I've been spending a while trying to really get it straight in my head what is at the core of my practice. There's loads of things I'm interested in (in fact I find it quite difficult to edit things down) but I'm trying to really gets to grips with how all these strands are connected, and why I'm interested in them.
As I think I've already explained, I don't think thoughts tend to follow a linear narrative (mine certainly don't), so instead of trying to elaborate here on all these different aspects, I've photographed my most recent mapping of these ideas. I could read it when I just checked the image on my screen, so hopefully should be okay online.
I've been considering starting this blog for quite a while now – technically it would probably have made more sense when I was working towards my recent solo show at Fold Gallery, or perhaps when I first started my MA course. However, I've been having a little difficulty with the concept of it – what 'project' am I doing? What would people be interested in reading about (assuming that this is one of the reasons I'm writing it)? How honest can you be in a piece of informal text when you don't know who's reading it?
I've been having a few conversations with other artists recently, and have basically come to the conclusion that I'm interested in how they go about making work, where their ideas come from, how they develop, so I figured that other people would probably be intersted in this too. And so the blog has started.
A note on the title: I find writing artists' statements incredibly difficult. How do you formalise a series of ideas which are connected, but not in a linear form? I write things down with arrows connecting all the various strands, often ending up writing upside down on the page, to get everything in. The only time I feel that I can really explain what it is I'm doing is in a conversation with someone. And usually that takes quite a while, and I often need my notes. I've tried writing a statement as a conversation, but the act of trying to write it made it self-concious and a bit false. So basically, I'm seeing this as a way of getting those conversations I'm having with myself out of my notebooks and into an arena where they might help other people have a clearer idea of what I'm doing. And my doing that, I'll be getting my thoughts more organised, and that will therefore help me.
