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I have a sitting room full of sleeping, hungover teenagers. They are surrounded by pizza boxes and beer bottles. I have to climb through and over them to get to the kitchen, and the garden, to finish work on my shed. I don’t know that I can quite face it yet…

 

Meanwhile, I look at my diary and my commitments for the coming month. I look at the list of applications I’ve done, and the submissions I have to write.

I don’t really know how I fitted in the proper job! Well, I do really don’t I? because I couldn’t say yes to these opportunities, I didn’t even have the time to discover they existed…. and when I did, I invariably missed the deadlines for submission!

 

My greatcoat – “Blown Away” has two more exhibitions before the end of the summer, in Birmingham, at the Custard Factory for United States of Art (July 4th,  of course) and The National Trust’s Knole House in Kent, for “The Send Off” an exhibition curated by Franny Swann to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War. The new, related work “Daughter” has been made for the Liverpool end of our Colonize adventure. So if you are in Liverpool for the Biennial, do call in at the Arena Gallery to see it, and all the other art too, interesting and beautiful works…

 

*****

 

Having been away from writing this, and come back, the shed is now finished, apart from a fetching length of green upholstery fringing which will be fixed along the edge of the roof. She will need her floor swept and her windows cleaned once she gets into position for LOAF 14 in Stourbridge on 12th and 13th July. Please visit my website for details, or follow the action on Twitter through #LOAF14. If you like live, original acoustic music, cake, quilts and other textiles, drawing, ceramics, and all sorts of surprises, do consider popping along. Seek me out and say hello, it’s a very small venue, it won’t take long! It is a family friendly event and has disabled access to the upstairs gallery and tea shop. By the time the weekend arrives, I am usually exhausted, but once we get going, my stress levels start to settle down, and I can sit with some tea and cake to watch the musicians and poets perform… it always feels like my own private party!

I’m also hoping I will get some time to spend with my long suffering husband, who has a very special birthday that weekend, and I’ve stomped all over it. Thank you Mike, I couldn’t do any of it without you. Happy Birthday!

Stuff happens. That’s life. Some days are great, some days are rubbish… and all points in between.

Whatever your opinions on art as therapy, some days, it’s the only thing that hits the spot.

 

Talking from the artist end of things, I can’t not make art. I can’t not have something close by that I am making. I am thinking about where the concepts came from, working them into my psyche, my view of the world, and my place within it, all the time. When I have had jobs or other parts of my life that take up too much time and the balance is out, I go a little mad, or a lot mad if it goes on too long. I don’t see things properly any more. I become somewhat paranoid, snipey, prickly, angry… self-esteem goes down the toilet. These days, sometimes, I have insight, and I (mostly) see it coming.

 

Immersion is the only answer. Repetitive manual tasks. Haptic reward. Totally engrossed in a task, I disappear, time stops mattering. It can become a little out-of-body… another set of eyes watch my hands in wonder. On days such as these, sometimes, it is physical pain that brings me round again. Six hours straight doing nothing but hand sewing has terrible effects on my tendons. But even then, the euphoria of that mental state makes me want to continue. Addictive behaviour.

 

Despite that… as I slowly emerge from this trance-like state, I do feel healed, balanced, calmer, re-set. I feel it as a rising back to consciousness, slowly awakening from being hypnotised almost. I feel it physically as well as mentally.  There is an element of self awareness, proprioception….

 

I don’t know how I feel about applying “art” to someone else in the name of therapy. But I do know that jobs such as fence or wall painting, brick laying, digging, knitting… all have that haptic reward, the repetitive task that allows the mind to wander off, whilst still being totally engrossed and concentrating on the physical task, these jobs do us good. Many years ago, I worked in an occupational therapy department of a psychiatric hospital. At first, I mocked some of the “creative” projects that people were given, but actually, they had/have value. Concentration, repetition, physical activity. Providing opportunity for the individual to discover in themselves the ability to find that state and heal some things independently, is invaluable.

 

So that’s what I do on the rubbish days. Immerse myself in the mindful mindlessness of the repetitive, the comforting, and the satisfying.

 

When I look at other artists’ work it is this that I love to see… signs of obsession,  the detailed, repetition, pattern, the physical, visual signs that they found it hard to stop.

 

I have adopted an air of “Yes, I can do that!”

Because I am now self employed person.

 

I have also adopted an air of “No, I’m sorry, I don’t do that!”

 

(Edited later to include “I’ve spent a whole bloody day working on this, what do you mean you don’t want it?”)

 

…and of course, the phrase every artist should practice in front of the mirror with immoveable expression “No, I do not work for nothing!”

 

I have had to decide pretty sharpish what sort of work I want to do, and what I don’t. I am seeing this as a sort of spring cleaning exercise now the “proper job” has gone. Get rid of the things I no longer want to be associated with and build on the things I do. Not exactly re-inventing myself, but perhaps re-stating.

The advantage of being paid the correct rate of pay as an artist is that, compared to working in school, I don’t have to do so many hours, I can slow down a little, be selective. It is too easy to panic that I won’t get the work. But so far, so good…

(keeping fingers crossed)

 

This might be a bit of a manifesto then?

 

I don’t want to sell at fairs.

I don’t want to make the stuff that would sell at fairs.

I don’t want to work with very young children.

