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 …
