Project Me

Unblocked

This afternoon I sent an email to the Local Government Ombudsman, attached to the email was my account of my dissatisfaction with the management capabilities of Lambeth council. It’s a great relief to have finally sent it. The account (report?) has taken me far longer to write than I anticipated, and in the end it was 17 typed pages of more than 10,000 words.

But a truly amazing thing happened about a week ago. The afternoon after I started actually writing up the final version of my report I was travelling in to town on the train and suddenly I found myself thinking about new things I want to play with and make, about experiments with materials and forms, about being creative …

The weeks prior to this I found myself waking up most mornings rehearsing phrases for the report, wondering whether I should describe the council’s planning application drawings as simply ‘wrong’ or be more generous and say ‘inaccurate’. The first few moments of many days over the New Year were spent reminding myself to check through all my ‘sent’ emails to make sure of chronology, or wondering just how many inconsistencies in information I should point out (are they ‘inconsistencies’ or ‘discrepancies’?)

The amazing thing is that once the (bad) stuff actually came out of me, once I’d given it form, it seemed that a lot of backed up (good) stuff was given a way out too. It’s a really good lesson for me, especially as I’m sometimes someone who can put off dealing with the ‘bad’ stuff. So I must remember that not only does the bad stuff have to come out, the sooner the better! And as an old tutor of mine once said “Don’t get it right, get it done”.

It’s great to feel like this again, I was beginning to wonder if coming back to Stockholm wasn’t such a good idea, if the impetus and enthusiasm I experienced last summer had gone. Now I know it’s not the case.
The ideas I’ve had are a development of things that started during the residency. I’ve also been thinking about how I can start to do things without having such a studio.

I guess that getting that report out of me, sitting down at a table, going through three years of frustrating and fruitless correspondence, turning it in to a well constructed argument and giving it form of its own, has freed up a considerable amount of space. Space, which as soon as it appeared, began to fill up new creative and artistic ideas. It might be foolish to even mention these ideas before they have any form, but I’m really excited about the ideas and now I have the motivation to find the means to make them happen.

And it’s not only me that’s been ‘unblocked’, my flatmate sent me the camera to computer cable I left in London, so I unblocked my camera too.

Stockholm II

It’s very strange for me to think that the still very deep and remarkably white snow that lies on the ground might be here until February. I have to remember that here snow doesn’t mean that everything comes to a stop. There might be snow but life goes on.

After nearly two weeks of festivities today is a regular working day. What does that mean to me?

It means that I can’t continue to behave as if I’m on holiday. It means that I have to start work, and my first job is working out what ‘work’ means for me, here and now, in Stockholm without a studio …

Work can be:
• meeting with the artists who I met at wip:sthlm studios last year
• updating my website
• visiting galleries
• starting to make new work
• looking for some paid employment
• looking for exhibition and residency opportunities
• offering to give talks to art students
• putting together some kind of portfolio (some to complement my website)
• creating somewhere to make work in my room

There are at least two definite things coming up – the Market and Supermarket Art Fairs. Alex (artist/director at wip) is back from her holiday next Monday and I want to meet with her to talk about how I can be involved in wip’s presence at Supermarket. I’m also looking forward to catching up with Anneli and Karen.

I still want to write a short report about my residency – for me as much as for them.

Most of today has however been taken up with laundry and composing a letter to Lambeth Council about the on-going window replacement saga. Tomorrow (Tuesday) is a ‘half day’ in Sweden and the sixth (Wednesday) is a ‘red day’ (the Swedish equivalent of a bank holiday). It’s the twelfth day of Christmas and as in the UK it’s the day for taking down all Christmas decorations, but there must be more to it than that to warrant a national holiday. I’ve been invited to a late lunch tomorrow and I have a ticket for the opera on Wednesday afternoon. So this week is a little disrupted too … at least it gives me a good chance to think about work for next week …

I want to thank everyone who has got in touch with me about this blog. I really appreciate your comments and encouragement – THANK YOU and all the best for 2010

Leaving the studio

This afternoon I’m going to sort out the final few things left in the studio. It’s mainly things for recycling and the charity shop, Sue wants to buy the lights and Derek wants the microwave.

