I’ve been ignoring the flashback I talked about in the previous post – or at least I have been trying to. Some things are best left to the depths of my brain to sort out, while the rest of it gets on with life. Occasionally it forces its way forwards and I find myself pondering on it. Sometimes it comes forward in that weird time between sleep and wakefulness. I am aware of it now, and am not afraid to nod at it in acknowledgement. I can see threads of it in my work, and even in my life.
I got told off for saying I was turning into my Mum… obviously I’m not, she had such different influences on her life than I do on mine. But she is with me at every turn and in the mirror more and more as I age. I know that other women will recognise this as both a comfort and a curse. My Mum was great. I hold so much of her in me. But I rebel against her too. And it really annoys me that it is in this very rebellion that I probably resemble her most. No escape.
So this work, and the memories that have surfaced should be acknowledged and respected. But I need them to calm down a bit, so that I feel able to rip them up and throw them into the air. Not think of them as sacrosanct, but able to make use of them in my own way.
A while back, I was making a group of pieces that had the working title “Respectable”. These held echoes of the generation above; my Mum and my Mother-in-Law too. It was as if I was creating a balance, having worked with ideas of childhood, it was the follow-through. I’ve probably abandoned this work, half way through one of the pieces, at some point I may go back in and finish it. I don’t feel the need though now. The thing I was looking for has been answered, so it doesn’t hold my interest any more.
Which also brings me back to the discussion on art work as autobiography…
I am hoping that this current state of affairs hasn’t made me too self-aware about the work I make. I don’t want to consciously be autobiographical… I think I would alter the path if I felt that… maybe… but… I am fascinated by the function in my brain that keeps me in the dark throughout the making, but then suddenly reveals itself to me.
It makes me feel as if I have some sort of multiple personality disorder.
