What Aristotle Did On His Holidays
I’m suffering from Blog Withdrawal Symptoms. As soon as the site is back up and running, I will post, then gasp with relief. Having done this writing at least once a week for the last 3 years, having it pulled out from underneath me feels awful. I seriously think the effects of this downtime on the serial, obsessed blogger has been underestimated. A-N should have set up a 24hr helpline or something!
Anyway…
If it had been up and running, I would have written this. Well I did write it, I just didn’t post it, well, I did, but only just, and not at the time. Timey Wimey…
Artist statements…
I am crap at them. I seem to manage a sort of “What I did on my holidays” crossed with “What Aristotle did on his holidays”. Given this, and my hatred of arty bollocks, I end up deleting, copying, pasting, and starting all over again.
What I have taken to doing, and she doesn’t seem to mind, (or at least she hasn’t said so yet) is I write what I want to say, in all the aforementioned awfulness (I have had to swallow any embarrassment out of necessity), then send it to Franny Swann.
What I would love to be able to do, is write Artist Statements like I blog. But can you imagine what that would be like? Look at the last sentence in the previous paragraph for goodness sake!
Anyway… Franny seems to be able to filter all the dreadfulness through her brain, and write it how I should have written it in the first place. I re-do it a little, so it is my words really, but it is the tone and structure I don’t seem to be able to do. My English teacher would be horrified, but my MA tutor wouldn’t be surprised at all. I think I have worked it out though, I think I know what the problem is. I think it is because I can’t be arsed. I can’t be arsed to apply my brain to something I am perfectly capable of doing. Part of me thinks it is false, pretentious and well… bollocks. But I need to be able to do this. I need to be able to do it unassisted, and get where I want to. I haven’t had enough practice at it. Because I am old, people expect that I can do it efficiently and succinctly. I don’t have enough experience. In my practice, that doesn’t show (I don’t think). But it shows in my statement writing. So, one statement at a time, Franny is teaching me what I should already know, so the join doesn’t show!
Thanks Franny!
