The saddest thing that I received in my email today was an invitation to the opening of an exhibition by a group of recent graduates. I read through the explanatory text, and realised with a sudden jolt that it read like a covering letter for a job application. The language of self-justification, phrased like a plea. An extended passage describing how the exhibited work would appeal to various social groups… It made me so sad. That it’s really come to this.
But there are also happy things! I’ve found that writing this blog & enunciating my concerns/sense of isolation has un(b)locked something in my unconscious. Suddenly I have a much clearer idea of what it is I want to be and want to do, and a method of operating that doesn’t involve forcing myself into an uncomfortable position, the more accepted paradigm. (This is something I’ve been doing my whole adult life; trying to substantially alter the inalterable stuff of my psyche, that I might better fit alongside my contemporaries. Chameleon instinct, ever adapting. I’m ready to try being myself, unaltered.) I’ve come to realise – and it was so very obvious – that one must make something from what one is given; that that is all there is to be done. So rather than feeling guilty and inert because I am not exhibiting enough or working in the same way as other artists I know – or worrying because I feel that my contemporaries don’t rate my work – instead I’ll find a way that works for me, rather than against me. Instead of feeling hemmed-in by isolation, why not feel liberated by solitude? Perhaps it’s in how you approach things.
In other news, I’ll be accompanying some of my bookworks to the Piccadilly Self-Publishing Exhibition and Fair, which will take place on Sunday 3rd October at Piccadilly Place in central Manchester (the exhibition will continue until the following Friday). The event is being co-organised by Caitlin Howard (a-n blog here) and Sophie Lee, two fantastically talented recent graduates whom I met at the Manchester Artists’ Book Fair last year. I’m so excited to be a part of it!
