in my recent to do list i wrote
- blog post reflect about studio life – my needs as a practitioner
about 6 weeks into having a studio space now and it’s helping me to think differently about my practice and myself.
(the live version of this song is amazing !).
weaving my time in the studio around other work commitments is proving tricky. it’s caused me to reflect upon why i’m having to do this. put simply its that the commission i am currently fulfilling cannot sustain me financially on it’s own for the duration of the commission period. so i need to take other work on to meet the financial commitments and to be able to enjoy my time while not working. it sets up a need for multi tier consideration about where my practice is right now.
in taking on the second it affects when i can work on the first. this sets up a tension in me that affects all aspects of my time. layer in politics of the second tier work and again i’m affected in the first.
the relationship with the tiers is kind of tidal and cyclic.
net affects are i spend grabbed moments to reassure and re-motivate myself. the scary thing is later this year both tiers are potentially at an end. certainly the first will be complete.
with this in mind my time at the moment is also having to consider what i might be going on to do – certainly post commission.
in the socially engaged practice book i’m reading at the moment, the author has commented that socially engaged projects are all potentially one offs. it’s helped to read this as it makes sense of the feelings i’ve been having in relation to how might i repeat this work.
what i can take forward is the experience of the working with people and the recording of their stories and their movements. then how to present and share them.
something i started to look at before the year clicked forward was how to get more out of my dslr. it has video capability and had struggled to get my head around how to best use it. through online research i made some decisions about what to do.
then along came an opportunity to work with / collaborate with research student christine thomas. wanting to extend an aspect of her current research we worked to create a short video piece of work.
recently this work has been shown to a crit group and phd supervisors. the feedback i got from christine about what the phd supervisors said was quite surprising.
in considering what might i do next the potential to study more has come onto the radar. possibly an ma in fine art.
at the supervision meeting where the work was seen, the comment i got feedback was “i don’t think he needs to do an ma.” that’s a compliment right ?
i’ve really enjoyed putting the images from the collaboration up together : )
the comment has allowed me to take a step back and connect to the feeling of being scared about ma study. scared because of the expectation to read and write lots about my practice and where it fits within the contemporary art world.
the crit night we went to was led by an ma graduate and their view of the world was quite narrow. it’s slightly put me off the idea of study; however, this is only one person’s point of view.
taking a moment to really connect with myself over this, its the holding a mirror up to myself that is the potential point of pressure. i’m a little scared of my own potential – at least delving deeper to explore it.
up to now i bounce between disciplines so i can keep options open and a multiplicity of work opportunity. in focussing in on an area it leads me into an unknown and out of my comfort zone. so this is good yes ?
the title of the post involves need. the biggest of this is to be connected to other people. the quality of this connection is also important. in tier 2 at the moment i have a connection that is wholly unhealthy – at the moment anyway. i’m having to consider matriarchy as a thing.
so quality of connection is important.
oh look there’s a thing i need to be focussing on !
i sit up and look at the wall. to get quality connection the place where i am needs to be of quality too.
i leave this question for myself : are you thinking highly of yourself to attract higher quality connections ?
a good place to leave it for now : )
