Yesterday was the first session of the second phase of the Artist Teacher Scheme. We met at the School of Art in Margaret Street, and looked at the MA final show before sitting down in the basement to share some of our 100 pieces of work and talk.
I’m still attempting to get my head round what it is that I’m trying (struggling) to express, and I have no idea where I’m going with this, or what my practice will look like when I finally manage to locate it… all I can say is that I feel like an avalanche has been released in my brain (not that it was an tidy and uncluttered place beforehand) and I am frantically trying to capture thoughts and ideas and write stuff in my notebook and record things, and try to find ways to record things I’ve never even thought about before – trying to catch hold of it all before it is carried off like a wisp of smoke in the wind.
This afternoon I suddenly decided to wallpaper a large piece of packing cardboard that has been sitting in my living room for several weeks. Don’t ask me why. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with the bloody thing when I’ve finished it – it’s actually too big to fit anywhere. I am veering between amused exasperation with myself, and a niggling sensation that this is something to do with the emergency blanket piece that I’m trying to make for Sketchbook Circle. It’s about the physical expression of the process, the reflection of the self, the idea that it was inside me all along and all I had to do was look… or something.
Something below the surface is fidgeting to be let out, and all of a sudden that doesn’t frighten me. All of a sudden I think I want to take a look.