I don’t want a teaching job.

I don’t want to make stuff that I don’t want to make (so commissioned work is limited).

 

I do want to exhibit all over the place.

I do want to sell from exhibitions.

I do want to work with adults and older children

I do want to be called Elena, not Mrs Thomas.

I do want to make stuff that I want to make, think what I want to think, when it comes to me.

I do want time and space.

 

I do want a residency somewhere… bras… want to talk to middle aged women about bras… anyone out there want me?

 

I do want to deliver this lovely plan I’ve written for activities to do with text and textile, memory and narrative… it’s very flexible in terms of time and target group… anyone fancy it?

 

I believe I can be fairly ambiguous in what I produce visually… and I like that.

Maybe it’s because I’m new at it, but I wasn’t prepared for how songwriting truly reflects your nature… actually, by “your” I mean “my”.

 

I have chosen to spend some time developing the songs. I had a couple of things to prepare for, a couple of deadlines and the like, but now they are over. So I decided these sound pieces and songs and what have you, needed some dedicated concentration.

 

I now have about 8 songs – wow! how did that happen? Three are completely finished and up on soundcloud for anyone to listen to… I’m proud of them! The others are in various stages of completion. A couple are collaborations, and have various levels of input from my fellow Circle members. But if I listen to these songs, I think they have a certain character, a certain me-ness about them. “Well, Durr!” some of you might say… well, yes, but what I hadn’t expected was this feeling that pervades them all. They all have a disturbed, worried nature about the lyrics, and/or what I do with the sounds. The latest one really brought this into focus. We were looking at songs about sex. Great, thought I! Something up-beat, sexy, throbbing rhythm, arousing… ooh yeah baby!

No.

Apparently not.

What I’ve ended up with is this black-widow-eats-mate-serial-killer psycho thriller deal. Not particularly sexy. Quite scary.

I do wonder what it says about me….

I tried to write something cheerful and funny, but it turned to the ashes of cynicism in my mouth, irony and ridicule dripped from every line. Can’t do it.

It has exposed parts of my psyche that I would probably have preferred stayed hidden. My dark side is in my art, it seems. I think I’m quite a cheery, optimistic person on the whole? But I do wonder, if I wasn’t an artist, with the means to express all this, would I be some sort of violent criminal?

 

Not blogging for so long has been interesting, for someone who probably blogs every three or four days.

Marion Michell tweeted she was glad of the break, to reflect (you see we haven’t been able to stay away from social media).

I have been reflecting, but reflecting more on the role of the blog in my work, rather than what I would have been reflecting on, if I’d been able to blog.

On the first anniversary of my blog (I’ve just passed the third) I was interviewed for an article. In it I said this:

AB: This interview marks the first anniversary of your initial Artists talking blog. What motivated you to start a blog and what keeps you interested?

ET: It was actually suggested to me by one of my MA tutors. She was probably thinking I talked too much and needed another outlet for all the whittering on! I thought I’d just write stuff like “Today I went to the gallery and saw… and I thought it was rubbish/excellent”. I wasn’t prepared for the conversation, the sense of community that is here. If I am pondering a piece of work, or full of angst about the way it is being read, I slap up a photo and ask. People seem genuinely interested and understanding about the fact that sometimes you’re not sure. They offer advice, and it helps.

That has been the best thing. It’s that that keeps me interested. At first I wondered what on earth I would blog about, but I don’t seem to have any problems there, there’s always something to say. My practice is a bit all-over-the-place… textiles, drawing, sheds, and recently the sound and music work that I’ve been doing with Dan Whitehouse www.dan-whitehouse.com. Writing the blog has turned out to be a good way of seeing all these disparate parts as a whole.

(The full article is here if you want to read it, but I feel it is a little dated now – a snapshot of where I was two years ago: http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/article/2228643 )

 

That mostly still stands true. But I think the process of writing is actually now more interwoven than ever with my thought processes. The answer above explains the blog as superficial to my practice, an online crit, a networking tool even.

Now, language and thought are closer. They feed each other. I read back my own thoughts and see them more clearly. I write as I speak mostly, which is why some of the sentences are a bit clunky. But I try not to edit that. Sometimes I see the ludicrousness of my reasoning. Sometimes it is pointed out to me (Thanks, Bo, that’s not changed much, although is perhaps less frequent these days?)

I describe my practice above as all over the place. I saw all the bits as separate, but linked by me… I tend to disagree with that now. Whether that is because it has developed, or whether I have thought it through and see it differently, I’m not sure. Now I see my practice as layered and multi-facetted. Each medium I use shows a different angle, with a different voice, but the things I am thinking about run through it all… drawing, stitching, sound and song… the same obsessions crop up over and over.

The pieces/media aren’t separated now, but leech into each other… affected by each other. I think what has helped with this is the year of collaborative work with Bo, thinking about my stitches and their reason for being. One outcome of that process was the discovery about how people (and stitches) affect (infect?) each other, the traces we leave on each other, our strength in numbers. This relatively new feeling about how it works lies easily, stitch alongside sound exactly the same… affected, and each strand made stronger by the presence of the other.

The blog is just part of the big picture. Not merely a record or documentation, but it is another strand, and is the microscope that has helped me see how it all works. The blog is where the understanding lies.