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.
