In a camping barn in Cumbria, with my partner and kids, and a group of mates: one couple with a baby (she’s an artist, he’s a graphic designer) and one single parent mother (an artist) with 5 year old daughter:
All three artists have taken a collection of bags boxes and laptops with the intention of ‘doing some arty’ stuff on holiday. The bags of sketchbooks, boxes of research books and laptops remained untouched all week.
Toward the end of the week we laugh about our persistently foolhardy ambitions that we would do any art. Kath observes that ‘normal people don’t have this extra thing in their life to worry about. They have jobs and they have homelife to manage, but they don’t have a third thing to feel guilty and stressed about. They probably have hobbies. Artists don’t have time for hobbies.’
I think she summed it up beautifully. Whenever I temporarily get so caught up in living that I forget to approach life with a detached artists eye, I really enjoy myself – and there’s time to get everything done, it all works easily! This only works in the short term though.
I eventually get fed up – everything is tainted by a sense that ‘there must be more to life than this’. Making art gives me energy, makes sense of everything and gives life a purpose. hmmm – sounds a bit like a religion – never saw it that way before..
So – making art detaches me from the everyday, and it deepens my experience of life. Must remember that the next time I wonder why the hell I’m up at 3am doing an art project that I’ve initiated and then grown to dread.
I’ve added an image I made ages ago – when my children were very small I sometimes tried to record all my activity over a few hours – to help me understand what I actually did all day long. This is an undeveloped but interesting project that I return to occasionally.
If you start a conversation about housework with your life-partner with the words ‘This is a non-confrontational question…’ does that immediately establish a confrontational standpoint. Advice please.
got this in my email – hurrah!
Hello Rachel
Your work has been selected by Katy Deepwell (feminist art critic and Reader in Contemporary Art, Theory and Criticism at University of the Arts, London and editor of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal (www.ktpress.co.uk) for the latest Curated Selection on Axis: ‘Feminist Art practices: rewind, remix and pump up volume!’. To view, please use the link below:
http://www.axisweb.org/atSelection.aspx?AID=2372
I’ve just had a great conversation with Martina Mullaney, an artist who is organising a discussion on Friday:
Enemies of Good Art
Whitechapel Art Gallery – Friday 17th July 14.30
“there is no more somber enemy of good art than the pram in the hall”. Cyril Connolly, Enemies of Promise, 1938
An incidental highlight of the conversation was the discovery that like me, she is also sporting one shaved and one hairy leg this summer – I think it’s due to lack of time, not a post-feminist statement! We could have it as a secret dress code for membership of APT!
Is it important to try to avoid being labelled or pigeon holed as an artist, or is it impossible to control? If I use the words ‘feminist’ or ‘textile’ or ‘domestic’ am I alienating part of my audience, who might otherwise enjoy the work? Is this thought in itself a prejudiced attitude? If I show work in stately homes does it undermine the possibility of showing in serious galleries? Is any of this even worth thinking about?
meanwhile I keep taking photo’s of washing on lines – I particularly like bedsheets. I’ve got some good pics of red bed sheets on my phone but bluetooth won’t work so I can’t show you.
