Project Me

An intense two days in front of the computer proofreading, second round, all the exhibitors’ text, articles, and image captions for the Supermarket Art Fair catalogue and magazine. I enjoy doing it, and even get a modest fee, but it’s always stressful when the deadline is approaching. This year I have a lot of other things on so it seems particularly intense. Yesterday I found myself thinking how different it will be next year when I won’t be working in Enköping and the Easter holiday won’t mean a clash of demands – kids’ creative activity programme and last minute proofreading. I might even get to take a long weekend!

I have had nothing but encouragement and excitement from my fellow artists at the studio as I let them know that I have taken a sabbatical. Their support is so very important to me – it makes me believe that things will work out, or at the very least that I am doing the right thing.

It feels as though I have lost a large amount of my identity over the past few years … an identity that was always rather fragile even at the best of times … it feels as though it is essential that I reclaim, re-establish, something of it now before too much slips away. I need to indulge myself in the experimental, in the crazy, in the exciting, in the messy, in the unknown, in the unaccountable … ah yes – the unaccountable, so different from the accountable … I don’t want to be accountable to anyone but myself for a while – isn’t that what artistic freedom is about … the freedom to be the artist that one needs to be.

Why has it taken me so long to realise that being employed by a local authority requires a level of accountability that would be detrimental to my well being? Accountability in a broad sense – from being in the office on regular days at regular times through to always feeling that I have to deliver something that at least meets if not exceeds the politicians and bureaucrats expectations. There is no longer any space for play and experimentation working for a small town council. It just doesn’t suit me. And now that I have seen that the only thing to do is to get out!

So … if I take this sabbatical as a second foundation year I can spend the time working out what kind of artist I want to, and can, be … exploring my options … learning by doing … paying attention to both what attracts me (commissions, opportunities, work) and also who/what is attracted to me. I don’t have to know now where I will be in a year’s time.

Before leaving the studio yesterday I felt that I had to doing something material … something with material … something with my hands … something creative … something visual. I made another of the ’tie drapes’ – purple this time. There were fewer purple ties than there were pink, blue, and yellow and this momentarily concerned me but as the piece evolved in the studio wall shared with the other pieces I found a pleasure in each of them having their own character … their own weight … their own identity.

The other evening, possibly whilst washing-up, I found myself wondering what to say about my work – I have to write an artist’s statement for the upcoming exhibitions. I always find it hard to know what to say … how to say something relevant, appropriate, accessible without being prescriptive, restrictive, obtuse. I started thinking about status – the status of things … of people … of places … of ideas … of lives. Perhaps if there has been, and is, a red-thread running through all the things that I have done then it has to do with exploring status – the position of something in relation to other things … how status is constructed, expressed, understood, used, experienced, maintained, challenged. Status is personal, cultural, social, political … it is more than simply being the condition of something … it something about how that condition is perceived and valued … it is inherently relational. And that is what I think I have always been interested in. I am excited to think about this more and to see if I can fashion a text around it … in Swedish!

My application for a year’s unpaid leave has been approved!

I am excited and scared!

Mostly excited! Knowing that I have the option to return to work (security) is great. I think that knowing that will create the (safe) space for me to really invest in being an artist … being myself. This half-way stage is perfect for someone like me – full of ideas, easily distracted by others’ demands … requests … projects, and slightly risk adverse.

Notes to self:

• the year is for my practice – this must include time in the studio playing with materials
• prioritise activities and projects that are rewarding and sustainable
• research and develop long term ways of being
• take risks – start small if necessary
• build relationship and networks – talk with people, ask questions
• be kind to myself – allow myself to make false starts and mistakes
• think of the year as a second ’foundation’ year!
• be open … to change, opportunity, possibility

I have to admit that I really hope that someone is employed to cover my ’sabbatical’ – I am a little nervous that they may not be. I expect to find out next week when I speak with my manager. If no-one covers my leave then it will leave me in no doubt as to how my work and programmes are valued.

Now I have two intense days (despite one being a bank holiday … it’s not an artist’s holiday after all) of proofreading for the Supermarket Art Fair. Best get on with that!

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!

Sometimes, that is to say now, transparency can seem unnecessary and cruel. It doesn’t help me to know that the arts council approved 24% of applications for the artists’ working grants when mine was one of the 76% that was unsuccessful. And of course it’s personal – they … this year’s selection board – don’t like what I do, or don’t think that what I am doing is worth supporting. It couldn’t be more personal!

I found out yesterday when I was at the studio. One of my colleagues there got the ward, along with two others at thes studio who weren’t there but their names were on the published list. I am truly pleased for those who got it. For me it raises pre-existing frustrations to new levels. The three that received the award are all good … great … artists. They produce very different work: painting, sculpture, interdisciplinary research-based installation and projects. The thing that they have in common is that they are artists through and through, they are full-time artists that live and breath for their practice. To be honest I know that I don’t do that … I am not sure that I have ever done that. I have always been too concerned with making a living – the artwork comes second to earning money … my focus is elsewhere. And I guess that is evident to the selection board.

