The things we are afraid of are perhaps often the things we can learn the most from. Fear illuminates our boundaries as it threatens our stable sense of self. But can we deliberately step into spaces that scare us, or that we avoid? Can doing this help us to open up to new experiences and understand more about ourselves?

In February 2016 I left the role of Education Co-Director at Cubitt Gallery and Studios in Angel, London. It was a role that had consumed much of my life for nearly eight years in ways that were very rewarding and transformative. But I left the organisation with a commitment to dedicating as much time as I could to my own artistic practice.

Support from an a-n Professional Development bursary came at a crucial moment- just as I was thinking about how best to spend my time- what to actually do with it.

I wondered if I could go back to the beginning- to drop any existing project ideas, and try to forget any idea of the artist that I thought I was, and instead go into the studio and sit down and see what I’d like to make or do on a small scale, without anyone else being involved.

The first thing that arose from this strategy was fear- I was afraid that I wouldn’t know what to do, and that I wouldn’t actually be very good at anything. By suddenly paring back my practice to the bare essentials, I risked exposing it, and my own vulnerability, completely.

And then I hit upon the idea of exploring fear itself. Instead of trying to ignore these feelings of apprehension, could I use them productively to shape my practice and to explore things that I had never tried before?

In this blog, over the next few weeks, I will reflect on the process so far, and share the things I have learned and anything new that arises.


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As the period of the professional development bursary comes to an end I have been reflecting on the process of sharing what I have learnt.  I have tried out several different ways- conversations with friends; leading meditation classes; writing online.  One of the most interesting and productive ways for me to share has been through more informal gatherings: at a week-long study week organised by artist Jesse Darling; during a summer school at Dartington; at a peer-led discussion organised by the artist Mikhael Karikis.  Here, instead of planning a particular event in advance, I was able to respond to a particular situation and share my learning as part of that.

I have also gained alot from writing these blog posts- the opportunity to reflect on specific activities and the things that I have learnt have been very enriching. Needing to shape an idea or reflection into 500 words or so has helped to sharpen my focus and brought new ideas to light.  I was pleased when I recieved responses to a post about the things that hold me back creatively: 16 Things That Hold me Back When I’m Trying To Make Some Creative Work (originally the list was 50, but gradually edited down to 16).

And, perhaps most importantly, I have recognised that a very productive way to share is through sessions that incorporate guided meditation with wider reflections on fear and shaping a ‘life practice’.  This aspect of my practice has grown significantly over the past year- with an open afternoon at Open School East, and leading a meditation at the Wysing Study Week, and some private classes I have been giving.  It seems to me that there is a growing search for new ways of working, new ways of reflecting, new ways of engaging with a difficult world.

In the new year I have been invited to lead two afternoons- one in London, at the Wellcome Collection and one in Nottingham, both of which have emerged from this professional development process. They will be for fellow creative practitioners and will be focused around working through fear and risk and finding the reserves needed for a life practice.  For me this is a wonderful outcome of the bursary- to be invited to share my learning in this way, through practical skills that I believe can be hugely beneficial and can help others to have dangerous conversations with power and confidence.


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A couple of weeks ago I participated a small event organised by the artist Mikhail Karikis alongside an exhibition of his recent work ‘Ain’t Got No Fear’.  A film created with a group of 11 to 13-year-old boys who are growing up in the militarised industrial marshland of the Isle of Grain in South East England. 

The event was intended as an informal sharing between practitioners working in socially engaged and participatory fields.  We shared an amazing brunch provided generously by Mikhail and talked about collaboration, funding, copyright and copyleft, when art becomes political and how museums can reshape their identity to better serve their constituents. 

I shared some responses to Mikhail’s work that related to my own past.  The rural setting of ‘Ain’t Got No Fear’ brought back strong memories of my own childhood and adolescence in Somerset in the 1980’s and 1990’s- free parties in barns and woods; people taking drugs in cars in laybys and nature reserves; gatherings of youth in derelict buildings; low-paid jobs in dairy factories and fruit farms.  Somerset is a strange mixture of hippies and pastoral countryside and poverty, Lord of the Rings and drug taking, factories and wild forgotten woods.  I briefly reflected on these memories and on the Reclaim the Streets movement, and Swampy, the environmental protestor who became a household name.

I wanted to talk about the professionalisation of the arts that has accelerated since then, the role of the artist as a lifestyle choice, and the domination of aesthetics and the market over a committed and dangerous practice.

A phrase that came up a few times was the idea of ‘a life practice’.  One of the group spoke about their experiences working with Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, and how it had challenged and transformed their own lives.  For many people Reclaim the Streets was a true life practice: living through alternative social practices, aesthetic practices, political practices.

This phrase resonated with many of the things that I have been thinking about over the past year.  My original conception of fear and risk began as an exploration of my own work- which areas of my practice have I been afraid of exploring.  But increasingly I have come to think of my practice within its wider social context.  What might constitute a dangerous practice socially?  A life practice that offers the potential to reimagine how we live together. A practice that exposes the danger and violence hidden within contemporary life, but from an embodied position.  A practice that refuses commodification, resists dominant ideologies and flows of power, a practice that comes from and through who I am.

 


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I’ve begun to realise that inside of myself is a good artist and writer, someone with plenty of creative energy and the potential to create things that are valuable and interesting enough to be shared with others.  But also inside me is an absolutely brilliant critic, an expert critic who can dissect any creative endeavour and provide an insightful narrative as to why it’s not very good or interesting or successful.  A critic who can see through any artifice, unpick any tiny flaws, and ridicule any naivety or clumsiness.

