I do have a wide ranging practice if you just look at what I make with: Paper, pencil, paint, textile and stitch, twigs, collections, words, sounds, music and songs… I work on my own, and I work in collaboration with a small group of trusted people who know how to do it properly (in my experience, so many don’t)
I used to worry about this, and even now, occasionally, usually after an exhibition, or the end of a particular project, I do again. That is the period when I can flail about a bit, playing, experimenting, reading, talking to other artists and musicians… like I’m looking for the next loose end. What I have learned to do is trust this process. I do whatever I fancy doing, with whoever I fancy… if you know what I mean. The work done in this period is a bit scattered, and I’m a bit all over the place. And then something sticks, and I pursue it…
I have rediscovered reading though. This might seem odd, but after my MA, now 11 years ago, I just didn’t read, it was like the reading-love part of my brain was burned out. I had forgotten what it was for maybe, other than to fulfil an assignment brief. But just recently I have discovered the essay form of writing, and these works have eased me back in. Other people’s ideas on how the world works are really useful. The latest joy is a tiny thing called The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction by Ursula K Le Guin. I recommend it. You can read it twice in an afternoon, I know this, because I did. On two consecutive afternoons. There is much in this small volume that helps the way I think about my work. That all I bring with me to my work, be that art, writing, or songs, comes out of my own personal, metaphorical carrier bag. My life is carried in it, metaphorically: memories, knowledge, skills, stories… alongside physical materials in a physical bag. The history of generations of women gathering things backs me up on this. I can put what I want in my bag, and it then becomes a resource for me to pick over. Your carrier bag is not like mine, your work is not like mine. So even if someone’s work superficially looks similar to mine, it is really not. They couldn’t make what I have made, because they haven’t got in their bag what I have got in mine. But they might have in their bag the urge to copy the physical properties of other people’s work. And lying. That is really not my problem. My business lies in sifting through my own bag, and using the stories contained in it, to tell other stories.
Today I have spent a few hours in the company of Helen Garbett (look up The Limpetarium). In talking about our work, and what we are both reading, over our last few meetings we have the beginnings of an idea for a collaborative project. I am really excited by this. It was the talking about bags and vessels that did it. We can see a way of making objects that we can then both use, in different circumstances, to evoke different meaning and elicit different responses. This combines the contents of our metaphorical carrier bags, and I am seeing it as an interesting way to explore the semiotics angle… can we make these objects mean different things by putting them in different contexts and environments?
We are busy making, and we need LOTS to play with, but watch this space…
