Well, back to the routine of term time and my head was distinctly knocked back into reality when I attempted some experimental life drawing excercises with 31year six school children. Moving desks to new places, getting children to pose, covering them with masking tape etc, – generally anything outside the norm – is enough to send them sky high with excitment. Add to that that I had no helper and had to change over for another thirty (paint covered desks and paper to be cleared up) at break neck speed and a large mid week emergency G&T was called for when I got home.
Today I have had a wonderfully, quiet day in the studio. Slow going at the moment as I’m waiting for coats to dry between each little change in the work. The piece photographed here, like another I’m working on, has evolved over a year of taking it out of it’s wrapping, spending time with it on the walls, adding or taking away aspects, then putting it in storage for another while only to re-emerge again. I quite like that slow, periodic development but it’s hard to stand back and see the work with fresh eyes.
Monday I got together with Laurence to talk through ideas to put on a show ourselves in Salisbury. Over the last few months I have been pushing doors and exploring possibilities, looking for a suitable space. One wonderful space, a listed ballroom in the centre of a derelict mental health hospital has alas proved inpenetrable and it looks like I’m not the only one (along with other artists, conservationists and ghost hunters) to have tried.
I’ve had more luck though with the council who, if it all goes ahead, have a large and newly refurbished space potentially to offer. With a meeting booked soon, it could prove promising.
Struggling, struggling, struggling with work at the moment. On the one hand, I’ve had some really great moments this summer. I opened the door one day and it hit me that my studio was actually beginning to look like it did when I was exhibiting prior to family. This is hard to explain but I mean it had the same level of chaos, material and mess that I find really stimulating to work in.
This hasn’t happened in years and is down to the fact that I had regular long hours before the children were awake to spend alone there. And something just happened as a result. I keep writing and rewriting this as it’s so hard to put the significance to me down in words. This environment evolved oganically around me both as result of the opportunity for unbroken work while also feeding into the situation to create it. Does that make sense? It felt like the me that I’d lost, it felt like a signiture way of working specific to me, it was a mess that I recognised, the same mess I needed to create.
The down side of course is that partly I can’t sustain that atmosphere with so many other committments and partly that work is absorbing me and with four other lives to manage I can’t afford to get swallowed up by it. I’m not sure if this makes me a happy person, I suspect it is just tearing me apart. At times I think for my own health and the well being of my family I should get as far away from art as I can. Perhaps I will one day – but not yet, and I wouldn’t have a clue how to go about it, without a visit to Stepford for the op.
Anyway, back to working in schools etc this week, so somehow I’ve got to knock my head back into reality. I’ve got a meeting with an artist friend tomorrow to see the Winchester MA show and progress on ideas for curating a show in an empty space here in Salisbury. Hopefully that will help.
