Keeping It Going

So much of my commitment to writing this blog is also given over to responding to and leaving comments on other artist/blogger’s posts. It’s formed an ongoing, reciprocal exchange and it’s the interactions with others that have contributed to the strong sense of community I’ve felt here, on Artists Talking. Leaving long written responses on Jean McEwan’s blog the other day and more recently on Marion Michell’s, it struck me how much like real-life, two way conversations it felt – the sort I might have over a drink in the local pub. Twitter has sometimes had the same impact.

In the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about the effect social networking has had on my own creative practice. Eighteen months or so ago, I first made the decision to start a blog, to continue to post images of my art on Facebook and to get involved in Twitter. It’s undoubtedly time consuming and I frequently wonder whether my time might be put to better use. But it’s led me to some amazing, far reaching connections with other artists and more recently, it’s led to being involved as one of fifteen participating artists in an exhibition, This ‘Me’ of Mine, of which identity is the main focus.

The This ‘Me’ of Mine exhibition is a long-running project initiated by artist and curator Jane Boyer. Jane writes about the importance of on-line communication in relation to the curatorial process: ‘I live in a remote area of south west France, so nearly all my communications are done digitally – it is necessary for my daily functioning! However, it also became the structure of the whole project.’

Being a part of the show has meant thinking still deeper about the impact of social networking – the overall premise of this blog after all, is looking at how much maintaining it might affect my creative output.

Yesterday evening I was at the second launch night for the exhibition, This ‘Me’ of Mine in Folkestone. I was struck by how many people I ‘knew’ solely through the Artists Talking blogs and via Twitter. The same applied to the pv night at the APT Gallery in Deptford when This ‘Me’ of Mine was launched for the very first time.

Despite Jane having created a solid, online group identity for us over the past year, it’s the first time that some of the fifteen participating artists had met face to face and had any direct interaction with each other. This in itself fascinated me because, despite Twitter photographs and Facebook images giving some hint of who we are, the majority of us had never properly met. This of course is all relevant and highly pertinent to the main emphasis and focus of This ‘Me’ of Mine – who we are as individuals, how we define ourselves; how we present ourselves on social media, how we present ourselves as artists; how our artwork defines us and so on. How different are we in real life from our on-line personae? How does the on-line ‘Me’ compare with the actual ‘Me?’

And how much of ‘Me’ is affected by those who surround us – by what other people bring to us?

I had a fascinating conversation with an artist recently, the conversation starting with her apologising for perhaps, appearing too forward and ‘over familiar’ with me whenever we met.

‘It’s just that I feel I really know you from your blog and feel like we’re good friends – but then I realise I hardly know you at all!’

I’ve thought about this conversation a lot ever since. Being open and honest and wearing your heart on your sleeve inevitably leaves you more open to the possibility of feeling vulnerable and exposed.

It’s a little late probably, for such ruminating as over the past year of writing about my experience of being an artist, I’ve already shared some quite personal information about myself. Not consciously – it’s just that I’ve used the blog primarily as a space for self-reflection about what it really feels like to be a practising contemporary artist – a relatively new one at that, self- taught and somewhat naïve. My feelings consequently, have often been very much on the surface, leading to some quite frank and personal revelations. I’m not sure yet where all this thinking is leading me but I do know when I’m beginning to tire of my own voice …

Yet again then, I find myself feeling the need to get on with creating some new work.

An artist friend of mine who knows me pretty well, both on a personal and a professional level, reminded me a few weeks ago how much happier I am in myself when I stick to a routine as far as days in the studio are concerned. It’s on such days that the creative work gets done, after all. The work I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago, took literally minutes to put together and despite being composed of just two found objects, is to my mind, the best piece of creative work I’ve made in a while; this in itself, made me feel very happy.

Knowing how uplifted I can feel by the making and completion of new work, means that I do recognise the importance of being in the studio and getting involved in making art on a regular basis. Obvious as it sounds, it’s true – as the saying goes – that the work doesn’t make itself. Keeping up the momentum for being actively creative then, feels crucial, just as having concrete evidence of producing new work, feels equally as important.

So much can get in the way if you allow it to – there’s always some excuse for not quite being able to make it into the studio. Creativity of course, can’t just be turned on like a tap – there are peaks and troughs in even the most successful creative practises. But the mantra ‘just do it’ is one that always returns to me. I’ve come to realise that however uninspired I might feel – however inadequate, bored, uncertain – it’s the keeping it going that’s important. Ironically, the writing of this blog has sometimes contributed to staying away from the studio; it’s easy to convince myself I’ve done an ‘art day’ if I’ve spent some time writing about it. And while I’ve come to accept that the writing to an extent is a part of my artistic practice, it’s equally as important to keep making the work.

