Keeping. It. Going. With regards to the title of this blog, ‘Keeping It Going’ hasn’t felt easy this past month or so. Keeping anything much at all going has proved difficult, in fact and I did very little throughout the month of December in terms of posting on this blog or producing any new work. It’s felt like a rather barren time creatively and emotionally, I’ve been feeling a bit frazzled – the two often go hand in hand, I’ve realised. An unexpected funeral to attend, health affected by the horrendous flu bug that’s been doing the rounds, alongside the general mayhem around the Christmas period, it’s been very much a case of best laid plans going ‘aft agley’ as I quoted in my original blog ‘Keeping It Together.’
It’s a time for reflection all round, resolutions to be made (and broken!) and traditionally, the time of year to throw out the old and bring in the new. I’m in Edinburgh again for Hogmanay, celebrating all that I love about this beautiful city, allowing myself lots of rest in between. Time for recovery and relaxation has meant having the chance to take stock of the past year and I’ve been catching up with what I wrote this time last year in my ‘Keeping It Together’ blog. This extract from last year’s New Year blog post feels equally as relevant to me for the start of 2013.
I’ve also made a decision to start the year of 2012 as ‘free’ as I possibly can; positive, hopeful and in honour of my dear Dad, seeing and expecting only the best in people. ‘Free’ is a word my late Father used to describe those with open, easygoing and friendly dispositions – principled, positive, non-judgmental people with an interest in others. It’s a term I’ve always loved and being in Scotland again, amongst its lovely, warm people has reminded me exactly what it means.
The premise of this blog is to see if I’m able to maintain the writing of it at the same time as continuing to be active and creative in the studio. As with so much in life, it’s a question of finding the right balance. While I accept more readily now that the blog writing is an integral part of my creative output, I’m keen not to let the writing about the work take over the actual getting down to making it. I sometimes feel like there’s a danger of that happening.
I still have moments of feeling a real need to get to the heart of what’s in the boxes stored in my studio. That urgent feeling of course has as much to do with wanting to deal with and put to rest some of the associative emotions, as well as the actual physical raw materials – the ‘stuff.’ The simple truth though is, that however ‘contained’ the feelings might appear in the sealed up boxes, they stay around – they just don’t go away; it’s basic psychology. Timing in dealing with it all is everything, both in its physical and emotional sense.
As I’ve said before, a lot of emotions are tied up in the boxes in which my collections are currently stored and a certain amount of emotional robustness is required to process them and incorporate them into my work. And time in its physical sense is of course required to ensure the boxes don’t remain forever sealed and that they are opened up. It means making the time to make it happen – the sifting and the sorting, what goes and what stays – the de-cluttering to a large extent of a lifetime of accumulated possessions.
Out with the old and in with the new is highly pertinent to my creative work and what I do as an artist. Sadly, it seems, people feature in this clearing out process, too. I’m sentimental at heart but the older I get, the less tolerant I am of insincerity. I’ve grown tired of people paying lip-service to being generous and full of integrity while in reality, back-stabbing and acting in mean-spirited ways. My Dad left a sound legacy in being a principled, honourable person – it’s something I aspire to, at the very least.
And so, with these thoughts in mind, time to look forward to a brand New Year. You never know what’s round the corner. 2013. What will it bring?
