The range of activity … emotion … engagement … within one working week is quite remarkable – this week has perhaps been a particularly extreme case – two days at the council job, a day split between catching up with project administration and the artists’ club’s annual general meeting, then a day mentoring two young artists, and finally a day on a site visit and a spontaneous meeting/discussion about the upcoming exhibition.
The highlight of my two days at the council was handing in my application for a year’s unpaid leave. It’s unclear how long it will take to consider my application, and the outcome is not at all certain but at least that ball is rolling. I won’t say anything to my work colleagues until I know more. The rest of those two days were both boring and frustrating – save from coming up with a simple, but good, idea for a one-off workshop in conjunction with the local component of a national project being launched in late May.
The other three days made it clear to me how much I enjoy working … collaborating … discussing … with other people – things that do not happen in my position as arts education worker – there I am very much on my own, unsupported, and even (consciously or not) undermined. It is a huge relief to know that I might soon be able to see an end to that. If not an end then at least a year out from it. If my application isn’t approved then I will have to have a good long think about what to do.
I have a new artist crush … a bit embarrassing at my age but why not! … I heard of Nick Cave (visual artist and not to be confused with Nick Cave the musician – which I admit I initially did all those years ago) a long time ago but it’s only in the last month or so that I have been watching interviews, documentaries, and exhibition/project presentations online. I find his work, his way of speaking about it, and his practice as a whole very inspiring. It feels as though this has come to me at the right time … when I need to feel reassured that my way of thinking … way of being … my intentions and ambitions are not so wide of the mark. What I lack … have lacked … is confidence. And I see that that has been a major contributing factor in my practice up to this point.
I suspect that confidence is learnt rather than being innate. I also suspect that it is a far from simple emotion(?) … state of being. I can’t say that I haven’t received feedback that should have given me ample confidence – a first class degree, an MA from the Slade, participation in good exhibitions and projects … and yet somehow I manage to remain suspicious that all of these have been flukes … or acts of kindness … and in doing so I deny, do not acknowledge, do not recognise who I am, where I am, and what I should be doing next. I tread water waiting for … waiting for what?
I am reminded of a joke … a parable? … a great flood starts and a devout man climbs to safety on the roof of his house, as the waters rise people wade past the house and call for the man to join them, ’It’s okay, God will help me’ he replies as he sits still on his roof. The waters continue to rise and people come past in a boat, they call for him to join them, ’It’s okay, God will will help me’ he replies. The waters begin to lap at the roof, a plane flies over and lowers a ladder, ’It’s okay, God will help me’ says the man. The waters continue to rise and the man begins to worry that his God might let him drown – ’I have been a good and devout follower God, why do you not help me?’ he calls out as the waters reach his chin, a booming voice replies ’I sent you people, I sent you a boat, I sent you a plane … what were you expecting?’
The problem is not seeing … not understanding … not recognising … what is going on. The problem is some kind of misunderstanding of the situation … a kind of blindness and failure of comprehension. Waiting for some major cataclysmic (yet unspecified) sign while missing all the actual and very real signs because they somehow don’t meet expectation. I need to re-focus … to see, understand, recognise, and acknowledge where I am and what is going on.
The man in the joke believes in his God – this god is something abstract, grand, and other worldly. He doesn’t see that the people who come by are ’god’ – they are answering his prayers. He has built up a belief system so fantastic and removed from reality that it fails him. I do not want to be that man!
