It is (thankfully) the last day of the school holidays and I have this morning found myself contemplating, whilst watching Men In Black 3 at the Odeon Kids Club (a film which really has way more ‘language’ and gory action than I would normally associate with kids club) causing several thoughts to collide into a bit of a Eureka moment.
Last night “How to be an Artist” (Michael Atavar you are a genius) opened at a very precient page, one which talked about how you should not expect to solve your emotional baggage (particularly that created from childhood) in your artwork. I have talke before about the question of how to reveal things in work that you would rather not reveal and whether a pseudonym was the answer or whether the analysis of a work really resides within the viewer’s interpretation. I have also talked about my many unfinished/unmade/unresolved works.
I realised today that one of the main issues in my life/work resides in the fact that I am an only child who has three children (two of whom are boys) and that if you grow up with siblings, you develop some kind of resilience or coping strategy to deal with the constant (or is it just my family?) and eternal fighting, bickering and general confrontary. As an only child I find the whole thing to be emotionally and physically exhausting.
What I am now wondering is
a) am I making my work to try to express this whole female experience (as I thought)
or
b) am I trying to escape from it by naming and disempowering and thereby conquering?
I have no idea, but I am bloody glad the little darlings are going back to school tomorrow.
