Project Me

My thoughts are hopping between a myriad of different projects and topics. These projects and topics range widely in terms of scale and proximity: some large and immediate, some large and distant, some small and distant, others small and immediate. If I am honest with myself then I should probably admit that there is too much going on … and that I am in this position, which I am sure that I share with many artists, because the things that I prefer/need to do do not provide an income, so a rather substantial percentage of my week is spent doing something that provides me with a salary. At the same time I think that I might be expecting myself to achieve things as if I were a full-time artist. The reality of having a fractional permanent job is that I can only be a fractional artist … and I do not know how to do that!

I have to remember that these are extraordinary times, and that this is too contributes to the irritation that I am feeling. Or perhaps the irritation is felt more acutely because of these extraordinary times – ’corona as amplifier’ – making me more aware of things that I already felt and knew.

It is almost the end of August – a month that all but disappeared in a flurry of workshops, projects, meetings, discussions, tasks, and deadlines. All of which, save one, would have been far more enjoyable had they not piled upon each other causing some to get crushed, others to be eclipsed, and even those at the top of the pile were not particularly well balanced. Perhaps I am being hard on myself … but I know that I can do better, and that I want to do better, so I get frustrated with myself when my enthusiasm overtakes my capacity.

Needless to say I have not had time for reflection through the lens of writing. And now I wonder what to do with those snatched moments of thought and analysis along with half remembered responses and ideas triggered by seeing so many shows while on holiday in southern Sweden. I think that I need to accept that those moments have passed, and I need to trust that anything vital will still be with me.

I (easily) allow others to make demands on my time. Why do I not allow myself the same? I say that my practice is important but I am not convinced that I demonstrate it.

In addition I find it so much easier to account for my time when I assign it someone, or something, else. I wish that I could shake this need to account for myself, especially as I know that it is a purely internal circuit/monologue – dialogue(?). I am pretty sure that asking why I feel the need to justify and rationalise how I spend my time to myself could keep me in therapy for years.

So do I accept that that is how things are and do my best to get on with it? Or do I put my spanner in my works and see if I can break my machinery and rebuild it better?

A bit of an aside: I wonder if my overly zealous account giving works against me when making certain award and grant applications. Could I be spending too long trying to work out how to justify and account for the award (should I get it) that I put lead shoes on the actual idea or project – that wonderful little spark of a thing that needs love and nurture.

This morning it dawned on me that I might have had the emphasis on the wrong syllable (as my old German teacher used to say). Suppose it is not the listening to the Swedish language on the radio that is filling my head and distracting me, suppose it is the content of the broadcasts.

It must be twenty years or so ago that realised that waking to Radio 4’s Today programme and listening to it until I got to the studio made it very hard for me to create anything beautiful or wonderful (I mean literally full of wonder). It is possible that as I approach ten years of living here that I understand far more than I give myself credit for. And as a consequence the hourly news summaries, the political interviews, and the investigative features of Swedish Radio’s P1 morning programme are having the same effect on me now as the Today programme did all those years ago.

Three, or even ’just’ two, hours of hearing the worst of what is happening in the world seems to take me longer to digest than the twenty-four hour cycle between my mornings. I get caught in a never ending loop of anger, frustration, despair, and disappointment.

Suppose that it is this mind set that takes time. Even if it does not directly take time, it takes my mind to another place from which it takes more time to arrive at that fantastic creative place. The distance is not just between reality and fantasy, rather it is between a particularly dystopic, disfunctional, often violent and or cruel reality and the world that I strive to create in, and for, my practice.

It is time, I think, to stop listening to the radio news … again!

This is not unrelated to my current feeling about my paid employment – that it too takes me too often to places of frustration, annoyance, disappointment, and irritation from which it takes too long to get to places of creativity, fantasy, imagination, and wonder. I hope that this has been the direct and indirect result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that it will swiftly lessen as things open up again over the coming autumn. That said I will be keeping my eyes open for residency opportunities and will definitely be applying for the ’working artist awards’ that are given here every year … that way I could put paid employment on pause for a while too!

