Threads

January

We moved house, so the month was taken up with sorting, packing, signing, and taking boxes and bags of stuff to the studio “for now, to keep it safe”… ending up on the top shelves, still waiting for me to deal with! (I still haven’t)

It’s been a busy year, focussing almost totally on the Drawing Songs project.

https://elenathomas.co.uk/drawing/drawing-songs/

In amongst it all has been covid testings, vaccinations, staying in, working from home, working outdoors… it made things more difficult, but I still got things done.

February

Looking back at my diary February seemed to be the month of zooming. After moving house, I needed to refocus on the project. So I had mentoring sessions with Sarah Goudie, chats about the music with Michael Clarke, about the project photography and video with Laura Rhodes.  I also was well supported by my a-n blog writing peers Kate Murdoch and Stuart Mayes, and we started talking about long term/long form blogging, as my tenth blogging anniversary approached.

March

I had my 60th birthday. None of the planned celebrations could happen. I think I had a bit of a slump. But I was kept going by the prospect of the half-way point online show for Drawing Songs, hosted by Glitterball Showroom in Sweden. So chuffed to be asked to be the inaugural online exhibition. It was a great way to assess how things were progressing, I uploaded a few songs in progress, and several drawings… a really good milestone… thank you Stuart!

https://soundcloud.com/elena-thomas/eggshells?si=109e3dc6677c4025ba0615ac34bbb026&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 EGGSHELLS 

April

The Drawn In exhibition was launched, and I hosted a table on The Discussion Festival to discuss it. My table was well attended, and much conversation about mixing up the media and having a broad practice.

It’s Boxing Day, early morning and I’m the only one up. Insomnia strikes less often than it used to, but when it does it is always when I could do with a good night’s sleep.

I feel I need to acknowledge my good fortune in having all my family around me this year, that Christmas has felt like a real celebration not just of the day but of the circumstances. We are together, and we are well. I know other families have not been so lucky.

It’s been a good year, and with the turkey leftovers still in the fridge, and many chocolates left uneaten, I find myself contemplating what to do next. Weirdly I feel the need to draw from observation.  It is a thing I have always done, and the abstractions I draw I think betray this history. But I’ve not really done any for at least a year. I did a little at the start of the very first lockdown in 2020, but that was for different purposes I think. This time I feel it as research. I want to draw twigs and lichen… so today… I think we will all have a wander up to the park to blow away yesterday’s cobwebs… and I will take a bag in my pocket to collect a few things.

December Days

December is always the month where we spend a little time looking backwards to look forwards isn’t it?

This year is made doubly so as I look back at Drawing Songs for my own sake and for the sake of the Arts Council Evaluation form. That is a more formal approach that compares what I proposed to do against what I actually did. Fairly straightforward really.

But in terms of doing it for my own sake, I am looking towards the reactions of my audiences. The drawings are more predictable… I get regular feedback for them, as they appear on social media and are easy to respond to immediately. 

The music however, takes a bit more effort for people to access, a few more clicks, in the right environment, possibly with extra equipment such as headphones. It makes me feel more exposed and vulnerable as most of that making goes along behind closed doors until it’s done – although there have been a few times when I have released a few tastes, that have had positive responses – the release of a whole body of work, 12 songs all in one go, one album’s worth – is a different matter. But people are definitely listening!

I have collected responses, and have been lucky that those who thought negative thoughts didn’t feel the need to express them (to me)!

Here are a few edited highlights:

“Drawing Songs is an intimate collection, embraced by soundscapes”

“interesting, emotive lyrics and atmospheric soundscapes. Plenty of earworms here!”

“evocative and delicate and warm.”

“hypnotic”

“standout vocal performance”

“really interesting songwriting and lovely production”

“the lyrics engaged me immediately and I enjoyed the chord sequences and the way it goes on a bit of a journey”

 “a nice eerie feel to it”

“music that’s patient and takes its time”

“lovely chords when they hit, and such a direct lyric and emotion”

“Arresting space”

“Beautifully disturbing soundscape that emerges and re-emerges”

“This is stunning … Beautiful strong lyrics and production”

“inspired lyrics …Love the soundscape too”

“This is remarkable work”

“Original…breathtaking…gorgeous” 

These comments have come from people I admire and respect, not all of them people who love me and feel obliged, although a couple are! Lovely words thank you xx

So I feel satisfied that these songs have hit their mark, as songs, not just as an accompaniment to the drawings. It is important to me that this is the case, that I have a Venn diagram of work and audience.

 

Some people I know have only looked at the drawings, some have only listened to the songs, but I do have a slowly growing audience of curious people who like to experience both at the same time. As the work was made, so it is starting to be viewed/heard. That feels great, it is what I wanted to happen, and I’m hugely grateful that it is happening.

