There was a feature on the radio about new film celebrating the life and achievements of education reformer Anna Whitlock. Listening while making breakfast my mind wandered to who I might make film about … Eugène Jansson of course! I vaguely remembered someone once mentioning an old documentary about him so I turned to the internet to see if I could find it. I could not find the film but for some reason the search picked up the 1983 sale of Ring Gymnast Nr 2 (1912). The work was purchased by the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Detroit? … It struck me as an odd coincidence that less than a week after speaking with artists from Detroit Stockholm, that Detroit would be ringing in my ears again. The Detroit Institute of Arts seems to be one of the few museums outside of Sweden to have a work by Jansson in their collection. If I am successful in getting a show at Detroit Stockholm one of the pieces that I imagine showing will be a development of Eugène’s rings (2019) that I am currently working on for the Uppsala show (January 2021).
I have never seriously considered making a film before, however the idea of making one about Eugène Jansson is very appealing. It would be beautiful with both his earlier blue nocturnal landscapes and the later athletes training and modelling in his studio. Add the twinkling water of the navy bath-house, dinners and maskerade parties at Thiels’ villa, the 1912 Olympics games, Eugène’s flair for dandyism and his relationship with Knut and it could be a sumptuous piece of cinema. Thinking about it makes me want to re-watch Derek Jarman’s Caravaggio.
Glitter Ball’s first project – the open call Wish You Were Here! digital postcard show is up and running. I really like the range of images and I am intrigued to find out more about the artists who I do not already know. Some of the ’new’ artists (most of whom come from the UK) I guess found the announcement here on a-.co.uk which reminds me that I must put up a listing for the show here too. With physical shows at the showroom simply not viable with the current social distancing guidelines this online exhibition goes further than I had imagined in achieving my ambitions with Glitter Ball. Within hours of letting the participants know that the show was up I was receiving emails saying how excited and pleased they were to be involved and how interesting they found each other’s work. One of the artist/curators almost immediately expressed an interest in another artist’s work – it is wonderful to think that something might come out of that!
At the Superlocal meetings last weekend questions of audience were raised. A successful and well regarded artist/curator said that she focusses on other artists as her audience and to do anything else would be a hiding to nothing (I am paraphrasing). She made a valid point, and one that is often shied away from. Artists are a valid and important audience for artists. Why do we too often feel so bad about admitting that we want to engage with our peers? No one expects a sportsperson or team to ignore their peers and only focus on what the spectator want to see. Rather the spectator is welcomed in to see what the person or team does in the context of their peers. Admittedly the analogy is perhaps at best a stretch so I’ll pause it there. The point is that interesting and inspiring things happen when peers get together. And in some small way that seems to be what Wish You Were Here! has done. Through the project I have caught up with old friends and met new faces, all of whom (indirectly) encourage me to keep doing what I am doing both in terms of Glitter Ball and my own practice.
Note to self: stop resenting the time it takes to sort, tidy, clean, and maintain the studio. It is all part of what being an artist is and it is counterproductive to think that it could be otherwise. Not to say that it is not frustrating to spend precious studio hours doing something other than making art. However that is how it is, and without those hours the studio would soon sink into chaos. If I really want more making time at the studio perhaps I had best look at how I spend my time outside of the studio! Where do I fritter away time and energy that might be spent making? Recently I have been wondering what kind of artist do I want to be. Or to put it another way: I have been wondering if knowing what I am doing and why might be beneficial. I think it would be good to know what my principal aim is. Hard though it may be to choose just one I am sure that it would reap rewards. My principal aim will never be my sole activity, it would (should?) however be my guiding line. For too long I have had too many simultaneous aims vying for my attention, this of course makes it difficult to assess the relevance of ideas and opportunities, and thus I say yes to too many things resulting in me achieving a little of everything but nothing of significance. My principal aim has to be specific and measurable. My homework is to identify and commit to one aim. That should enable me to put other activities and ideas into context.
