Struggling to send out recent work to email contacts etc. I find it so hard when the work is so personal to package it as if it’s detached from me in some way. Talking to curators etc is even worse. Somehow I’ve got to distance myself, lay my work out and talk about it objectively as if this broken and often fragile experience is something to be dissected and categorised over a coffee. How weird it is to lay out that which I struggle with in my own mind before the gaze of a curator I hardly know when I can’t share it with my own family. My fault for making it I guess.
A friend stopped by yesterday, a pentecostal preacher turned carpenter turned recent divorcee teacher, a man I treasure. He looked at the work and said ‘You’re having a conversation aren’t you….that’s what it’s all about’ and I instantly thought ‘but that was my secret, just for me, how could you!.’ Does anyone else do that – make work they hope no-one will really get to the bottom of as that would reveal to much – perhaps that’s what we all do to some extent I guess.