There is so much going on! Despite it being July – month when Sweden is on holiday – I seem to be as busy as usual … so it is just as well that I am on holiday from my half-time job otherwise I would not have time to get anything done.

I love having things going on, however I have allowed myself to get to that point where I am simply running from one to the next without really having time to do anything properly. I do not think that it the first time that I have identified that the problem is somewhat logistic and/or financial. I am starting to do things now that I was not able to do in the last few months due to my paid employment – employment that I cannot afford to give up because most of the other things that I do are underpaid or done with no guarantee of return (financial or artistic).

I know that I need time … that my fantasy needs time to come forth. I want to be better at giving myself time. Time, as they say, is precious and I think that I am worth it. I also want to be better at giving my friends and colleagues time … a course in time management perhaps?

Today – my first official holiday day – has been spent at home restoring some order on and around the table that I work at in the living room. It is a relatively modest table and easily becomes laden with paper, books, pens, pencils, the hole punch, the stapler, the little device for logging in to my online bank account, my diary, a sketchbook, a discount voucher from a supplier, articles torn from various arts magazines. It is the evening and the table surface is not yet clear. The chest of drawers beside though has no clutter on or around it. The floor immediately adjacent to the living room door is clear for the first time this year.

Often I have the radio on when I am at home. Today however the radio has been silent and it feels as though I have had more time. Of course that is not possible and hour with the radio off is the same length as an hour with the radio on … right? Maybe not! Or rather maybe it is not the same kind of hour. I listen to the radio to improve my Swedish, which I believe is certainly does. What it may not improve is my ability to focus in other things at the same time. In fact it seems to have the opposite effect. The radio (or the language) commands so much of my attention that I can complete only the simplest of other tasks while listening. This is where I might be losing time. Whilst clearing and sorting in silence today I found myself thinking about things that I need to do and working through different ways and schedules for do them. As the day closes I feel calmer about my to do list than I did this morning although I have not actually tackled anything on the list.

I feel certain that I will achieve a good number of things tomorrow now that both some physical and mental space has been cleared. I know nothing about the relationship between space and time but by making space I feel as though I have made time. And that is what it is about isn’t it – making time for things.

Suddenly one day last week a (’the’?) perfect title for the piece(s) that I am working on came to me – Rest.

I was not thinking about a title at the time, I was just quietly getting on with neatening collars for that part of the work.  At the moment I am considering that the work is one piece with two parts: one part collars, and one part cuffs – two companion pieces that together are a whole.

The cuff part is complete, all the cuffs have been neatened and buttoned together.  They are in the order that I unpacked them – only occasionally in pairs … I have not checked to see if they all have a partner.  French (double) cuffs and cuffs with press-studs rather than buttons are in a separate stack as they cannot be included in the length of buttoned cuffs.  I sat for while looking at the piece … I like it … I do not understand it.  it is a once playful and melancholic, it hints at bunting at the same as being rather sad.  The range of tones is quite extensive however seen en-masse they seem subdued.  Perhaps it is the piece’s stillness that lends it a somewhat mournful attitude.

Rest captures something of this quietness.  It suggests pause after action.  It also refers to something that remains – ”what about the rest of it?”.  Rest in Swedish means remains or scraps: matrest – food scraps, tygrest – fabric scraps.  That the word works in both languages makes it even more apt.

There are significantly more collars than there are cuffs.  I wonder why … perhaps some cuffs got lost in passing the material from one person to another (I do not remember ever asking Elena who she got them from), perhaps some cuffs got used along with the bodies of the shirts in the patchworks.  The pointed tips of each collar give that piece quite a different feeling – almost more mechanical, as though it were some kind of drive-chain – the angular tips having engaged with cogs or wheels and driving them on as part of a larger machine.

Buttons or collar stiffeners sometimes reveal the make of the shirt, most though are unbranded.  Nor is the fabric known, most feel to be cotton or a cotton blend.  Some immediately seem out of fashion, the proportions or design details suggesting a garment from the early 00s, the 90s or even the 80s.  Others are timeless – simple checks in beige, brown, and green that might equally be from the 50s as from last year.

