This afternoon I listened to Cajsa von Zeipel’s Summer Show from 2018. Cajsa is a young swedish artist now living and working in New York, the summer show a swedish radio tradition stretching back many years where ’significant’ people are invited to talk about their lives and select accompanying music … kind of like Desert Island Discs without the interviewer (or the Bible, or the works of Shakespeare, or the luxury item).
One of Cajsa’s sculptures caught the attention of the LGBT+ youth group that I am working with in Uppsala. The piece is a recent acquisition at Uppsala Art Museum and while sending some more information about the artist to the group I came across her radio show.
It was fascinating to hear her speak of her time at art school in Stockholm and the New York art scene. Two things really stuck with me: first her tutor telling her that the studio was her universe, and second Cajsa’s resistance to the ’what’s this about then?’ question. The two things got me thinking about my own practice and ways of being, and as a result:
- I am going to (re)claim my studio as my universe.
- I am going to stop asking myself ’what’s this about then?’
Somehow both of these things remind me that I want my own (not shared) studio. They also raise the familiar theme of my being overly concerned about explaining and justifying my work rather than just doing it and letting it be.
Sometimes is feels as though there is a part of my mind that I would like to / need to switch off – that overly analytical critical bit that demands reason and logic where none should be sought. This is a recurring theme for me and one that I know that I have mentioned before. I really do need find a way to over come it, or is that ’to come over it’ …
Whatever it is I want to stop stopping myself from being the artist that I know that I am. I want to trust myself … I guess that I have to be comfortable taking risks … I guess that I have to be comfortable being honest* … and now I am back with some of Cajsa’s words – it’s not the cleverest artists who are successful but those who are the most honest.
* honest with myself about what I do and why!