I’m starting to feel nervous again. Am I doing the right thing?
I need to do something and taking another three months in Stockholm is too good an opportunity to pass up. Perhaps what is daunting is the realisation that I am in control of my life again. Feeling nervous is okay. I’m making a positive decision to try something new and that’s got to be good.

It’ll be good to be away from London. I get very cynical here and often find it hard to muster the necessary energy and enthusiasm. Doing something new is exciting, and I want some excitement! It doesn’t really matter what happens, the important thing is that I’m making ‘something’ happen.

As I said to myself years ago:
Learn from the past
Live in the present
Believe in the future

(After all I’ve said about the state of the studio -the actual fabric of the building – it feels a bit odd to mention it but … if anyone is interested in a very friendly cheap studio in south east London get in touch and I’ll pass on the landlord’s details …)

Back in London …

Today I sent the landlords my notice on the studio. I’ve also started to sort out what I want to keep and what I can throw out or re-cycle. This afternoon I recycled two big Ikea bags worth of art theory – and it felt GREAT! When I say art theory I mean photocopies of articles and chapters that I read for my MA – over 12 years ago, I can’t remember ever reading them again – though the titles were still familiar. Why was I hanging on to it? I realise that I must have moved it around London quite a lot between studio and home moves.

I also greatly reduced the amount of paperwork I’d kept from previous shows. I had folders full of correspondence and notes regarding performances made in art centres and with groups that don’t exist any more. How many copies of a programme or flier should one keep?

Which led me to wonder if I should put images of very old work on my website or not. It’s been interesting for me to see what I was making ten or 15 years ago, and I can see a connection with what I made on the residency. But do I want it on the website? Perhaps it is worth putting up some images. So long as I stick to the reverse chronological order it would only be people who are really interested who would ‘find’ them, and, they would be there if I wanted to direct someone to them.

One of things I noticed about the work I made in Sweden was the connection to work I made before John got ill. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that there is much more similarity between the art I’ve made either side of John’s illness. The plates and cake tins from Sweden feel closer to the chairs, traffic cones and hot water bottles of older work.

Looking at what materials I had in the studio, after three months away, I realise that I had quite a few things that refer (directly) to John’s illness; the urine bottles, syringes for liquid food, plastic aprons and latex gloves as well as things that I ‘dumped’ at the studio when I had to clear his house; a blanket chest, large cushions from the day-bed, crockery, towels, a set of wire drawers. It feels like the right time to put away the urine bottle work and even the pieces I made from his shirts. It feels like time to get rid of unused materials that remind me of how awful things became.

John isn’t ‘in’ those things, and the John I want to remember certainly isn’t! So it is with much relief that I’m getting rid of things that are too much part of that time. John had an amazing lust for life, and in my own way I feel as though I’m regaining mine …

Open Studio & End of wip:sthlm residency

The Open Studio evening was good and I’ve had very good feedback about my presentation. It’s really nice that other artists as well as family and friends have said how much they enjoyed hearing me talk about the work and the residency.

It was only when I was packing up on Friday that I realised that the last day of the residency (the last day of October) is All Saints Day. It feels significant because All Saints Day in Sweden is the day when people remember the dead. It felt particularly significant for me because of John, and how my being here now, of being able to do the residency, is because of my relationship with him.
In many ways the end of the residency feels like the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. It feels like the start of something new in terms of my work. New materials, new ways of working, new ideas, new confidence, new opportunities. I don’t think I want to work with things such as the urine bottles anymore – they belong to the past. And I don’t think I want to ‘think out’ work before I make it anymore. It feels as though I can start working with things that I don’t understand, things that are just what they are. (I’m not sure what I’m writing makes sense but I need to write it anyway.) It feels as though I don’t need to hold on to things quite so tightly, that I can ‘let go’ a little and let things breath again. It feels as though things can live again.

And somehow it feels like the start of something new in terms of my life. Hampus came with me to John’s grave and that felt right too. Perhaps it felt alright because it was All Saints Day. Perhaps because everyone is visiting graves and everyone is remembering those they’ve lost that the whole thing felt more shared and less personal – and that’s a good thing. It made it easier for me to do something I thought I would find a lot harder, it let me remember the past at the same time as embracing the future.

I have a lot to be thankful for and it’s good to remember that.
It’s also good to remember that life is for living and enjoying …