As I have mentioned before I am very aware that the form the pieces have taken is informed(?) by the studio in which they were made.  I did not consciously decide not to unpack all the material when the parcels arrived at my studio in Enköping well before I had even thought of asking about studios at Hospitalet.  Could I have subconsciously known that the material needed another kind of space in which to shine?  I have plenty of other unused materials in Enköping but for some reason something made me take those packets of collars and cuffs to the new studio.  I do not need to know why or how.  Some things do not need to be, and cannot be, analysed they just are as they are.

I do not know why the work came to be, nor why its name came to be, but it has and it did, and for that I am very happy!

What a difference a week, or two, makes! As if I needed reassurance that I enjoy hands-on doing the four day ’art camp’ (non-residential!) and five days of distributing ’art-bags’ demonstrated to me just how detrimental six months of computer-based working from has been for me.

In addition I also realised just how much my paid employment affects my own practice. Or perhaps more accurately how much how I feel about my paid employment affects my own practice. Without being conscious of it six months of working in a way that does not suit me has had a significant impact on what has happened, or rather what has not happened, in the studio. It should not have come as a surprise that my mood at work seeped in to my abilities to be creative and playful but it has. It feels very good to have had this realisation. It is something that I am determined to bear in mind after the summer break. I have already begun planning Creative Saturday 2.0, and activities for both the half-term and Christmas holidays. After my holiday I will return to working at the office – I have missed my colleagues and the inspiration that I get when talking something through with them, it is just not the same in a video meeting.

I found myself longing to be a participant in the art camp workshops, and on the receiving end of an art-bag. The studio – my two studios! – provide more than sufficient opportunities and materials to replicate both situations. With that in mind I feel myself much invigorated!

Quite separately (or perhaps not) I have been thinking about compromise. What I previous considered to be a sign of failure might actually be a route to accomplishment and success. It is something that I want to understand better and learn to embrace … use … enjoy!

compromise 1 n. settlement of dispute by mutual concession; intermediate way between conflicting courses, opinions, etc. 2 v. settle (dispute) or modify (principles) by compromise; bring (person or oneself) under suspicion or into danger by indiscreet action; make a compromise. [F f. L (promise)]
The Pocket Oxford Dictionary, seventh edition, 1984

concession n 1 the act or an instance of conceding. 2 a reduced price or fare for people in certain categories. 3 a grant of land, property, or a right made in return for services or for a particular use. 4a a small shop or business that is allowed to operate on the premises of a larger business. B the right to operate such a concession.

concessionaire n the owner or beneficiary of a concession
The Penguin English Dictionary. 2002

On first reading dictionary definitions seem to bear out my negative reaction to the term. Second and more considered readings make me wonder if I have simply had the wrong intonation. Focus on the settlement, the mutual, and the intermediate way rather than on the dispute and the conflicting course, opinions, etc.

Interestingly the Swedish dictionary defines ’kompromiss’ as 1 mutual agreement, a levelling out, a middle way, a place halfway between two things or places; 2 arbitration, award. In verb form 1 to take a middle way between different suggestions, 2 to be met halfway.

I appreciate this considerably more positive view of compromise – no mention of disputes, or conflicts, or suspicions, or putting things in danger, or indiscreet actions. I am not unaware of the potential for compromise to flatten things out to such a degree that they become banal but acceptable. I hope for compromises that retain sufficient integrity on all sides to keep them vital and vibrant.

What does this have to do with art … with my art … my practice?
Well I am realising that it might be smart to think about how to meet people halfway, and by people I mean galleries, museums, funding bodies, and the like. For all my interest in accessibility, inclusivity, and social engagement I can be very bad at making compromises that might enable me to move closer to my goals – ’my way or the high way’ is pretty meaningless when you have no authority. It is also a somewhat aggressive and egotistic stance.

If I want to make a living from my practice, and I do, then I still need to take in to account other peoples needs. I will very likely have to make compromises, and it has to be better to see this a positive and mutually beneficial process. Ultimately compromise is about not being so selfish, it is about building healthy relationships, respecting other points of view, learning to adapt … it is about belonging in, and to, a society.

I think that making good and appropriate compromises is a skill. And one that I want to learn!