And so, in the spirit of practising what I preach, I’ll go and focus my energy on trying to create something new…

It’s been an exciting week for me, as my piece ‘It’s The Little Things’ is being shown as part of the This ‘Me’ of Mine exhibition, which launched last Thursday. Like so much of the assemblage/installation work I do, it took ages to install. But it’s the part I love best and the reason I do what I do. I was pleased with the end result and I’m happy to have been given the chance to show my work in the brilliant, spacious APT Gallery, Deptford and to have it placed alongside other artists whose work I’ve admired for a long time. And it feels good for a change, to be writing about getting on with some real, actual work rather than endlessly talking around the whole subject of creativity.

As well as getting the chance to meet many of the other artists involved in the exhibition, the evening also felt like a celebration of the hard work put in by the show’s curator, Jane Boyer. It’s over a year since the seeds of This ‘Me’ of Mine were first sewn and made public, so it felt good to finally see it launch and to see so many people turn out to celebrate the start of what is to be an ongoing, touring exhibition.

It also feels good to have handed ‘It’s The Little Things’ over to a new, fresh audience. Like ‘The Fabric of Life,‘ it’s a work that’s primarily made up of objects I rescued from my late Nana’s home – the little, seemingly insignificant things that take on a whole new meaning once the person who owned them has gone. I’ve had more opportunity this time round to process the emotional attachment I hold for the assembled items and, in the grand scheme of letting go, feel more prepared. I’ve even managed to put a price tag on this piece, a significant shift on my part as I never seem quite able to equate the work’s emotional value and worth with anything financial. Consequently, very little of my work in the past has been for sale.

As part of the evening’s artists in conversation, organised by Jane, I was asked to speak specifically about detail in relation to ‘It’s The Little Things.’ Seeing my work in a different setting helped focus it and enabled me to appreciate its true aesthetic value. The generous space surrounding ‘It’s The Little Things‘ in the Gallery means a greater emphasis on the work; it stands alone – as a piece in its own right – as opposed to in the midst of the clutter of a working studio.

I talked about how the pieces had been accumulated, largely as an emotional response to the clearance of my Nana’s home in which she had lived for some 70 years. The items I salvaged and assembled together were reminders of the many times I’d spent with my Nana as a child and the close relationship we had. The detail is in the pastry cutters, the icing nozzles, the left over soap, the embroidery cottons, thimbles, darning mushroom and tape measure – all reminders of the many domestic skills my Nana taught me. The fun side of my relationship with her on the other hand is reflected in the lipstick, powder and perfume which she sometimes let me play with at her dressing table, while the ancient pocket Bible and the red poppy speak of the history of a woman who lived through two world wars and would engage me with her stories about the war as she taught me the rules of a waste-not-want-not life. It is quite literally the little things in all senses of the word that we retrospectively come to appreciate and value.

The subject of our immortality is one that has always fascinated me. There’s such a fine line between being alive – or not. As I say in my Artists Statement: ‘My work reflects a fascination with the passage of time and the contrast between the permanence of objects and the fragility of life. ‘ I created ‘It’s The Little Things‘ as a homage to my late Nana; the objects remained (and still remain) despite her no longer being here. That to my mind, is a true indicator of the fragility of human existence.

I haven’t even started to write about the experience of meeting the other participating artists yet. But as I so frequently say here, more perhaps, about that next time …

http://thismeofmine.wordpress.com/

http://www.janeboyer.com/

So, another period of quiet, introspective thinking time followed by a burst of creative activity – there’s a pattern emerging, I’ve noticed. Obvious now I’ve spotted it, but it’s only when you stand back from your practice that you really get the chance to notice these things. I’d imagine it’s a pretty common feature of other artist’s lives – it must be hard, if not impossible, after all to sustain periods of constant making without suffering from some sort of burn-out – or it being at the expense of everything else.

I’ve felt relieved this past week to have regained my energy and enthusiasm for getting back into the studio – and better still, to have created a piece of new work! I’d been feeling quite restless up until the point I managed to produce it, tired of going round and round in circles, repeatedly talking about the creative work rather than just feeling able to get on with actually producing something. The premise of this blog springs to mind for the umpteenth time: Will I be able to maintain this blog at the same time as being creative in the studio? Will it help or hinder my practice as an artist?

Those questions form an ongoing debate in my head but for this week at least, it’s felt really exciting to be leaving the studio with new work to think about. I feel more light-hearted and upbeat than I have in a while – ironic in many ways because the piece of new work is quite visually intense and certainly, when I think about the concept behind it, is highly emotionally charged. I’ve completed and already photographed and submitted this recent piece for an Open call. Things seem to move quickly on the creating front, it seems, when you’re in the right mindset.

