Approaching the first anniversary of my move to Stockholm it is not surprising that I am looking back as well as forwards. It is hard for me to believe that this time last year I was packing up my house and dealing with solicitors … so much has happened since then! The question of how to proceed, and what with, has been on my mind this week.
More than being challenging the new Swedish course that I started is (I think) too advanced for me. After much thought I will see if I can change to course that my test results allowed me to ‘jump over’. I have learned that having good results is not the same as having a good grounding in a subject.
The most important thing is that I continue with my practice and get more involved in the art scene here. Last night many of the commercial galleries in the north part of the city opened their first show of the new season. I went on my own and met no one, there was one person that I was introduced to several years ago but he was engaged in an intense looking conversation, other than that I did not recognise anyone. Part of me likes this anonymity and the time it gives me to look at the art and to watch how other people look at it. However my invisibility also reminds me that I am on nobody’s radar and that I have yet to establish friendships that include going to openings. For some reason the people who I know best at the studio are more involved in design and the alternative art scenes than the commercial galleries, though there are several artists at wip with very high profiles in the Scandinavian gallery world.
I keep coming back to the same question: how is it possible to shift from being an artist who showed in alternative non-selling shows to one who shows in a commercial gallery. Sometimes it feels as though I should be drawing up some kind of plan or strategy, other times it feels as though I should just walk into a gallery and introduce myself. I am certain both these approaches have worked for different people.
I remember an illustration in an early a-n publication it showed an artist sitting in a hole in the ground, even their head was below the ground level, the speech bubble above the artist read ‘I am waiting to be discovered’ (or something close to that)*. So what can I do now to be discovered?
· Acknowledge that I want to be discovered!
· Visit galleries outside of opening nights and introduce myself.
· Have an ‘open studio’ event
· Invite people to the studio
· Apply for open shows
· Attend artist’s talks and events
· Organise my own show
· Join an artists’ group
The additional benefit of going to talks and joining a group is that my language skills would have to get better! And I would be learning an artist’s Swedish!
On a more practical note I have started to read about doors. Two interesting things:
1. The Ancient Egyptians painted false doors in tombs as they ‘believed’(?) that these were thresholds between the worlds of the living and the dead.
2. Janus was the Roman god of doors. Janus is the god with two faces looking in opposite directions, thus he sees both past and future. I called an installation of mine Janus – it involved spying into rooms above and below the gallery space.
The quest for a few kilos of silver glitter continues!
* I have just found my battered old copy of Making Ways (1989) and I completely misremembered the illustration! The artist sitting in the hole is waiting for their “next stimulus” and not to be discovered. Never mind, my mistake started me thinking!
