This blog is a reflective account of a year of research and development funded by Arts Council England, Yorkshire. The funding enabled me to redress the balance between having a family and being an artist.
You just don’t even want to know how much moaning I’m doing lately. Bad back, migraine, tonsilitus, car won’t work, schools shut, snow…
I’ve started work on my final report to ACE. It’s satisfying to list all the positive developments over the last year or so. It’s in keeping with my general state of mind – reappraising and evaluating everything. Maybe I’m looking for ways to get out of a rut.
I feel like I want to go under the radar for a while, follow my whim without so much analysis and public documentation. I feel like there’s some burden of expectation – and while I know the only pressure comes from myself, I still feel like it would be nice to remain private for a while til I get myself back together. A fallow period perhaps.
Maybe the blog is dwindling to an end for now. It’s been great for helping me shape my thoughts, evaluate my progress, promote myself. It also causes me stress when I think about all the posts I never wrote.
But is it the right tool to use in a phase of soul-searching? Surely that would be boring to read, like someone tells you their dreams. The danger would be that I would go all out to make it entertaining, and in that act lose some authenticity of the process. In some ways I feel that happening already – I’ve somehow created a character for my blog, and now I’ve lost energy for keeping the story going.
There again, I’d be nervous of ‘losing touch’ if I stop – blogging makes me feel part of a community.
So- that’s me – indecisive as ever.
I’ve had a couple of requests for a New York blog post, so I’ll give it a bash, although it feels like a tricky task. I just don’t know which version of the tale to tell. In some respects it was a story of two halves, because for the first 3 days I had my splendid artist friend Rachel Welford with me. So the APT NY talk was great because she helped set out chairs and let latecomers in the (locked) main entrance, the Chelsea gallery visits went well because she can read a map, the preview went well because I could keep having a networking-breather and hang out with her, and everything else went well because we talked about everything and shared the odd glass of something.
But hidden below all this was a residual monster, waiting to get a bit of space to loom up and take residence. It kept tripping me up and scheming to undermine my achievements. Have you guessed it yet? That well known enemy of the artist – anxiety and self doubt – which kept me in a mental loop about whether or not I was doing it (NY) right, or well enough.
Maybe the major influencing factor was the extremely distressed and anguished younger daughter who sobbed for a whole day before I left and most of the time I was away, leaving me in a cloud of guilt and worry? Maybe I was so exhausted and jetlagged that I could have been in Filey for all I could take anything in? Maybe etc. Believe you me I’ve followed this line of thought to the point of no return.
I think I started my solo flight quite well – in my best dress with a glass of champagne in MOMA. Shortly followed by a bout of high velocity nervous diarhoea!
Despite this I still managed to get to PS1 (‘Robert Bergman, Selected Portraits’ penetrated my self obsessed rambling), Brooklyn Museum (loved ‘Reflections on the Electric Mirror:New Feminist Video’), Macy’s store (like being in a big machine and being spat out on a different street wondering what happened – aborted my shopping mission very quickly and took refuge in another encounter with the subway map – aaagh).
I totally failed to get to Williamsburg galleries, which I got very worked up about, and recorded lots of sniffling rambling monologues on my iphone thinking it might provide material for a piece of work about dysgeographica. Believe me – I’ve listened to it at home and it should never see the light of day.
Oh and did I mention that I drank some of the worst ‘tea’ (often not worth the name) I’ve ever experienced. Ask for tea and you get a cup of water and a tea bag on a plate. To say it’s the ‘capital of the world’ they need to get that one sorted.
It was a great adventure, and now I want a rest, and time to assess the new terrain.
ps. in complete contradiction to what I’ve just written (of course – everything is always uncertain, even when I feel quite definite)..
if you want a copy of the artist book send me your address – I’ll send one free of charge courtesy of ACE Research and Development funding
