Day 0
Monday and my first day as a full-time artist … and the day before my sabbatical officially begins. I am very excited about the coming year. There are number of concrete … definite …things that I want to do, there are also a number of more abstract things that I want to explore … work out … play with. I want to strike a balance between these predetermined activities – both the concrete and the abstract – and projects and giving space for the spontaneous, the unexpected, the opportunistic, the haphazard, the random.
I am looking forward to working out a routine. I need a routine … a framework … something simple and straight forward that gives the week some structure. I know that this is something that will develop and evolve, it is something that will be pushed, tested, and deviated from but knowing that it is there … even if it is in the background … offers a necessary security and sense of comfort. I find myself returning to the familiar phrase ’structures for freedom’. Simply saying that I will be at the studio every (week)day is a good start … and it is already something that will be deviated from – it is Stockholm Pride this week and I have been invited to share a friend’s hotel room from Thursday to Saturday, so I won’t be here two days this week. And next week it is more than likely that I will work at least one day for Tim – which will be great, it’s been too long since I worked with Tim. The following week I am in Västmanland (the next county) installing over two, possibly three, days and the week after that I am back there for the openings and workshops. With all this activity it is good to know that when not busy elsewhere that I will be here.
A part of my ’being here’ will be spent organising … ordering … sorting out … the studio. I want, and need, to make it an efficient and effective place to work. There is plenty of space … I just need to use it well. That means organising the materials and tools that I use, and recycling – repurposing – or re-homing things that I do not. There are plenty of things that have been in the studio for a while … things brought here from the Enköping studio … from the Stockholm studio!… unused things … that still have appeal but no definite role … perhaps these are the things to be played with … writing now I have the idea to give these things time (three weeks?) in November – set myself the task of turning them in to a live work and/or installation … and present a work-in-progress here at the studio.
I want to explore new ways of working … and to re-engage with ways of working that I have enjoyed previously. To find that place where there is both serious intention and playful improvisation. In my mind I am recalling not only the Black Hole residency but also Frozen Progress (2000), the Goat Island Summer School (Glasgow 1996), and even Tim Miller’s Queer Glow project (Glasgow 1994). It has been in (and on) my mind to make a new chapter in the Following Eugène series – a live work/event seems an appropriate and attractive starting point.
First though to throw myself in to the two train station installations and my going to Juxtapose Art Fair.
