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I have my own little in/out struggle going on. How to make another leap of faith, when the obstacles are mainly within myself?

I’m kind of stuck.

Because I presently have no studio my work seems to have halted in some aspects. The idea I was working on no longer seems valid. No other idea has taken its place. (Worth saying though, songwriting is thriving)
I currently have no income… End of year sessional visiting lecturer anguish. If the students don’t sign up there isn’t a course. If there isn’t a course I don’t get paid. Simple. But I cannot financially commit to a new, lovely big studio without the income to pay for it.
Thing is, in the scheme of things I know that it is a small amount of money, this is a good deal… If the money was sat in an account somewhere I’d have already said yes and I’d be in by now.
I’ve been told off by the usual special friend who tells me off. I’m a spoilt brat who is whining and moaning and I should just say yes! Say in! And get on with it. I think he has more faith in me than I do. (In many other respects too I suspect)
So, having been told off, I come home and brood a bit. I would rather swear at him and have a bit of a strop. But I have learned that even if it makes me angry, even if I ultimately decide he is wrong, he usually has a point. And sometimes he is playing devil’s advocate just to make me see it. Anyway I digress….

In a different part of my world, I did say yes to something that now, I see I perhaps should have said no to. But I don’t think I would have seen that had I not said yes. Seeing it has been useful.

I’m in some sort of mid art career crisis. Is this a thing? The sort of things I am able to do easily are no longer the things I want to do. I moved out of my old studio because it was no longer the place for me. I had done everything they could conceive of me doing… The things I wanted to do next I think worried them. I have ambition (scarily, I think that is what it is I feel). I didn’t need more square feet, just more space. But in my stroppy tantrum spoilt brat way, I walked out without another space to go to. This is a bit of a habit. I don’t intend it, but that’s what happens.
So far, it has worked out. But one day, maybe this day, it might not. I might have shot myself in the foot one last time…although I have thought that sometimes someone else has handed me the gun and ammunition.

So what I’d like to ask, if anyone is still reading this, is how do I do the next bit? How do I move from the parochial, the hire space, the local….(I’m not counting the very occasional group project that does marvellous things and gets me to foreign climes….)

How do I get further? I’m stuck.

Looking back, which I have been able to do from quite a good vantage point this week, I’ve come a long way in the last six years or so… But it’s not enough. I have more to do and more to say. And I want to do so in places which broaden and deepen the audience… Which would challenge my internal and external discourse and would make the work stronger.

Am I stuck?

 

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It was Sonia’s idea, and as I write that, it sounds accusatory “She did it, not me!”

I wish it had been my idea. But if it had, it would be a different thing… I am talking about the Museum for Object Research. I think, had it been me, it would not be quite as broad, or as thought provoking, or as deep. I think, if it had been me, I wouldn’t now be thinking about how to make it real. If it had been my idea it would have been “Ooh look at all these things!” Rather than “Why do we do this?”
Since the Museum started, it has poked at me, made me think properly. Some episodes have lived on, casting a light on my own work choices. The Policeman’s Bicycle is going to stay with me forever, as it weaves itself in and out of my thoughts. Touch. Affect. Memory. Forgiveness. Love. Resentment. Bitterness. Hope. Influence.

I am aware as I think about the Museum, that it has an influence on how I look at the objects I work with. I feel them, examine, disentangle the real evidence from the invented narrative. I am aware, as I sit with Sonia in real rooms, rather than virtual spaces, that this slow-grow friendship and also the burgeoning professional collaboration, has influenced my work hugely, and added value to it. It is for these reasons that I think the Museum is important enough to warrant bringing into the real world. We need research, work, discussion, creativity, laughter, and mutual support between artists that look upon the object as more than materiality. We talked of a pause to refuel. We work on these things, repeat patterns, but sometimes I make little progress in terms of the concept. I am hoping that we get the whole thing flying, because I have this feeling that it has the potential to stir things up, move it all up a notch, open up debate, leave a legacy for other artists and researchers to build upon.

So we have started, and in the absence of my studio, I have a focus for my thoughts. I have a spreadsheet, notes, lists, and large bits of paper with bright felt pen exclamations.

There will be twelve of us in the end… Making, Exhibiting, Writing, Thinking, Discussing.
I’m excited about the prospect of really getting dirty in all of it. Scratching about in my own practice, digging up the past, and infecting the future with the germs we discover.

