Early days…
Today is 15th August. I’ve had two weeks in my new space and I’m still fannying about. I’m still thinking that it would be better if the bookcase was six inches to the left, and the coffee would be better on the top shelf. All crucial as you know, to the efficient running of the art-brain.
As far as the work is going, there’s a fair amount of fannying about there too. I write, I draw, I sew. I put things together to see if any new relationships are suggested. So far not really, it all feels forced and pretentious. Probably because I’m forcing it and pretending. Fake it to make it and all that?
But there are a couple of things that I quite like. The readdressing of lyrics, put in a different place, presented differently, take on other meanings. They absorb secrets, conceal themselves, they are embarrassed and shy. It doesn’t at the moment suggest anything new, but it serves to underline the way my brain works. It also nods at the themes I return to over and over. Some of the work is autobiographical and confessional. Some of it is eavesdropped and confabulated, but I’m not telling you which is which. More concealment occurs. In my head, relationships are wrecked, reformed, grow slowly until they are undeniable. I take on the identities of other women and try them on for size. This can sometimes leave me feeling a sense of unease with what is left when I cast them off…. At which point I lock up the studio and go home to remind myself of reality. Among this performing of myself and to myself, among this shuffling of paper, cloth, words and sounds, I have faith that at some point the shuffling will throw up something worth pursuing.
Early days….
PS please forgive the higgledy piggledy nature of the photos… It’s not me, honest! I keep trying, but it keeps randomly tipping them round!