I find the trouble with these two characters is that the artist may be working away happily, inspired and immersed in a project, but then, after some time, perhaps a few hours, perhaps a few days, perhaps even a few weeks, the expert critic will inevitably, sooner or later, cast their eye over it, and tear it to shreds with incredible precision.

And so the artist will lose heart, move on, lose hope, start again.  They will listen to the critic because the critic is their brother, the loudest and closest friend they have.  They think that without the critic’s approval, there is no chance they will gain anyone else’s approval.

In some Buddhist thinking this character or voice is called Mara- the inner critic.  It is the same part of us that doubts, criticizes, pressurises us.  It is always with us, sometimes stronger, sometimes quieter, particularly when we’re making big decisions of embarking on new journeys.

But what can I do about this critic?

One thing I have realised is that my inner critic is there to protect me- that is his essential intention.  He wants to guard against failure, against suffering, against exposing my vulnerability.  He knows that criticism from the real world, from other people, can challenge and threaten my very sense of self and value, and so he wants to get there first, to stop that happening.

As I work in my studio or at home I am trying to become more aware of my inner critic.  To notice his patterns of thought, to notice his negative interventions within the process of making.  Sometimes they can be helpful- suggesting an alternative path, but other times they can bring fear and anxiety and a desire not to make anything at all.

But as I begin to notice the inner critic, and tell myself that his negativity comes from kindness, and this does help.  His words become softer, I can see around them.  And if I also think to myself- well, if I’m feeling scared then I must be doing something right, it also really helps too.  It helps me to continue in the same direction, to see what happens when I follow my fear instead of avoiding it.

I think David Bowie said that, that you need to go just beyond your comfort zone to create anything interesting.  Somehow I feel that’s right, it is at a moment of crisis that I find something new.  Perhaps fear is a guide, not to be ignored completely, but somehow to be followed, to be explored with an open heart and mind.

 


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in june of this year i attended a study week at wysing arts centre, it was coordinated by the artist jesse darling.  she had chosen the theme of ritual for the week:

since thinking about contemporary art only twists me up in knots, I’d rather focus on the practice, on the habits, on the actual applications: the rituals themselves. Ritual is also a word used to describe the mechanisms people use to calm down or feel more in control; tapping, counting, stimming, washing your hands. When people try to quit their addictions, often they say it’s the rituals around substance use that they find hardest to let go. Rituals are the application of a certain kind of desire: a way of praying through doing.

(jesse darling, from the open call text)

during the four days we shared our rituals with one another.  there was a watercolour painting session, acts of erasure, drawing with the body, lip-synching, creating affirmations in lipstick, burying half-eaten apples, talking to a fire, morning bed-making, and many other practices, all thoughtfully and personally shared by individual group members, and i shared my experiences of meditation and ideas for daily practices.

looking back now, later in the year, i am struck by how different the experience was to any other professional development opportunity or process i have experienced as an artist.  all of the rituals and practices offered had a quality that combined the intensely personal with aesthetics.  they were shared in an atmosphere of mutual appreciation and connection: we didn’t do crits, or discuss theory.  we tried to live the practice.

it was an intense process, and one in which many of us were revealing our vulnerability amongst others.  it was the process of shared ritual that enabled this: enabled us to step through our constructed artistic practice, and into something else.

i realise now that this is precisely what i have been trying to do with the singing lessons, dance lessons, meditation, daily drawing practices that i have been doing over the last year.  i have been trying to step through an aesthetic practice and into something else.  at first i thought that the ‘something else’ was my authentic self, my hidden, real self, but now i’m not so sure.  it seems more like a space of openness, a space of possibility.  and it is the rituals, the practices, the repetition and structure that helps me get there.

traditionally we associate the idea of rituals with religion, with christmas, with folk dance, with what might be called non-western cultures.  within our (white, european, intellectual) conceptions of what rituals might be, or be for, there seems to be an idea of preservation, of guarding, of keeping safe.  but perhaps there is also a generative process, a creative iteration that is just as much about potential and change as it is about preservation or the past.

the ritual calls upon a power or a realm beyond our immediate present: whether that be the past, the future, magic, or the imagination, and it opens the channel between the here and now and that power or realm.  in the opening of the channel lies the potential for safety or stability, but also danger and change.  it is through repeated acts that we become open to something new, open a pathway to the new.

image: Kheel Center, Circle dance on the lawn in front of the early Unity House lodge

 


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throughout this year, i have been trying out new ways of working as an artist, taking new classes, exploring areas that i have avoided or been fearful of in the past.  during this time a central practice that i have come back to, again and again is meditation.

meditation is very simple, and an ancient technique.  a breathing meditation involves sitting, as upright as you can in a way that is also comfortable, and paying attention to your breath as it flows in and flows out.

as you do so, the idea isn’t to get rid of thoughts, or to stop thinking, and it isn’t even to relax.  the aim is very simple- you simply pay attention, non-judgmentally, to the breath, and, as best you can, let all other aspects of your experience (thoughts, body sensations, emotions) pass through, almost like trains passing through a station.

this kind of meditation can teach us that change is constant and inevitable.  everything changes, nothing is stable.  each breath is different, and it comes and goes.  we cannot hold onto it.

these insights have been incredibly valuable, as essentially the past year has been about challenging long-held assumptions about my artistic practice, but also about my identity, who i am, my place in the world, my future. meditation has been an incredibly valuable tool both to help realise the inevitability of change, and also to help me become comfortable with change, to allow myself to shift and question who i am and where i’m going.

as i’m writing this i realise that perhaps these are fundamental questions that underlie a meaningful artistic practice: who am i and where am i going?  which speaks to a broader question: who are we and where are we going?

these questions seem almost too abstract or obvious to be useful, but they are also necessary and urgent, even more so at this particular social and political time of intense and threatening change.

 

 


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