Times are lean in our household, very lean. The dog has been throwing up for two days in the garden but no-one has the money to take him to the vet, I’m praying for good weather as we can’t afford new hats and gloves for the girls and my son is on hunger strike as he has been ostracized at school as I couldn’t afford Black Ops. Tough times. The car is in the garage racking up bills and my husband is working flat out commuting to London and back. I bet he’s regretting the day he married an artist. Britain seems to be getting harder and harder to live in.
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, a couple of comments on subjects raised by Jo Moore in her choice blog. Silence, absence, the bits inbetween, the lacuna that connects one presence to another, these are the elements that are so important to me in my work. And this is why I find open shows etc and displaying work on the internet so difficult. To experience and relate to that absence demands a physical presence by the viewer, the encounter, the interaction, without which I feel my work is incomplete. I’ll be interested to hear where Jo’s exploration of the silence brings her.
Jo also mentions crisis of confidence. I have found working in isolation the absolutely most difficult situation for myself as an artist, but I’m getting better at it. When confidence is low however there is no-one to pull you out. I can find all sorts of reasons to put myself down. Why did that curator contact me to ask me to exhibit? Well, they must have had someone pull out, perhaps they’ve got me mixed up with someone else, perhaps they needed that particular theme and I was the only artist they could find. But they said they liked the work? Perhaps they haven’t seen the photo clearly, perhaps they’re just being kind, perhaps that was the only piece of work that is the right size for the wall space. Working alone is a constant battle with confidence. I feel like I’ve got those good and evil characters on my shoulder like an old fifties movie, at times I’ve just got to mentally slap myself. Am I the only crazy one here?
