I’m a sculptor
I’ve been in denial.
Once again I’m the last to realise something that everyone else seems to have known for years.
It almost feels like coming out all over again.
This afternoon I allowed myself to play with materials and it was GREAT.
Making and doing – seeing what happens when I put things together.
Perhaps I’ve got to a point where I’m sufficiently confident with my preferred range of materials to play again, to make things that I don’t already know, to make things that are beyond me.
Black glitter on the steps of a ladder.
I can speak of some of the things it brings to mind, but I can’t sum it up in one clear concise phrase – brilliant.
I want a bigger cleaner lighter warmer studio.
I need a bigger …..
Things are going to be alright.
Afternoon at the studio – really wanted to be there after so long away, but didn't know quite what to do with myself.
matters arising:
1) What to do with things/studio projects that aren't finished?
2) What to do with things that are finished and un-shown?
3) What to do with materials that I've collected but not yet used?
I decided, as I walked around Frieze, that by the end of the year I want to be in a position to show my work to some galleries. Ideally I'd like some curators, gallerists and dealers to come to the studio.
I notice that there are quite a few unfinished studio projects around the place (studio, not Frieze). I think I want to work out which ones to continue with and which to shelve for the time being. It would be good to have a show to work towards – perhaps I could imagine that I have, and see if that focuses me on producing a coherent body of work …
Next time I'm at the studio I might see what happens when I start putting some of the unfinished projects alongside some of the finished (but un-shown) ones …
Weird sense of excitement and relief.
I’ve started work covering a fellow artist’s research sabbatical. I’m just waiting for Human Resources to make me a formal offer for the fixed term contract, other than that it’s all going well. Well, it will be once IT come and update the computer I’m working on, connect it to the network and the printer! I think I’ll really enjoy it.
I’ll still keep on with one of my current part-time jobs, though I’ll be working more weekends. This is great – Perhaps it’s due to my Protestant(?) work ethic but I know I’m much more likely to go the studio on a weekday than on a Sunday. So working alternate Sundays rather than Mondays means I’m likely to spend Mondays in the studio. The more Monday to Friday days I spend in the studio the more I feel like an artist.
So this is the last of my six-day working weeks. I’ve only done it for three weeks but I’m exhausted. Perhaps starting Swedish lessons at the same time has been a bit much (that and the fact that I do three jobs over those six days – not counting trying to keep an eye on my practice).
The other evening I realised that one of things I really enjoy about my Swedish class is that it has nothing to do with art. It’s not visual at all. After all these years it’s refreshing to do something that obviously uses a different part of my brain. Until I started these classes going to the gym was about the only thing I did that wasn’t directly visual or visual related. After art school it’s so hard to go to a gallery, museum, film, theatre show, shop(!) without it somehow being part of my work or research. It’s great doing something that uses different skills – where how I sound and what I remember are more important than how something looks and how it makes me feel. Right now Swedish is beautifully abstract to me.
