ARTISTS TALKING

# 117 [11 February 2010]

I'm still resisting the temptation to post a proper blog because I'm trying to analyse less, add less things to my list and enjoy doing stuff instead of doing stuff to cross it off the list, only to replace it with a new task. ooops - this is getting remarkably like a blog post. STOP. Here's what I want to say. Spread the word:

‘Invitation to join APT = Artist Parents Talking’

Your chance to meet other artist-parents and add to APT’s research about the particular needs and barriers to being an artist-parent.  APT aims to bring people together,  gather evidence of needs,  raise awareness and campaign for change.

Regional meetings and website to be announced soon (funding pending).

Join our online community:

 http://artistparents.ning.com

or contact me directly with your name, region you are based in and email address: Rachel@rachelhowfield.net

# 116 [7 January 2010]

You just don't even want to know how much moaning I'm doing lately. Bad back, migraine, tonsilitus, car won't work, schools shut, snow...

I've started work on my final report to ACE. It's satisfying to list all the positive developments over the last year or so. It's in keeping with my general state of mind - reappraising and evaluating everything. Maybe I'm looking for ways to get out of a rut. 

I feel like I want to go under the radar for a while, follow my whim without so much analysis and public documentation. I feel like there's some burden of expectation - and while I know the only pressure comes from myself, I still feel like it would be nice to remain private for a while til I get myself back together. A fallow period perhaps.

Maybe the blog is dwindling to an end for now. It's been great for helping me shape my thoughts, evaluate my progress, promote myself. It also causes me stress when I think about all the posts I never wrote. 

But is it the right tool to use in a phase of soul-searching? Surely that would be boring to read, like someone tells you their dreams. The danger would be that I would go all out to make it entertaining, and in that act lose some authenticity of the process. In some ways I feel that happening already - I've somehow created a character for my blog, and now I've lost energy for keeping the story going.

There again, I'd be nervous of 'losing touch' if I stop - blogging makes me feel part of a community.

So- that's me - indecisive as ever. 

# 115 [15 December 2009]

I've had a couple of requests for a New York blog post, so I'll give it a bash, although it feels like a tricky task. I just don't know which version of the tale to tell. In some respects it was a story of two halves, because for the first 3 days I had my splendid artist friend Rachel Welford with me. So the APT NY talk was great because she helped set out chairs and let latecomers in the (locked) main entrance, the Chelsea gallery visits went well because she can read a map, the preview went well because I could keep having a networking-breather and hang out with her, and everything else went well because we talked about everything and shared the odd glass of something.

But hidden below all this was a residual monster, waiting to get a bit of space to loom up and take residence. It kept tripping me up and scheming to undermine my achievements. Have you guessed it yet? That well known enemy of the artist - anxiety and self doubt - which kept me in a mental loop about whether or not I was doing it (NY) right, or well enough. 

Maybe the major influencing factor was the extremely distressed and anguished younger daughter who sobbed for a whole day before I left and most of the time I was away, leaving me in a cloud of guilt and worry? Maybe I was so exhausted and jetlagged that I could have been in Filey for all I could take anything in? Maybe etc. Believe you me I've followed this line of thought to the point of no return.

I think I started my solo flight quite well - in my best dress with a glass of champagne in MOMA. Shortly followed by a bout of high velocity nervous diarhoea!

Despite this I still managed to get to PS1 ('Robert Bergman, Selected Portraits' penetrated my self obsessed rambling), Brooklyn Museum (loved 'Reflections on the Electric Mirror:New Feminist Video'), Macy's store (like being in a big machine and being spat out on a different street wondering what happened - aborted my shopping mission very quickly and took refuge in another encounter with the subway map - aaagh).

I totally failed to get to Williamsburg galleries, which I got very worked up about, and recorded lots of sniffling rambling monologues on my iphone thinking it might provide material for a piece of work about dysgeographica. Believe me - I've listened to it at home and it should never see the light of day.

Oh and did I mention that I drank some of the worst 'tea' (often not worth the name) I've ever experienced. Ask for tea and you get a cup of water and a tea bag on a plate. To say it's the 'capital of the world' they need to get that one sorted.

