something by cecil

my self awareness of how i struggle to express myself is growing. for example i wanted to share the below picture and when i went to look at it needed to crop to what you see because i didn’t want the room i took it in to be seen.

that might be seen as protecting privacy and yes it is that to some extent.

in working to understand the near stalemate in my practice progressing i see focus as an issue too – like sustaining a focus is a problem. i am more aware of why this is and as yet am to find a strategy to cope with it.

i still am attempting to resolve the disappointment of not be successful with a research degree application. this unresolved feeling is a problem for me.

there needs to be something done differently to alter the feelings associated with all the problems i seem to be creating for myself.

something i want to try is to let go of the thing i am making being perfect at the first attempt. its a really obvious thing to write but i need to write it to get the message through to me. in fact embracing doing that yields less than amazing is something i can do – to let me build on what is made to take steps to make better.

maybe to let go of the pressure to have something i focus upon. i can see the focus i have is on the lack of focus and how that leads me in some visual metaphor around multiple centres.

letting go of the feeling of worth – that what i make has no worth and i shouldn;t be doing it. i have become so isolated and alone that it is now the perfect time to wave arms and try stuff out, as no one particularly cares what i am saying. this is of particualr challenge for me as there is something that holds me back expressing my self. what ever i have said just now, i feel trapped by something i don’t understand. if its fear – its to do with others reactions and something to do with having to defend how i felt at the time of the idea becoming a work. i don;t know.

the main thing is to make some notes that i can come back to.

this might all be about the way i work now.

being open, there’s something about affirmation too. additionally something about wanting to make/create/express in ways that others notice what i’m doing. in being so reserved, i’m currently doing nothing to make this move forwards.

there’s also the intellectual integrity i aspire to have and hold myself back because i self edit even before i start to make the idea.

i see i’m holding on too tight. protecting something – is it protection though?

time to make/create for the joy of it, the fun of it, the experience of it, being in the flow of it.

• today was another version of the my friends house reduction print
• chose coloured card
• new scheme of work.
• approached as play with set place to get to. how does this work as play? try to keep in the moment with a process i am familiar with. attempt to not be serious about what i am doing. as the layers are added i become increasingly more unhappy and aware of future judgement from other people. makes me ask how did i come into the session today.
• i came into the session today with an open mind wanting to make the reduction print on the colour card i chose.
• i am on the fence as to how the process today is play. it certainly feels different to yesterday. the question to answer is what is different yesterday, can today still be play through considering it in another way.
• the other thing i am aware of is the need to feel celebrated. what i mean by this is as an antithetical position to my rsd, i want to receive praise for something well done. this is potentially in the shadow of part of my conditions that makes me overwhelmed by a lot of personal attention – something in the past i was in receipt of while in a masked condition.
• i think my ability to play is compromised by the perception of future interactions with what i make when i play. implies that what is made during play is an outcome of play not necessarily to be shared with an audience or on social media.
• an aspect of isolation appears again.
• …
• …
• …
• right at the very end, with the last colour – i made a discovery. the play aspects comes from the use of the left over ink. with the last colour i used up what remained on a separate sheet. a sheet where i had earlier run off one run of another colour and didn’t see the potential.  the amount of available work space ha been a factor of the slow realisation. its there though for next time.

thoughts race ahead to an exhibition…

• first time working with a gelli plate
• only had water based printing inks
• foraged some leaves from the garden
• assortment of paper.
• before began felt nervous
• during the process was in flow
• at lunch i felt disappointed in what i saw
• mid-afternoon worked into the prints some more
• at the end felt nervous.
• thoughts around images made through play having no historical references – the action of play being absolute in the moment. infers an isolation to what came before – art history.
• the actions were out of the ordinary, for the sake of using the gelli plate for the first time.
• no colour mixing
• small amount of space to work.
• need to research further the absolute moment nature of play with materials that newly combine into a state they stay within. as opposed to material that is arranged in the moment and subsequently taken apart.
• ideas of how images of the moment of arrangement being drawn into the combined state (future play)
• how to maintain the first time aspect when using again
• how to maintain the isolation from art history.
• try to understand through future sessions where the feeling of disappointment originated from.
• why the nerves?
• purity of the flow state – the absence of external influence and force.
• were any rules adopted – no the – the flow was holistic
• what could have been extended? more white paper.
• what was the main learning today? how ever the ink   landed on the paper, in time that paper potentially was another print.
• for me the play today was solitary. how might that be maintained while with other people?
• a prompt was used to generate a draft proposal.
• everything today was abstract, no trying to represent something already in existence – the play not having a end point defined at the start. the play was free.

a humbling weekend, a realisation of just how on the edge i was mentally. to have gotten through that has left me smaller and more real.

two years of attempting a research degree application has helped me to realise i was doing what i thought i needed to to. now i feel calmer. calmer because i’m not trying to fuel a construct i thought that i need to create – the difference being i now know about my neurodivergence. time to give my self sometime, relax about my identity because apart from those i come into contact with, no one else particularity cares about it.

if i am going to try one last time for a research degree, it needs to be wholeheartedly what i want to do. i need to let go of the fear of it not being good enough, i need to left go of the inner monologue telling me no one will care about what you are interested in. it needs to reflect where i am at the moment. a late diagnosed neurodivergent individual with an art practice what has had some success – works being funded or featuring in a museum’s permanent collection but there being no easily recognisable thread through all the works. an interest in adulthood play but paradoxically reluctance to really immerse self in this for fear of rejection – a part of the neurodivergence, now better understood.

int he past i have not understood the strength in a work i make being similar to something already made – often i would totally reject an idea because it felt like something similar had already been made and shown enough for me to have known about it.

i can see how my actions were actions of self isolation – that i had no idea i was doing to my self.

now with the isolation project trickling along i have more space for self. no longer putting energy into sustaining the construct i thought i needed as an identity.

a lesson in not caring what others think.

i feel good at the moment. i am working on believing that when i take stock again of how i feel it will still be good.

notes for an emerging research project in no particular order

• fine art basis
• intersecting
  • well being
  • psychology
  • late diagnosis neurodivergence
  • play theory
  • reuse ethos
  • play making/ play working
• extending the permission for adults research
• the work around sutton smith’s work
• practice based/led
• access to cultural partners through my facilitation and art practice
• fine art practice approach
  • experimental film
  • performance
  • socially engaged
• research methodology
  • heuristic
  • building a community of play “engineers”
• what are the questions?
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
• what is the
  • title?
• why anyone will care about this research
  • the evolutionary aspect of the human brain – to play
  • a fit within adult well being practice
  • building awareness of mental health management through play
  • to explore the stigma connected to play in adulthood
  • because its fun and engaging
• what the research aiming to do
  • define a theoretical framework (a dynamic boundary) in which to practice.
  • arrive at an ethos of  resource use
  • language that is inviting, inclusive, neurodivergent aware, understandable and contemporary
• how the research going to reach the aim