Yesterday I ’resigned’ from the studio association that I co-founded … an odd feeling … and something that I have been putting off for a couple of months. The end of the year, or perhaps rather the immanent arrival of a new year, seems an appropriate time to do it – out with the old and in with the new … except the studio in Uppsala isn’t so new. I guess that it’s not actually about the studio … it’s about me … about me being able to let go of something that has (had?) been an important part of life but which no longer is. I had high expectations of … for? … myself, the building, the other artists, the town’s population … the majority of which were over ambitious. Perhaps those dreams are things that are difficult to let go … the unrealised potential. And it is easy for me to think that if I had done more, tried harder, been better then things would be different and I would now be the at the centre of a thriving contemporary art-scene in Sweden’s nearest town. Such high expectations!
Of course I am pleased for what I/we did achieve, and ten artists now have studios where they can work … for the time being at least – the council are again making more low-level disparaging remarks about the condition and suitability of the building. Thankfully the new chair of the studios is a very active and determined woman who does not doubt that the council has a duty to find alternative premises if they have to leave the current one.
It’s that balance between dreams and reality that I am having a hard time accepting … is it even a ’balance’ … is ’distinction’ more accurate? Writing now it feels as though ’distinction’ is a more useful … helpful … term, and it is/was the trying to hold things in an artificial/inappropriate balance that has been/is causing me problems. Thinking about things in terms of distinctions allows and enables me to recognise and acknowledge the differences between dreams and realities, whereas trying to keep things in balance is a constant and demanding process – which while seeing difference attempts to find … maintain … that elusive spot where those differences are equal. Suddenly striving for balance seems most inappropriate.
For a while studio gave me what I needed – a dedicated place to make work, a place to meet other artists – both those who also had studios there and those who I invited to show at Glitter Ball, a place to invite in a public audience, a place for discussion and conversation. Things changed though and if I am honest I can admit that I never really found the kind of community that I was looking for. Maybe things didn’t change – and that might actually have been the seed of frustration that first led me to ask about studios in Uppsala. Maybe I did what I could do in Enköping and relatively quickly realised that I was left still wanting … realised that there were things that I could not change – despite my best efforts.
So I have until the end of January to move out of that studio. That is going to be a challenging process – there are so many (currently) unused materials there, not to mention a lot of previous artworks and all those things that I am so good (too good!) at collecting “just in case”. I think that having to make decisions about what to move and what can be otherwise dealt with will be tough but rewarding. It is good to remind myself of a ’mantra’ I came up with many years ago: learn from the past, live in the present, believe in the future.
2023 here I come!
Of course the only way to be an artist is to be an artist. I dislike tautologies but sometimes I need to remind myself of something self evident. On Wednesday afternoon the mentor group for the local arts school got together to talk about our experiences this first term. It was good for me to hear the other mentors reflect on the seemingly two types of student: those that are unquestioningly getting on with developing their practice, and those that are questioning not their practice but their possibility of pursuing it for primarily economic reasons. As Mattias succinctly put it, and now I am further paraphrasing, being an artist means accepting instability. This was really good for me to hear – it is not a surprise … I see and hear the reality of this often at the studio as one or several of my colleagues there are concerned about what do after a project ends, or where they might find some temporary employment. But for some reason sitting together discussing it both one stage removed and in terms of students it brought home just how detrimental and counter productive it is. It begged/begs the questions what to do. Two broad responses came up, one accept that you need security/stability and choose another course/career, and two see it as part of being an artist, realise that the majority of artists share similar concerns and just get on with it.
I find myself currently straddling those two positions – and it’s uncomfortable! I actually feel as though I am standing on ground that has fractured in two and that each foot is on ground either side of a widening chasm. The ground on either side is as (relatively) stable … comfortable … as it can be, the discomfort … pain, tension, anxiety … is generated by the ever increasing stretch. In addition there is the fear … knowledge? … that a likely result is that when the stretch reaches its limit I will fall (either backwards or forwards) in to the chasm. And in doing so I will have a far harder task in dragging myself back and up on to one of the those grounds.
Maybe I should/could find someone to talk this through with – my own mentor! Or perhaps a counsellor … I think that I need ’good counsel’ … someone (objective and even a little distant) who I can speak with. I don’t expect that person to help me make a decision, rather I expect the discussion (with that person) to help me make a decision.
One discussion that I will be having soon (soonish – the second week in January) is with my manager at work. I need to better understand what my job actually is in the current and specific circumstances. I also want to know how flexible they can be in accommodating more artistic ways of being. My former boss appointed two artists, to posts that she created, which I now think that she did as an experiment to see if the council could become more creative. The other artist, Klas, left a couple of years ago when the boss did not (could not?) agree to him working four days rather than five days a week. Bearing this in mind I am not expecting my new boss to be able to be too flexible but I have to ask. It could well be that a local council is simply the wrong place for an artist to be employed, and that I should stop spending time and energy trying to make it a workable fit! Time to stop being a lab rat and realise that the experiment shows that the council can not be creative.