I have only a few of the limited edition CDs and lyric book packs left. I intend to publish a second edition later, in 2022, to coincide with the digital release of the songs… probably with another installation of the exhibition too.

There are times when the weather cannot deter me from travelling to and being in the studio. I am a woman on a mission and things need to get done and I need to be there to do them. 

And there are times, like this week, when the weather is just an excuse that keeps me from the studio because I’m not really that sure what to do when I get there!

So, in a fit of probable madness, I have decided to open my studio to the public.  After the end of the project and before Christmas, when it is all an absolute TIP… yep that’s just perfect!

But it sort of IS perfect. It will make me tidy up for one thing, clear the decks and so on. It will make me hang some work on the studio walls both as a sales platform, and as a way of reviewing. If I sell a few things it will make space and a bit of cash. I am conscious that while funding is marvellous, it does not create a sustainable model. The costs involved in putting on events and exhibitions are enormous, and unless you are sure of selling loads, they’re not recovered. 

Also, the Open Studio is a bit more laid back. It doesn’t matter really if people come, I’ve got plenty to do if they don’t. If they do it gives me an excuse for a tea break and a chat. The chat then is more wide ranging too, I don’t feel the need to keep it focussed on the project, and neither do my visitors. I shall hang work in a higgledy piggledy manner, not curated as much as arranged on the hooks that happen to be there. 

I feel as if, now Drawing Songs is “finished” (more of this later?) that I am a bit rudderless. I do need to spend time in the studio, but it will be of the tea-drinking, feet-on-the-table sort of time… maybe with a book… maybe not… it might just be time spent scrolling through instagram, looking at pretty pictures. It will be a time to soak things up, let the words and images filter through a little, remember comments, reactions and feedback. 

Formally, of course, I will have to evaluate the project for the Arts Council, and I do intend to get this in before Christmas. That doesn’t hold any fear, I just need to do it. 

I suppose I’m not quite finished, in that Laura Rhodes and I need to sift through all the photos and video and make a story of it all for a short documentary video. I like to do this because it does round things up nicely, and gives me something to refer people to when they ask what the project was about. Hopefully that will be done before Christmas too.

So… back to the bit about Drawing Songs being “finished”… the funds have been spent, the events have happened, the book and CD have been published and the songs have been sung, the drawings drawn. But there are remnants that linger. I have had conversations, been recommended bits of reading and there are artists I need to look up that people have mentioned. I need to go and see art other than my own… And I need to listen to some music other than the 12 songs that were produced for this! There are threads that need to be picked up and followed, and work that can be done, when I am in the right mind to do it. I do have some new paper and ink to have a go at, smaller pieces to try out some new ways of working, to check out new interactions between materials.

I also have some new lyrics… so I need to think about whether they are band songs, or me songs…

Lots to do then, but I think I will wait until this little bit of snow thaws, and until I’ve finished this pile of ironing…

There’s much talk about at the moment about funding artists to just be artists.

There was an article in the Irish Times  saying that Ireland were going to pay a select number of “creatives” around €300 a week https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/it-s-a-game-changer-for-us-artists-welcome-guaranteed-basic-income-plan-1.4699820

And wouldn’t this be just marvellous? To be able to just get on with it. To be honest I’d be thrilled with that amount per month… but to have an amount you could actually live off while you get to grips with building your body of work and your audience in a meaningful way would be mind blowing. It has an immediate impact on the artist, but an incredible effect on our society too, that artists are valued, and contribute to the way we live our best lives.  A couple of days later I saw this cartoon on Facebook and snorted my tea.

There are so many justifications one has to make about audience, and community participation when applying for funding, it’s a real skill writing the bid for art work that doesn’t immediately engage people who don’t usually encounter contemporary art. You know what? I’m 60 years old. I have spent my entire working life engaging children in and out of school, students, rich middle aged women, poor single parents, people with mental health issues, old people in hospitals… I’ve done my community time thanks.

The work I want to make now is mine. I want to intellectually and creatively engage with other artists in order to develop myself. I no longer feel the need to explain my work to an eight year old. I just want to get on with it.

I am extremely fortunate that I can just about financially manage to do this, with occasional very welcome support from ACE, and ongoing support from my family. But a universal basic income would be terrific for my state of mind, my sense of independence, and would extend my scope- I could travel more, and work with the artists I would love to work with, who happen to live in other parts of the country, and the rest of the world. I have these contacts, but am unable to access the opportunities fully.

I somehow doubt this current government would even consider UBI, and as I get older I doubt I will ever see such a thing before my own state pension kicks in. But I can dream right? And keep writing to my (Conservative) MP, and sign petitions…

I’m old enough to remember the one good thing Margaret Thatcher did… the Enterprise Allowance Scheme… which gave self employed people an income to develop their work – including artists, comedians and musicians… maybe I’ll write another letter to my MP, she might listen to a Thatcherite proposal, but I never thought I’d be recommending one!