Keeping It Going

‘All the Dead Dears’ Kate Murdoch, August 2021

The above work was created through selecting three vintage photo mounts. They were a part of a small collection that have been in my studio for some time. I’ve used some of them in the past, mainly as part of my ‘Domesticated’ series in which, for me, they highlighted the sense of restraint and restriction experienced by women, particularly in the 1950/60 era – fenced in, trapped within a world of cleaning, baking, motherhood  – struggling to free themselves from a lifetime of drudgery.

My choice of these particular ones for the above work was primarily for their colour. But the shape of each mount and how they worked with each other was also a factor in making the finished product as aesthetically pleasing as possible. Anyone familiar with what they are will know that there are gaps where the photos should be. They are reminiscent of the displays often found on the walls of grandparents and great aunts & uncles, each photo representing a family member – a tribute to their growing offspring, generation after generation.

I was drawn to these mounts with their gaping, vacant spaces at a point of trying to make sense of the daily Covid death totals that were read out in governmental press conferences. They were presented as if they were a mere statistic, but the fact is that every single one of those numbers represented a real person – a person who was loved & cherished and  would leave a gaping hole in people’s lives. All the dead dears, all the long gone darlings should never be forgotten.

‘All the Dead Dears’ was included in the ‘Silent Disco’ exhibition, organised & curated by Graham Crowley at his amazing Greystone Industries gallery in Wickham Market, Suffolk in August of this year.

 

It’s been a while since I last posted anything here. Life, with all its complications, has got in the way. Some life issues remain deeply personal – too difficult, too painful, perhaps, to share – or simply, I make a decision not to. This of course, means that a less real, authentic version of life is put forward but on the basis of nobody needing to know everything, I think that’s fine.

It feels timely that just a week ago I was having conversations with other artists about the dilemma of how much versus how little to share on our respective blogs. It was one of the many interesting questions raised around the discussion table, organised by Platform -7 Events last Tuesday evening: How real/authentic is your blog? is one that stood out for me in particular, largely I think, because I spend a lot of time thinking about that question.

Looking back on past blog posts, I’ve sometimes surprised myself by how much I’ve actually revealed about my personal life, but it’s usually in the context of how life has affected my ability to make art. Because I use my blog as a space to record my working practice, when there’s a gap, I feel the need to account for it.

My life has been in a state of turmoil for the past few months. Partly due to moving house and the chaos that involves, and partly due to a tragic life event for someone close to me. My mind has been on other things and I’ve found it hard to get into the studio. I often seem to equate not being in the studio with not working. I suppose it dates back to when I worked in various offices when not showing up would be noticed. I sometimes miss it – routine is important to me and I feel disorganised without it.

I often return to this blog when I’m feeling disorganised. Writing it helps me unpick and organise my thoughts – frees me up and helps me move forward. I’ll feel better I know, once I’ve written it and also, once I’m up to date with documenting and photographing recent work. Not getting into the studio and keeping on top of things frustrates me; I’ve been trying since mid-August, but haven’t managed it yet. Apart from when I was ill three years ago, it’s been the longest I’ve been out of the studio in a long time. Being back there again will mean that, as well as the actual physical space getting tidied, documenting the things I have managed to do will become more clear.

Photo credit: Barbara Dougan

In spite of not getting into the actual physical space of the studio, I’ve managed to work remotely and make some new work for a couple of exhibitions that took place over the summer. I was pleased to be invited to take part in the groving project, an annual summer exhibition, curated by Barbara Dougan, that explores aspects of Bury St Edmunds through new works of art placed in public.

The theme for this year’s exhibition was monument and one of the several questions put forward by Barbara in her brief about it was around what was missing in existing public memorials/monuments and whether there was space for ‘the small, the personal, the local.’ I believed there was and my response was to try and give recognition to local ‘ordinary’ people – those carrying on quietly behind the scenes, galvanised in their efforts to alleviate the suffering of those less fortunate than themselves, specifically in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The statues and monuments, the blue plaques and memorials all have their place in celebrating the work of the well known, but what about the unsung heroes – the brilliant NHS staff and other essential workers who went way and beyond what was required of them. Bury St Edmunds undoubtedly has its own unsung heroes.

I was also delighted to be invited to exhibit work in ‘Silent Disco’ a group exhibition curated by Graham Crowley. Photographing the work I made for it is one of the many things I need to do once I make it back into the studio. I’ll write more about it then. In the meantime, I can’t think of a better way to introduce my own and the work of other artists in the show than including this video, in which Graham gives a curator’s tour, in conversation with Rob Dunt (who runs the ArtTop10 art review website). Here’s the link to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFQQfM_xSUA

A link also to Unsung Hero as part of the groving project:

http://www.groveprojects.org/blog/previous/5

As well as one to the Platform-7 Events, run by John McKiernan:

https://www.platform-7.com/

As I said in my last post here, I’ve been involved in conversations with Elena Thomas and Stuart Mayes about the virtues of long term blogging. Our responses to some self-initiated questions were collated and published online on the a-n platform last week. We had a lot to say between us and one of the questions that didn’t survive the editing was around the subject of the advantages of long term blogging over social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. It’s something I’ve thought about a lot.

