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.
Sunday 27 November – final day. Due to a misunderstanding when booking flights Kristjan left early for Iceland today. Aina and Lidija were busy with something else outside of the city … the residency was drifting apart and away rather than finishing with a big bang … maybe that was okay. It kind of reflected how it started … but with different people playing the first and last to do things.
Kaspars took some shots of Sorcha and me in our ’installation’. I look forward to seeing the results from his splendid medium format film camera! I thought that we would pack away things but Kaspars asked us to leave everything as it was so that he could take more photos.
Matthias drove Sorcha, Kaspars, Andreas, and me in to town, Fenu was already there having breakfast with friends. We dropped Kaspars off to pick-up his car from the night before and continued to the central food market. Sorcha and I headed inside leaving Matthias and Andreas to smoke outside. We were seduced by the counters full of fantastic looking sweets. Kaspars and Fenu arrived, we walked around and decided on coffee and pastries/doughnuts. It was really nice to sit there together and chat … not specifically about the residency or our projects … more about our lives ’back home’ … our families and other friends.
Andreas was leaving that afternoon, he and Matthias stayed longer at the market and then went to the airport. Fenu, Kaspars, Sorcha and I went to the National Art Museum. If I had realised the time I would have spent less time in the temporary coin exhibit and more time in the permanent collection … as it was I covered two floors and two centuries of Latvian art in a little under 15 minutes – not something I would recommend. When, and I think it is a ’when’ rather than an ’if’, I am in Riga again I shall give the museum the day that it deserves.
We convinced Kaspars to come with us to Lido – a wonderful post-soviet self-service restaurant experience … if I understand correctly the original Lido(s) were from the soviet times … it’s not actually self-service – you choose what you want at the counter and the staff portion up approximately 100 grams of it on your plate … prices are per 100 gram for most dishes or per single item for filled pancakes and the like. The experience is better than the food! Now it was Kaspars turn to convince us to go out to where the Daugava river meets the Baltic Sea. He pointed out other empty buildings where artists had either had studios or had tried to organise studios – the monolithic former rubber factory had been one of the soviet union’s largest industrial buildings. Sitting in the back of his car driving through the dark suburbs reminded me of returning home after childhood day trips with my family … I drifted in and out of momentary naps.
A bitterly cold wind blew as we walked towards the shoreline and then out along the jetty to the beacon guiding ships in to Riga’s vast port. This walk … though not ’officially’ part of any workshop … particularly put me in mind of Frozen Progress – how could it not as the four of us walked across the snow with the cold wind whistling in our ears. Finding the narrow slither of protection afforded by the beacon we watched a large empty cargo ship silently glide through the black water. We took the passing of a smaller speedier boat as a sign to begin the walk back.
Kaspars, Fenu, and Sorcha were the first people that I met on the residency and it seemed fitting that I should spend the last evening with them.
Another slow start to the day. Without my morning runs I really notice how late things get going here. It gives me time for reflection and of course a pre-breakfast cup of coffee. My (regular) life is so structured – I follow the patterns and routines that I have set myself and those that I have invited in … how many of them are actually what I want to do? What might happen if I followed my feelings a bit more?
Yesterday’s workshop was a bit of a non-workshop … or at least it wasn’t what it might have been! When we eventually convened in the kitchen we re-capped on the pro’s and con’s of showing in an exhibition that one has organised. I am pretty sure that the aim was to ’consider’ these points rather than to draw any fixed conclusion or concrete suggestion for a way of working. Without mentioning specifics of particular situations and circumstances we circled around in some vaguaries citing context, intention, attitude, and frequency as relevant. Sometimes I find it hard to know when Andreas is being serious … a snow-sculpture competition was suggested – teams would compete to make the best snow-sculpture. Having seen the notes he wrote on the kitchen wall on the previous day … “more rules and competition in Art” … I assumed that he was being knowingly provocative and wanting us to realise that collaboration (the residency theme) within the teams would be the most appropriate strategy. What happened next was a surprise – Sorcha, who up to this point had been very quiet, said (correctly) that the kitchen needed cleaning – without skipping a beat everyone immediately stood up and started cleaning and tidying the kitchen! A few necessary words were exchanged and simple questions asked as everyone found something to do and just got on with it – collaboration in action? In less than an hour the kitchen looked better than it had done since we started using it! With that task complete we gathered again. Somehow cleaning had replaced sculpting … as there was no ’winner’ there was a lottery for the three competition-prizes (Supermarket t-shirts).
Kaspars set the next task: to go out to the lake and make individual installations inspired by our experience of the residency. My piece was a black hole through which a far horizon could be seen: materials, found object (car-tyre) and snow. Making it was good fun … I packed and polished snow into the grooves of the ’tread’ and built up snow around the concrete block on which I placed the tyre. It was simple … minimal(?) … and I was pleased with it’s form as well as feeling that it captured a great deal of my time here and what I will take back to my studio.
Sitting on the sofa in the kitchen while Andreas and Matthias made dinner I took out my sketchbook and the pens that I had bought on Thursday. I sketched ideas for new sculptural/installation works – abstracted flag(ish) forms inspired by the pieces from the project presentation – fabric draped over poles pools on the ground/floor, the poles are bowed, bent, or broken, the pieces lean on walls or hang on chains from the ceiling. Some of the fabric is pleated, folded … crafted(?) … some is trimmed with fringe or embroidered. Some of the flag poles are long while others barely extend beyond the fabric. There is a sense of flag but they are not flags. I am excited to get to the studio and start playing with these ideas.
In a bar later that evening Kaspars asked Kristjan, Sorcha, and me if were would be interested in being Black Hole partners – to arrange a residency in our respective home towns/countries. We all agreed and promised to investigate potential venues, funders and supporters. I would be delighted if Uppsala Artists’ Club could host such a residency and I looking forward to proposing it for the upcoming project/process room.
[no internet connection on Saturday morning, and on Sunday I was distracted with other things.]