It was a great adventure, and now I want a rest, and time to assess the new terrain.

# 114 [11 December 2009]

ps. in complete contradiction to what I've just written (of course - everything is always uncertain, even when I feel quite definite)..

if you want a copy of the artist book send me your address - I'll send one free of charge courtesy of ACE Research and Development funding

rachel@rachelhowfield.net

# 113 [11 December 2009]

Something unusual has happened to me. I don't want to do anything, and more significantly I DON'T CARE that I don't want to do anything. Partner says it's like I've returned from New York a different person. Even more strange, I don't want to think or write about art, or look at any art, or watch tv programmes about art. I only get a tiny way through a thought about art and I just feel disinterested.

Is this what happens after a year or so of obsessive driven art-making, profile-building and questioning? I just had so much I wanted to do, that as soon as I got the ACE research funding I couldn't come up for air. Now I've done everything I outlined in that funding bid.

At the beginning of the project I hardly dare wish that I would gain any recognition or exhibitions. Now I have had lots of 'highs' (inclusion in curators choice on Axis, successful installation in Coastival, a beautiful artists book, and inclusion in a really good show in New York no less). So how do I celebrate? I feel bored of all my ideas, don't want to show any of my work any more.

Think I might go and clear out my studio- piles of bags and boxes from various projects are piled up everywhere.

# 112 [25 November 2009]

ps. remembering to be positive despite the list-horrors -

I'm getting a bit of publicity on the back of the Mother/Mother mailout and my new artist book 'What a Complete Waste of a Day'....

interview and image featured in ACE Yorkshire ebulletin 'White roses in the Big Apple'

article in Huddersfield Examiner about APT NY

the book will be offered on a-n as either an AIR subscriber prize or a review prize for interface reviewers!

It's easy to 'not get round to' doing the legwork with promoting yourself - but I'm glad I've put the hours in, because it's growing!

I wonder how i'll get on with the face-to-face networking and promotion in NY - selling myself is not my favourite thing by any stretch!

# 111 [25 November 2009]

I have a list for everything. On every surface, in every pocket and bag. What happened to my usual satisfying process of merging and restructuring all the lists into a plan? I'm having a Frank Spencer moment. Only I don't have a Betty. oh dear. what to do.

Here's some publicity for the show in New York. It'll be great once I'm there.

# 110 [23 November 2009]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/22/working-women-husbands-housework

'Useless stay-at-home men' a female myth

Working women who claim partners don't pull their weight do so to feel more feminine and in charge in the home.

'....Meisenbach said the trend of the female high achiever and the male slacker is a tall story that women tell each other to compensate for the fact that most career-orientated women feel an "overwhelming sense of guilt" over their role and less of a mother and a wife.'

Great. I feel so much better, safe in the knowledge that any injustice I experience can be explained by my insecurity about my role as a wife and mother. Splendid. now - what to do first, iron my hubby's shirts, tidy the children's book corner or earn some money.

# 109 [20 November 2009]

Excerpts from my 'Stock Exchange' notes and thoughts;

I write a blog, an activity which has significantly raised the profile of ‘audience’ in my mind – people contact me with responses to my posts, or treat me with avaricious delight when they meet me, having read the blog. I used to be pleased and surprised that people had read it. Currently I’m unsettled about who has and hasn’t read it, and what assumptions they have made based on what they read. The blog has inhabited an ambiguous space between truth and invention. It’s a way of examining and subverting  the private and public. The process of selecting, editing,  enhancing stories to include is a creative one.

But now I am  inhibited by an imagined audience of critics and experience anxiety about being discovered/outed by neighbours and parents at the school gate, who, until now have assumed that I’m the same as them, and only discover I’m not through reading the blog. I can easily imagine the response to this sort of self indulgent rambling... good Yorkshire straight speaking 'bollocks'

# 108 [19 November 2009]

23.32 Just about to turn off the computer and end the day. I need to wind down double fast - to get 8 hours sleep I need to be asleep an hour ago...