For I am coming to understand that I (and, therefore, my work) thrive on solitude, quietness and intense, first-hand experience; the private self and the inner life rather than public demonstration. Of course, there are other artists who work in this way too, but in Liverpool, where I currently live and work, I appear to be in a minority of one, in amidst the noise and clutter and slick self-promotion. My mistake has been to attempt (to over and again attempt!) to place myself with in the prescribed boundaries of what A Working Artist ought to be, and invariably fail.
I wrote this in a post dated August 16th, and after a conversation with a friend, I’ve realised that I hadn’t read or thought it through with anything like the appropriate thoroughness. It was pointed out to me that, by saying that ‘I appear to be in a minority of one’ I was effectively condemning all the other artists working in Liverpool. This was not my intention; there are a number of Liverpool-based artists whom I like and respect, and whose work I admire. A better way of phrasing it would have been to say that I am in a minority group of artists, and the minority/majority contrast often feels much starker in Liverpool. When I say that ‘I appear to be in a minority of one,’ in a way I suppose I am hoping for the opposite; hoping that appearances are deceptive and that there is, perhaps, a place for me.
Writing as an outsider, there is, in this city, much of what I described as ‘noise and clutter and slick self-promotion’; there are many people whose work is less than the myth they’ve built around it. There are many, many sacred cows that it’s considered bad form to criticise. I’m not in the business of walking on eggshells to preserve the status quo.
However, while it is true that I often feel as though I am in a minority of one (with no useful connections, no potential collaborators and no opportunities), it isn’t fair of me to denigrate all other artists. Generalisations make for really great polemic, but they help nobody at all.
