. The tension between both really wears me down. I can't be at the right openings, the London fairs – I do drag in friends to pick up from school, I pay more than I can afford in child care costs – and I get to a few. But I feel that I'm pushing a boulder uphill all the time. And then I get in the studio, for just an hour – and it feels right.
I will finish this research and development, I will exhibit this work, and then I will have to take a long, hard look at the future. But I am loathe to be beaten. I'm not ready for that yet.
Finally managed to get along to the Little Folly childrens' centre, a new organisation, really well used and full of families all day, in 'The Heath', an estate with a somewhat notorious reputation in Salisbury.
Passing police posters encouraging you to come forward with information and the 'non smacking zone' sign in the centre window, it was, for me, a refreshing departure from the comatose calm of our Wiltshire village. Lucky though we are to live in our own little version of Stepford, at times it makes us want to scream out for a bit of the rawness of the Northern streets we were so used to.
So in I went, set up my recording equipment and tried to explain what on earth my work was about and why I was there at all. During our discussion on night and their experiences as young mothers I gave them a basic felting workshop so that they could work with their children together while also getting something out of it themselves.
Initially, I had thought this a bit of a pointless excercise as I had got so much out of individual interviews where people were able to speak in privacy, that I thought a group discussion wouldn't be so incitful. I was wrong actually, and the small group of mothers were very open and intimate in the things they shared. In a way I could see a real contrast in the act of mulling over memories yourself and the act of sharing and laughing over them with others.
Oooh – two posts in one week!. The Salisbury Arts Trail got back to me very excited, they would love to include my installation, all I needed was to pay the £75 to be included and a £20 membership fee – hey, let me think about that – I don't think so000!