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What I should really be doing is getting ready to go to work.
Putting my face on so I don’t scare the children.

What I find myself doing is stretching my feet across the coffee table, slurping tea and contemplating the narratives available to me through making certain choices: I want to submit some work to Wolverhampton’s Junction festival this summer. I would like to select a few bras. Of the ten I made, one is pinned to Dan’s studio wall, one is destined to be submitted to the Jerwood, and one is in a glass case at Mac Birmingham.

I would like to choose a combination that perhaps could tell a different story. By picking the right ones, I could change the tale… Or place a focus on a small part of the bigger picture.

And so I make myself a list of what I’ve got….

Sister

 

Tweak

 

Pom-Pom

 

Daughter

 

Bandaged

 

Eve

 

Fuck off

So, I need to select a few to tell a story…

 

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I’m sat at the table with (most of) the contents of the studio still piled behind me in boxes, but with a slow seepage… now and then I shout “Where are my heavy pinking shears?” and I go diving in.

I also was desperate to use my favourite mug, last seen in the box at the bottom of the heap…

“Can you just hold this box while I lean across to fish out the guillotine please?

This has happened so frequently I now am beginning to doubt why the boxes are still there, I could just unpack and be done with it. But that seems defeatist… I WILL FIND ANOTHER STUDIO!!!

The rest of the house is a bit of a tip too. The blossom has fallen and browned, and has been walked through the entire house from washing line to ironing pile to wardrobe. To be honest there seems no point in vacuuming until it has been swept up from the garden. I can’t sweep the garden because I’ve just put the washing out.

So, while this domestic state of affairs slides into chaos, I decide the things that REALLY NEED to be done are bits of decorative painting. I have a small collection (3) of mosaic birds on the wall, that definitely needed a tree to roost in. So to my husband’s horror, I just did it. I had been thinking about it for a while, but I don’t think I had actually mentioned it, so when I entered the room brush in hand, and plonked a tea towel over the cd player (playing Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie and Lowell) he did look a little concerned. But my fingers itched and twitched with the need to do it. I told him it wasn’t going to look like a nursery school mural (which in a previous existence I have done). He returned to his quivering newspaper and pretended to finish the sudoku.

It looks ok… I might wash over a bit of it… scrub it back a bit maybe… but I’ll live with it a while.

The itch not quite scratched, I look around for the next thing. Being a couple of a certain age (we got married in 1982) we have a few items of nicely oranged pine furniture. Functional, but not of much design merit really. So I painted it green. It now sits on top of the dining/studio table waiting for me to decide whether it should be a tasteful sort of nod at old Bill Morris, or whether I should go the full paisley with stripy legs… or fish and feathers….

What I really need is a studio. I need a proper routine of deep thought. In the meantime I shall have a pretty new table, but it’s just fiddling while Rome burns.

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I find myself in full-on music mode this week.
I’ve had a morning writing and rehearsing with my wonderful band mate and co-writer on several songs, Ian Sutherland… He has an album out soon, I’ll let you know…
Tonight we have Songwriting Circle at mac Birmingham, always joyful, inspiring, encouraging and they are all mind-blowingly impressive people to be with… Some sessions it feels like real magic has happened, and I love it!

Wednesday is a rehearsal night for Thursday which is the opening PV for The Songwriting Circle exhibition for “made at mac”… I shall be performing a song, among other featured singer-songwriters but the whole event/exhibition will be interesting, as it is a visual exhibition of a course about making sounds… There will be listening posts, juke box (with another of my songs in, among others from the circle), guitars attached to the walls for visitors to participate… I can’t wait to see how it’s all going to work… Glad I’m not the curator!

Today I’m posting up a link to song entitled “Weatherproof”… it is somewhat metaphorical… It is also somewhat autobiographical, and observational… It is about friendship, and about life…
Please excuse the occasional dodgy vocal, and my complaint to Ian at the end…
But I find other people’s works in progress fascinating, so I trust you will listen to this as such, and be kind… I’m working on it…

We are rehearsing it for the end of term show at mac… On July 4th if anyone wants to come, tickets are about £3 I think…. Bargain, as these people are stunning writers… Much better entertainment than an evening with bloody X-Factor.

WEATHERPROOF