On one of the grounds I see exciting creative opportunities and projects, on the other ground I see security. A question … image? … popped in my as I wrote that sentence: who wants to live in ’(maximum) security unit’?
I really enjoyed the opening last night. The two works look good and attracted attention – especially Nocturne which sparkled and twinkled magnificently. I am coming around to the idea that it would have been detrimental to have also shown the other pieces that were originally requested. There is a strong and simple elegance to the two works that would have been lost had there been more glittered pieces in the vicinity … or even elsewhere in the show. While I am usually a follower of Mae West’s philosophy: too much of a good thing can be wonderful!, in this case they simply wouldn’t have been.
On Saturday the annual visual artists’ award exhibition opens in the gallery adjacent to our show. We should certainly benefit from that and I am glad that my glittery placard Mot is opposite the connecting doors. So from Saturday each of my works will be in the direct sight line from the preceding rooms – I am going to assume that this was a conscious decision on the part of Sara (the curator) and that it speaks of the allure of glitter and the power of what are essentially two quite simple pieces.
I will also admit that I enjoyed attracting and receiving a good amount of attention last night! I wore a silver sequin baseball jacket – a bit of ’method dressing’ – and was reminded of Elena’s response to one of the posts from Riga about not making distinctions between one’s practice and one’s life. It was the first time I had seen some studio friends and colleagues since returning from the residency and it was exciting to talk about my experience(s) of it. Again it reinforced that focussing on my practice is where I want to spend my time and energy. Earlier in the day at the studio I wrote down things that I want to do in the coming year … some of which, given a little more thought, could be expressed as ’projects’ … projects that I could possibly get support of funding for. This is both exciting and scary – it feels, dare I say it, necessary.
I want to get on with … continue with … the things that I was starting at the end of the residency … working with, playing with, materials in space. Things are not working out that way. I wanted to ease back into being here but having to work (for the council), having a cold, and now hanging work for the Uppländska Salong have meant that I have landed with a bump … in regards to being in the group show at the museum a very welcome bump but a bump just the same.
The just being-ness is certainly something that I want to maintain. My days, weeks, months … life! … back here in Sweden are pretty structured. This is something that I want to look at and see if there aren’t other ways of doing things … it’s more than a little bit scary to think about what this might mean in terms of my council job. Perhaps it has had its time, I certainly don’t feel motivated or engaged with it any more. One of the things that the residency showed me was the importance of doing what feels right, and that as artists we have to have our own internal checks and balances as what we do is so different from more prevalent agendas. Perhaps it is authority rather than structure that is troubling me. Too many moments where I do not have authority over my time … where I am not the author of my time. Time, and how I use time, has been a recurring theme. There never seems to be enough of it … I find it unbelievable that the end of the year approaches. What can I do to lessen the sense of time passing … to lessen the frustration of time passing … to increase the joy of time passing?
What if the studio becomes a place for play and experimentation – don’t expect to make anything rather learn and prepare for making installations.
…. several days later … How ironic – or maybe fitting – that I didn’t get around to finishing this post. Three conversations with different artist friends – Kim, Nito, and (a-n blogger) Elena Thomas – have been very good in helping me sort out my feelings about my job. The unsurprising conclusion is that it lacks the flexibility, creativity and spontaneity that I need. What I need now is an exit strategy! Actually the first thing to do is be upfront about my needs with my manager and see if we can reach a compromise – I am doubtful but it would be stupid not to investigate. Monday I will see if there is a reply to my request for a follow-up meeting to discuss the current and future situation at work … there are a number of very practical frustrations that came up in the annual ’development and progress meeting’ last week. Not having received a reply will be a clear sign of where my needs/job sits in the schema of things!
The Uppländska Salong group show at the Uppsala Art Museum opens this evening. I am delighted to be in this selected survey show highlighting 12 contemporary artists in or from Uppsala. I am a little disappointed with where my work has been hung – it feels a little too much like filler in an awkward corner between two very dominant installation pieces. The one distinction that I have is that one piece is in clear view from the preceding room – it is quite elegantly framed by the doorway … which, thinking about it now, I can interpret as a nod to Eugène Jansson’s naked youth (framed in a doorway) that he first showed in a group show in Uppsala in 1907. My work Nocturne was already a homage to Eugène though not a specific work. I very much doubt that this was in the mind of the curator … I shall have to ask! It has been interesting to hear other artist’s thoughts about that piece – most of which include a reference to a wrecking ball. To be honest this is not something that I been conscious of, I am however very open to it and can accept that it enriches the work. So I shall of course be incorporating it in to the piece’s narrative.