My work lacks depth and commitment … urgency.

So do I have the courage of my convictions? Do I really believe in what I do? I honestly don’t know but I want to give it a shot … I want to know for sure. I made myself the promise that I would give myself the equivalent of the award from my savings if I wasn’t successful in my application. Now I know that I wasn’t successful so it’s time to do what I said that I would do.

Even before I finding out about the award I had had two conversations with studio colleagues about needing to leave my council job. Yesterday was my first day at the studio in about … if not over … two weeks, and something about being back there made me realise that I need to be there not in an office in Enköping with pleasant enough but uninteresting and uninspiring colleagues and a no-longer new manager who I am very disappointed with. So time to ask for that year’s unpaid leave!

My hope is that having a year without the distraction, and it is a major distraction, of the council work will give me the focus that I need to see if there is the depth, commitment, and urgency to my (art)work that I think that there is.

Before leaving the studio yesterday I took some stuff to recycling. It felt good to get rid of rubbish that had been collecting in the studio for quite sometime. I think it was the first of several trips that need to be made … learning to let go of what is no-longer relevant. I want to go back to the studio today (Saturday) and put up more shelves, it’s a good day to do it as I need to drill into a stone/concrete wall so the fewer people that I disturb the better.

I am in that weird headspace that having a cold gives one … or at least gives me … I should have been on a site visit on Wednesday, I should have been at a seminar on Thursday, I should have been at a meeting yesterday afternoon and a performance yesterday evening, I want to be at an opening later today and a party this evening. The cold – my third this year! – prevents all of this. I find myself in some kind of limbo. I wish that I had materials at home to be getting on … playing … with. I take it as a good sign that I feel like this – for the past two days I haven’t had the energy to do much more than doze and watch films. With the artists’ club’s annual general meeting fast approaching there have been some necessary emails and telephone calls – just as well that my cold isn’t any more serious or debilitating than it has been.

Although I have a sketchbook here I am aware that I don’t want to fall in to my habit of sketching … designing … something that I will then attempt to reproduce in material … in three dimensions … in space. The site visit that I could not attend on Wednesday was to Lövstabruk – the estate belonging to Sweden’s, if not the world’s, largest iron works of the eighteenth century where I and four other artist will show this summer. I have set myself the challenge … and it is a challenge for me … of making a new work … an installation … that has materiality rather than anything else at its core. At the moment I am working out what this means! It feels like an extension of what I did … how I worked … on the residency in Riga. I have been collecting … assembling … material – literally fabric, cloth – and I want to work with these materials to create the installation. I have been collecting … assembling … references – from the world of haute couture as well as fine art. And now I want to see what happens when I start working. I am both excited and a little scared!

I hope to visit Lövstabruk next week. The photos of the space taken on Wednesday and shared between the artists show a large dimly light room with a low ceiling and quite imposing architectural features. Having looked at the photos I am aware that I need to be on site to appreciate … comprehend … know … the room. I am very curious as to how we will work towards and achieve this show … as artists our practices seem quite distinct.

With so much going on in the coming months I really need to draw up a schedule so that I can easily see when things are happening – it’s simply too much to keep in my head. I can’t stop myself wondering what I will hear about the artist’s working grant … the list of successful applicants should be available in early April. Either I will be successful or not … it’s pointless playing it over in my mind but I can’t help it. Even if I get a grant it doesn’t alter the commitments that I have made up until the end of the summer. I guess that receiving the award is about much more than just the money … it is about being recognised as an artist by one’s peers and those in the art-world. And perhaps it is that which I really need right now. Having said … written … that I have to wonder why I don’t recognise the invitations to be involved in all the projects that I am involved with as recognition of me as an artist!

I want to say something about Phyllida Barlow – though I don’t know what to say. I guess reading about her, and having watched a few interviews over the past months, I can say that I was becoming increasingly intrigued by her work. Or perhaps by the space which her work opens up for me … rather than by the work itself – which I find awkward and difficult but perhaps that is because I have only seen one or two pieces in reality. Having known her as one of several female tutors at the Slade in the 1990s I was delighted when she ’suddenly’ gained recognition that exceeded that of many of the more arrogant male tutors that were her colleagues. I was becoming increasingly intrigued in how she spoke about her work – its materiality rather than its meaning … its process rather than its product. I have watched her Louisiana Channel films a number of times and will probably continue to return to them. Something definitely resonates … I see … hear … certain similarities between our concerns, and there are even some visual similarities between particular pieces. She was not one of my tutors and because of the general animosity towards Stuart Brisley’s department I didn’t have any real contact with Phyllida while I was at the Slade … I wonder what might have happened had that been different.