Could anyone be so lost! I went to see the Bournemouth degree show today with the intention of driving on to Kube gallery in Poole after. All went OK until I tried to find the Kube gallery from the Art Institute. I couldn’t find my mobile this morning so thought I’d go without it – we all survived before mobiles didn’t we? I was, in retrospect,rather laid back about the petrol situation.
Anyway I got horribly lost in the centre of Bournemouth, petrol on empty, no garage in site, no mobile and no recollection of the way back. I remembered how I had turned my nose up recently at my husbands offer of a sat nav for my birthday, prefering (naively now) some romantic notion of the challenge of map reading. How wrong can you be. Anyway, gave up, found my way out, managed to survive to a petrol station while cursing my R&D proposal and wondering what the hell I was doing visiting galleries when I could be sitting in the garden at home.
Anyway, crisis over, aged ten years, I began to give the day some more thought. I didn’t like being in a college. There was nothing wrong with the show particularly but, in a moments rare clarity I realised – I don’t think I want to go back and do an MA. Not now. I looked at the controlled spaces and somehow the whole college process seemed quite inward looking. I like being a visual artist in the outside world. It is horribly tough at times, but it’s woven into day to day life – and somehow, slowly, that’s bearing fruit for me creatively. I overheard a student saying there had been six firsts and I realised – I don’t want to be marked, I want to get on with work, to engage in the turmoil of ideas out there that emerge from everyday life. Perhaps I’ll change my mind tomorrow but today where I am feels surprisingly right.
