Getting at the truth.
In reading Kate Murdoch’s blog I started to think again about the purpose of the blog. This blog. Initially it was a way for me to talk about my work, to myself, to articulate what it was about, to help me clarify my thoughts. It still is that. But also, like Kate, I have build around this blog a group of people I have never met, who I regard as friends (actually, I have met a couple, and yes, they are proper friends now). The blog is my shared studio, my group crit. The people I am aware of as I write, are my fellow bloggers I suppose, but I am increasingly aware of other people reading. I meet people who ask how my work is going, whether I have resolved certain issues, or if I am feeling well now… I am totally gobsmacked when they say they follow my blog. I am even astonished that my husband bothers to read it. He rarely comments, but he did say yesterday he had noticed that I had stopped even pretending that “my studio” was also the dining room… ooops.
I need to be kept on the straight and narrow. I need to be focused on why I do the work, what I’m trying to get at. I can get carried away with the items I find, the stitching, and lose sight of what I’m trying to say. Having the blog (no, blogs, plural) keeps my critical focus. If I lose my way, I put the questions out there. Sometimes I get comments back on here, on facebook or twitter, or face to face.
Stitch by stitch, piece by piece, I can follow my path, can look back on what I have said, and others have said, and hopefully the path forward becomes clearer – the truth is out there.
So, having initially thought, in June 2011, that the value in this blog would be just as a different way to talk to myself, it has far exceeded expectations.
It is a crucial tool in getting at the truth, as are all the other interactions with my friends, fellow artists, writers, musicians, photographers, collaborators…
If I slip up occasionally and reveal a little too much about myself, forgetting who might be reading, it is a price worth paying I think. The exchange has to be honest, or it is worthless.
