Happy 18th Birthday Project Me blog!
It’s hard for me to think that eighteen years ago I wrote the first entry. I am not the most prolific blogger by any stretch … I am perhaps the most persistent though. And now Project Me comes of age … what does that mean?
Someone who I met recently told me that this year they were celebrating thirty-five years of being a designer. I did the maths and realised that they started in 1990 … that’s the year that I graduated from Dartington … so that means that I have been a practicing artist for thirty-five years! Admittedly there were some years where I was less productive, some years that I didn’t have a studio but every year since graduating I have been actively engaged in visual art as a practitioner, as a curator, as an organiser, as a teacher, as an artist.
Cycling to the gym the other morning it struck me that eighteen is more than half of thirty-five … I have been blogging for more than half of the time that I have been an artist! That is even harder to comprehend than the length of time the I have been blogging!
I find myself in a position that somewhat echos that first post … feeling that I should be mid-career but am not, and in need of focussing on my own practice. It’s soon a year since I stepped down as chair of the Uppsala Artists’ Club and I have to say that I am very glad that I did so. The current chair and management committee have had such a tough year that they have called and early annual general meeting to elect a new a committee, and have proposed that the club splits in two as the only viable resolution to internal conflicts. The proposal will be voted on at the agm. I support the proposition, in fact it was something that I mooted when I was chair – it wasn’t something that I had particularly thought through it just seems like a way to enable people, artists, members, the committee, to work (unpaid) toward things that had meaning for them, rather than being frustrated with compromises and conflicts. I am very interested to see how the vote goes.
Since leaving the club’s committee I have been thinking about how to re-animate Glitter Ball. Last summer’s micro-residency with Elena Thomas was a great start. In the autumn I applied for Glitter Ball to be at the Juxtapose Art Fair in Aarhus, 2025. And I am excited to say that we have been accepted. On Friday I had a great meeting with one of the fair’s co-directors who I have gotten to know through the on-going conversation between their fair and Supermarket Art Fair (Stockholm). In recent years … editions? … of Supermarket I have found myself envying the relationships and networks that the exhibitors develop with each other. As Meetings coordinator my role is to orchestrate exactly these meetings, and at the same time I am not there as Glitter Ball. So going to another fair, one where I am an exhibitor is a fantastic opportunity to see how Glitter Ball can engage with other artist-run initiatives to create opportunities for artists.
Perhaps Project Me isn’t the only thing coming of age …