Life, creatively then, has been more busy than usual. Coming to a clear conclusion about ‘The Fabric of Life’ being pushed too hard and the realisation that I’d become quite stuck with this particular piece of work has had a positive impact. I’ve felt freed up as a result. Firmly packing it up in a box – thereby containing all its associated emotions – has allowed space for more work to be created.

I also coincidentally, had two exhibition preview nights inked firmly in my diary for this past week; I felt determined to make both. The launch nights included artists who have been inspirations to me – both for the actual physical work they produce and for their work ethics and consistent application; David Dipre, Aly Helyer and EJ Major in ‘A House of Many Windows’ and Emma Cousin in ‘Three Fields,’ curated by Lucy Day & Eliza Gluckman and Ben Street, respectively. The work is diverse; beautiful, intriguing and original – a joy to see and a timely reminder, too of how important it feels to me to stay curious about the contemporary art world at large – to keep an eye on the bigger picture and maintain an awareness of what’s happening ‘out there.’

My thoughts, in the meantime are turning closer towards home as I prepare for the This ‘Me’ of Mine exhibition in nearby Deptford. Jane Boyer, another artist/blogger on this forum is the show’s sole curator and has worked tirelessly to make it happen. But more about that next time, I’m sure …

To see more about the two shows in the meantime, please click on links below:

http://www.dayandgluckman.co.uk/projects/house_of_…

http://www.noformat.co.uk/#/three-fields/457405009…

It’s now over a month since I presented my work, ‘The Fabric of Life’ at the group peer crit organised by Q-Art at Central St Martin’s. It was, as I’ve already mentioned here, the first one I’d ever presented and it’s taken a bit of time to properly process the experience and to feel that I’ve wanted to write about it.

Having allowed myself the space and time to think about some of the comments raised, things in just the past week seem to have fallen into place in terms of understanding what’s been going on in my practice – and in particular, the blocks that have occurred in relation to ‘The Fabric of Life.’ I’ve been helped along by supportive feedback from fellow artist/bloggers Jean McEwan and Elena Thomas who, through relaying their own experiences, helped allay some of the anxieties and confusion I’d been experiencing post-crit. Their online comments helped ‘normalise’ what I was feeling and helped me move things forward – and specifically, enabled me to return here to write about it.

One question in particular continued to play on my mind after the group crit had ended. It was raised in response to me talking about how difficult ‘The Fabric of Life’ was proving to complete, or indeed, move on from its present rather ‘stuck’ position. What was it, I’d asked, that after some two years of working on it, made this particular piece of work so difficult to finish and present?

Someone asked if I’d thought about the possibility that the timing for making the work might not be right – that it was perhaps, being made too soon after my Nana’s death. I registered what was said at the time and jotted it down in my notebook as a point to come back to. I’ve kept coming back to this comment and gradually, have taken on board the weight of it – crucially, because it’s very likely, true . Obvious, in fact, now it’s been pointed out – why hadn’t I thought of that!

Such interjection demonstrates perfectly for me the premise of the peer group crit working at its best. Having been wary about what I was entering into, it’s a clear demonstration of the advantages to be gained from sharing creative ideas with artist peers rather than working in isolation. Through listening intently not just to what I said, but the way I said it, the group was able to take an overall, objective view; to read between the lines and reflect back to me the realities I wasn’t conscious of. Denial is a powerful tool.

The crit reminded me of one of the crucial themes underlying my practise – what to keep and what to throw away, what creative ideas to ‘sit on’ in order to allow them breathing space to develop and ferment – and which ones to let go of, albeit temporarily sometimes. I’ve been pushing ‘The Fabric of Life’ too hard, I realise in retrospect – have been far too eager to get it to the finishing post. It’s stopped and stalled so many times over the past months, despite my plugging away at it – too emotionally raw still, to be able to ‘go’ anywhere.

And it’s not without significance i think that’ The Fabric of Life’ was what I happened to be working on the day we were given 24 hours notice to leave the premises at Cor Blimey Arts studios – some 16 months ago now, but it still hurts. It was also the first piece of work I put on the wall in my current studio – again, feeding into my subconscious desire to get it over with, done and dusted – finished!

There’s a whole host of emotions tied up in this piece of work – no surprise then, that it’s felt so heavy and loaded. As I’ve said numerous times before on this blog, timing is everything – feelings and emotions take time to unravel, process and understand. ‘The Fabric of Life’ is now back in a box in the studio for the umpteenth time, contained in every sense of the word until the time feels right – if ever – to resurrect it.