Writing about my work alongside making it, is something I’ve done automatically over the years. No sooner had I started to make work, I started to write a blog – this blog! The two have always gone hand in hand for me and I’ve rarely made work without writing about it. More recently, I’ve wondered, if I had my time again, whether I might have done things differently – said less about the work I’d made, allowing an audience to make their own interpretation of it?

I used Twitter as a way of promoting my work and getting it ‘out there’ and then, when Instagram was introduced, used it as a means of presenting images. Words were less used when using social media and images of my work stood alone, with very little background attached.

It clearly has its place – Instagram is massively popular with artists and has become the main platform for showcasing work for many. But Instagram, as the name suggests, is about instant gratification – see it, clock it and move on. Twitter is similar – a bit more room for comments and interaction but in today’s ever changing, fast and furious pace of life, even short exchanges about the work are becoming more rare. There is no doubt that social media platforms have their merits, but for me, personally, I wonder how much I actually digest in the midst of such a fast-paced whirlwind of images? How much ‘stays’ with me – and how much satisfaction is gained from the images alone?

Some would argue that good art stands on it own – it doesn’t need the trappings of explanation behind it to make it worthwhile. There’s undoubtedly a lot of truth in this – quality will always out and exceptional work, always stand out. But what about the pleasure of actually engaging with art – properly engaging – and understanding at least a little about the concept behind it? For me, personally, it’s infinitely more interesting to know something about the artist themselves and the thinking behind the work they create.

Perhaps this is the reason I was drawn to blogging in the first place? Sharing my work with others feels important to me as an artist and regular blogging over a period of time has opened up opportunities for conversations and debate around my own and others’ work. It’s provided a source of dialogue and mutual support and has meant being a part of community in which it’s been possible to exchange ideas and share points of concern ranging from very real issues such as feeling stuck and unmotivated to a more mundane question such as which type of glue to use.

I’ve gathered a pretty intensive record of being a practising artist through maintaining a blog here and doing so over a sustained period of time has allowed room for reflection. It’s meant that patterns have emerged that would otherwise have been overlooked, enabling me to reflect on what’s important and to recognise recurring themes running through my practice. Information about the work, the thinking that went into it beforehand and some of the emotions that came out during the actual making of it – it’s all there. Aside from maintaining a day to day diary, I can’t think of a more thorough way of keeping an account of all the effort and energy – the highs and lows, failures and successes – that goes into being a practising artist.

It’s nearly five months since I’ve written here which means that it’s five months since someone responded to one of my tweets in which I  promoted my last blog post, alongside the image above (a detail from my ‘Sweet Nothings’ work). Someone I don’t know responded by sharing an image of their own next to mine, the implication being that what I’d posted was crap. It wasn’t clear whether they were referring to my work or what I’d written – no matter, really – everyone’s entitled to their opinion. But what did matter to me was that, out of all the blog posts and images I’ve ever posted and then shared on social media, criticism of this particular one, got to me – and hurt! It came from a deeply personal place.

 

I did my best to follow advice from the small handful of people I confided in – to ignore it and not give the perpetrator the satisfaction of knowing they’d upset me. My allies were right, I’m sure, but it’s hard to escape the absolute glaring irony of this situation: that work addressing the serious issues of young girls and women being silenced and discouraged to voice their opinions should be met with my own! And so, it feels right to at least acknowledge the comment left on Twitter, if only as a point of reference and to draw a line under it. This space has often provided me with a place to park things and move on.

 

By complete contrast, I’ve been involved in positive conversations with other artist bloggers, Elena Thomas and Stuart Mayes, over the past few weeks. Elena and Stuart, like myself, have been contributing to the a-n blogging platform for a number of years. In the midst of a massive house move, I’ve been grateful for sporadic snatches of communication with them and the opportunity to reflect on what writing these blog posts has meant (and continue to mean) to me, personally and we three, collectively. It’s led to some interesting questions and responses and with the help of Stephen Palmer, a-n Artists Network has just this week published an online Q&A article derived from these conversations. We celebrate 33 years of blogging between us and the article has prompted a number of comments from other long term bloggers on the a-n platform since it went online. Rob Turner is one of them and his comment caught my attention:

‘The original a-n blogging platform was a nurturing safe environment for artists. People wore their hearts on their sleeves and much valuable capitol was gained from that.’

A ‘nurturing safe environment’ is exactly what the a-n blogging platform has been for me and I’m pleased to be able to share this Q&A article below, outlining my own and Elena and Stuart’s individual take on the benefits of long term blogging. It speaks volumes I think, about the huge advantages to be gained through being a part of the a-n blogging community, both past and present. Some conversations have already come out of it – our hope, collectively is that there might more to come.

https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/a-qa-with-elena-thomas-kate-murdoch-and-stuart-mayes-artists-and-a-n-bloggers/

‘It took me a long time to develop a voice, and now that I have it, I am not going to remain silent.’

