WHAT IF…
I always have a sort of back-up plan of ideas in my head – things to pursue if nothing else is happening in my practice, but to be honest, I’m never really satisfied with work made this way, though it’s useful to have that back up plan so that it doesn’t feel as if you’re doing nothing. What is really exciting is when work starts to evolve that you could never have thought of or predicted except as part of doing and reading and thinking – not by planning.
This week I’ve been thinking about questions which start “What if…?” I’ve often wondered whether these questions could be the basis for some work but I’ve never quite known what the questions might be. Now some “What if…?” questions which seem to have some relevance have been becoming apparent to me.
I’ve needed to get some extra paid work and have just been offered a full time non-arts job for 3 months. I’m starting in just over a week and finish on the 13th August. I’m desperate to still be able to maintain some sort of continuity for my work during this period and recognize that I need to have something “started” which I can pick up and put down. Perhaps a “What if…” set of questions will give me that fixed starting point which I’ll need.
So:
Andy Holden in his Laws of Motion in a Cartoon Landscape says “maybe there is no such thing as an inanimate object”; my question then is “What if stones could grow?” (I seem to have a bit of a random stone fixation at the moment but I’m trying to run with it and not feel too ridiculous about it). Also I have read and thought a lot about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein over the last few years (it featured heavily in my MA work) and wonder “What if Frankenstein’s monster had not looked like a monster, but just a normal looking guy?” This question also seems to fit in quite nicely with the fact that I’m currently reconfiguring work which I made for my MA in order to be able to show it in a different format.
