I can’t sleep tonight, despite being so tired that my eyes keep closing without consulting me first. Yet although my body wants to close down for the night, my mind has other ideas. If it is not doing re-runs of todays events its off gathering random thoughts from dark places.
Meanwhile a small voice is whispering doubts into my ear.
Why am I putting myself through this? Is it worth it? Whatever made me think I could do this?
They are, or course, rhetorical questions that I will have forgotten about next week or perhaps even tomorrow. But for tonight, after a bad day, they keep me awake and wondering why I didn’t chose to study something that has clear cut answers and does not rely on the subjective judgements of others.
If there is such a thing. (Only this evening someone told me that 2 +2 is not necessarily 4 as I had always belived, but can sometimes be 3.)
I am still stressing about the ‘It’s not a bit like the Waltons’ piece. Or rather I have returned to stressing about it after a brief delusion that I had reached a resolution and produced something I was pleased with. Having previously suffered from this particular delusion, I should have known better.
This week has been our Interim exhibition and there has been some very interesting work shown. I have really enjoyed seeing the various directions taken by my colleagues and speculating on the possible shape of our final exhibition.
Today was my groups seminar. Although I was nervous about showing the latest incarnation of the ‘Walthons’, I was also convinced that I had ‘cracked it’ so to speak.
It received, what I can only describe as a ‘mixed reception’. The comments from my peers were generally positive . Sometimes in the past I have had a problem with ‘activting’ my work. It has needed me to explain or to give some kind of background information. This was not the case today. I was pleased with the responses and interested in the new or extrapolated readings, possibilities that I had not been aware of. Especially as at least two of the audience had no previous knowledge of my work so were looking at it with fresh eyes.
So far so good. Just as I began to relax…
I can’t remember either of the two tutors present saying even one positive thing. Every comment was about completely changing what I had done. One of them has previously been interested in my use of text and especially lists. Today one of them dismissed the text completely and wanted it got rid of entirely. Gone was all the previous discussions of ‘integration’ and the talk was all of ‘sculptural form’. I feel utterly demoralised.