Madeleine Albright, American politician

I may not agree with Madeleine Albright on everything, but I love the above quote of hers and as it’s particularly appropriate for this blog post, wanted to include it here.

I’ve been thinking a lot about speech and the human voice – and, in relation to my work specifically, the voices of girls and young women and the ways in which they are repressed. Revisiting the work I made for the ‘Me, Myself and I’ exhibition, led me once again to think about ‘Sweet Nothings.’ This work was very much the starting point and central focus for the installation I was commissioned to make for the Collyer Bristow Gallery platform area last year. The exhibition included the work of twenty artists exploring identity.

Gag – definition: to prevent someone from speaking freely

 

I wrote a post on this blog when the exhibition first opened, written to coincide with International Women’s Day, 2020. This is an extract from it, followed by a link to the entire post:

‘Keeping women down, repressed and subdued has always been achieved by silencing them. Without a voice that is heard, we are powerless; what women need is to continue to search for and find a voice that has the freedom to express itself authentically, without having to keep it ‘nice’ – a voice that dares rage against the injustices and inequalities so often imposed on them and a voice that screams and calls out the way in which women are silenced everyday in every corner of the world.’

You can read the rest of the post here:

https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/keeping-it-going-1/date/2020/03/

 

 

‘Sweet Nothings’ is a piece of work I keep returning to. It’s composed of small ceramic girl figurines, placed on a dressing table, gazing into a mirror. You have to look closely to see that each individual figurine has its mouth taped over with Elastoplast. It speaks volumes (ironically) about how girls and young women were (and continue to be) silenced. The girls are adorned in pretty party dresses, reminiscent of the 60/70s era, an era in which children were very much expected ‘to be seen and not heard’ and girls specifically, to be decorative and submissive.

It seems like they’re destined to stay in this decorative and submissive state for some time now: like so many events of 2020, the show became a casualty of the pandemic. No sooner had I installed my work for the ‘Me, Myself and I’ group show, than I was back in the Gallery, taking it down again – numerous objects, wrapped up and back in boxes, before they’d even had a chance to breathe. It would be easy to put them to one side, forget about them – another large body of work, packed away. But there was so much energy attached to these objects, so much potential narrative emanating from them, that it feels almost impossible to put a lid on them.

Throughout the various lockdowns, the Sweet Nothing figurines have reminded me of the many fascinating conversations that might have been – the unrealised opportunity for conversations with 19 other artists, to meet and get to know each other, exchange ideas and share insights into our respective work. I loved the premise behind this exhibition, one which as stated by the curator, Rosalind Davis:

‘ … investigated artists’ self-enquiry and expressions of the interior self. Works speak to a range of lived experiences recalling personal and political struggles, family relationships and memories of childhood. Across painting, drawing, photography and assemblage the show reflects on themes of freedom and solitude, collectivity and belonging, disenfranchisement and loss. In liminal spaces between fact and fiction, the fantastical and the everyday, twenty artists grapple with – and celebrate – the complexities of identity, selfhood and finding one’s place in the world.’

I was excited by being a part of this show and looking forward very much to exploring each artists’ unique take on the theme of identity.* In the absence of the conversations that never had a chance to materialise, and feeling rather silenced and subdued myself, I’m wondering if in time, I might start my own dialogue with the objects included in the installation – examining their meaning and value, not merely as display objects on the platform, but as indicators of emotion and attachment, of social and political history and other factors.

This lack of conversation is of course, indicative of how life in general has been for many of us this past year – normal everyday conversations and face to face interactions with others, hugely curtailed. Once these current restrictions are lifted, I imagine it will take us a while to readjust and get back to some sort of normality – whatever that is and whatever form it takes.

At this point in time, surrounded by so much uncertainty, I’m finding it hard to properly commit to anything, really – finding myself identifying more strongly than ever with the ‘Sweet Nothings’ figurines – silenced and restricted. The expression ‘no words’ is so often associated with expressions of grief – reactions to horrific situations and moments in life when words literally fail us and we just don’t know what to say. If ever there was a more appropriate time – in the midst of immeasurable suffering, caused by this extraordinary pandemic – that time surely, is now.

 

* In spite of the exhibition closing, Rosalind Davis, the curator of ‘Me, Myself and I’ managed to organise an online conversation with a few of the artists involved. I’m so grateful to Rosalind and the artists for creating this record of the exhibition. Thanks also to artist Paula McArthur for her sensitive words about her late friend and collaborator, artist Wendy Saunders (whose work was also exhibited in the show). Wendy is missed by many of those who knew her; she was very much loved, not just for her brilliant enthusiasm and passion for art but for her warmth, kindness and generosity as a lovely human being.

You can access the conversation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUnYFijIuIU&feature=youtu.be