yes – i feel lost at the moment.
music on and back into the post.
i have to admit that since completing the museum project i’ve been catching up with the whole pandemic effect thing. i miss contact with others, i miss doing those little things that fuel the soul.
i’m waiting to here back from both an application to an ma and a residency opportunity and this waiting is causing tension and fatigue. i feel lost in what i’m practicing at the moment.
there is part of me that does wonder if i should simply stop trying the practice of art and go and do something else. however, i then stop myself and step back. in july there’s going to be a blog post published about the installation in the museum of making and my connection with the community in york sees me potentially visiting them in july.
the feeling of disconnection is the overwhelming feeling. how i cope / deal with it is what is proving to be the problem.
retail therapy might be one way out of it – available funds are low so this is a very limited option.
researching a process – going deeper is an option. i have a small mirrorless camera that i’ve joined the community of hackers of it to shot raw video. this leads me in to a workflow to research and become familiar with.
what to create about – that is as yet to be defined. the overall feeling of fatigue and disconnect underpinning a malaise that is difficult to get beyond.
at the back of my mind is an awareness that i might well go backwards rather than forward. the ma would be an active way to explore the going forward. what i might have to face up to is an ability ceiling that i thought i can move.
this is in someway me facing my disability – neurodiverseness and trying to find a sustainable way to make a living.
for now – i make a note of it with a suspicion that not much is actually going to change for me as this is what i am. yet again i come back to identity and that clip of tracey emin and “all undergraduate work is about identity”. it haunts me in such a way that i can’t actually say why it gets to me so much.
maybe i don’t know who i am. maybe i know who i am not. how might this come into the world ? what is identity anyway ? what is it that i am experiencing ?
there’s glimmers there of questions. there might be follow up visual ideas.
if i view my situation differently – i’m not lost – i don’t yet know in which direction to start moving forward from where i currently am. this does feel accurate, honest and true.
maybe if i can find the strength to be brave, i can follow my honest self – rather than to follow the money. this is so challenging at so many levels.
one thing i have learnt is that it’s what you’ve done, what you can show/share that others are more likely to trust, than merely you saying you can do something. makes me think of risk.
within play the risk is built in – is it though ? what do i mean ?
with play the risk is the outcome, it’s not defined – it is arrived at through the process.
i recognise in myself how i play a lot and get a lot out of that – more so than the final outcomes. i have so much that i look at locally and think how awful it is. i do have an internal desire to have outcomes that others look at and exclaim – whatever their exclamation is at that time. and i do have those works.
writing these words generates a feeling inside me that i do feel intenesly and it leaves me feeling frozen to the spot unable to move.
so i see how simplicity of idea is at the core of what i do – wow i’ve taken a step there forsure.
the works that work well for me are the ones with seemingly simple ideas at the core of them.
ideas that resonate with what it is to be human. there’s me going out on a limb making a statement that i look at and wonder how i might dig into that to broaden out what i mean and understand it at a deeper level. i do think of gormley and possible futures as i am writing this now.
i’m mindful now of how i set up a potential path to follow and before going to far along it stop myself because of a thought i have. this is singularly the most off putting thing i do. if i were to understand why i do that i might actually start to get somewhere. i hope there’s quite a simple physiological explanation behind it – so i might be able to understand and negotiate it better.
being honest with myself in this space has been helpful. i do feel more optimistic. i see now how in retreating into my own mind of thoughts it over time ends up with how i see the world becoming very small unnecessarily twisted and futile. something to avoid.
in the coming weeks my task i now set for myself is to turn the retreating around, find ways to get out there more. to find beauty, hope and purpose.
my thoughts turn to terms that i have to admit i rarely consider. if i don’t consider these and others relative to my practice, how do i join with others ?
- representational
- figurative
- abstract
i’ll be honest with you. i have a fear that if i make a choice that this choice will exclude me from something i feel is exciting and want to be part of.
i take a moment to look out the window at the sky covered in cloud. i reflect on that last sentance. i see how absurd it is. i see how it potentially leaves me chasing everything. i see how it leaves me uncertain and ungrounded. all the things i currently experience.
i desire to be able to be part of something and remain undefined by it. why do i perceive that being part of something will define me and why is this so difficult for me anyway ? i sense these are now starting to relate to the conditions set up in me through the means by which i was brought up.
thoughts evoked now around exploration of those early conditioning years, how they affect me and how i react. deep routed thought patterns wanting to be programmed. am i brave enough to go that deep? am i brave enough to let part of what i do to be about identity ?
this post has become very insightful as i let my honesty inhabit the page. i do want to make with integrity. i do want my work to be relatable.
i’ve been writing for so long i need another mix to listen to.
in stating about being relatable it leads me to think about what contemporary ideas do i get behind/want to be associated with ?
well being, walking, social justice are three that come to mind for now.
mindfulness is another.
forest school as an approach – holistic in nature and over time.
time – especially non linear.
i like involving others in the creation of what i do.
are these all part of my identity ? a thought that comes to mind.
