My presentation to wip:sthlm artists went well. It was nice that there weren’t too many people – it meant that it could be fairly informal. I was really pleased with the feedback and responses I got.
I enjoy talking about my work and always find it useful to have to think about what to say and how to present my practice.
Finished glittering the plates today – hurrah!
Started polishing a aluminium ring-form cake tin. It’s a lot shinier than before but it’s never going to be ‘mirror-finish’ if I do it by hand.
• what am I doing?
• what is important?
• what is it about?
This time next week I’ll be heading back to London for the show at M2 Gallery. It’ll be strange to be there (I’m avoiding saying ‘home’). I need to work on the new piece I promised Ken and Julia.
Is it okay to date when you’re on a residency?
I feel a bit guilty that I’m not 100% focussed on being The Artist.
On the other hand – I came away to work out what to do next, both professionally and personally …
I have my laptop at the studio today.
This evening I’m making a presentation to the artists who have studios here at wip:sthlm.
There is never an ideal day or time to do this kind of thing. Friday is the end of the week so people may want to get home and relax, but there are openings on Thursdays and Wednesdays, and no-one goes to events or presentations at the beginning of the week. So it’s Friday and I will present to whoever comes along. I think ‘the offer’ is important.
A friend from London visited earlier this week. We had an interesting discussion about studios – the actual physical spaces that we work in. Like me she was impressed with the quality of the wip:sthlm studios. It was inevitable that we made comparisons with studios we know in London. I have begun to wonder if there is a relationship between the condition of artists’ studios and the enthusiasm to sustain practice. Does having poor conditions sort the wheat from the chaff? Does it ensure that only the truly committed keep turning up? It must have some effect. When I think of how much I have to work to pay for the studio that I can afford it makes me realise how much I must REALLY need it. I can easily imagine that when I doubt myself the studio – the actual physical building –does nothing to re-assure me. The building itself (unlike the studio here) does not tell me that I am worthwhile, that what I do there has meaning or value, that I have a place in the world. In fact with the broken toilet and single cold-water tap, with the raining water running down the walls in the winter and the sweltering heat in the summer, the studio building tells me that I belong in a slum.
I’m not saying that creativity can’t be born out of such conditions – obviously it can (and has been for centuries), but is it what I want?
It was good to have the reality check of a good friend. My life here is so different from how I live in London. For one thing I don’t have to earn money, and that means time is my own. I haven’t been in the studio every day, I’ve taken a few long weekends away and some days just been ‘lazy’. I should also mention that I have been seeing someone too. It was always my plan to come here with an open mind (of course I had a plan b too!) but now I’m really having to think about what is important to me and how I want to spend my time – not just the next two months here but beyond that too …
ps. the week 1 project is still going on. I expect to finish it one Monday (which is week 4 I think – oops!) Other projects have and are starting …
Perhaps it’s because I haven’t settled in to a routine yet but time is passing very quickly. I guess that going away at the weekends and meeting up with friends keeps things moving at a pace too.
The Week 1 project is on-going and I’ve stated to do other things alongside. I’m really enjoying working in the studio – it makes such a difference to me to work somewhere that is spacious and light not to mention clean and neat. It would be wonderful to always have a studio like this one. The other day I glimpsed inside another studio (the door was open) and saw that they had put up an additional wall which made a seperate space. It got me thinking how great it would be to have a studio where you could have an ‘office’ area as well as a making/creative space. That way I could really spend all my day there rather than having to do online and admin stuff ‘at home’. Of course I’m not going to start building walls during my residency but it’s something I will bear in mind when I’m looking for a new studio.
Had a good meeting with Alex last night. We had a lot of ideas about how the residency could work – I hope that we can achieve some of them in the next two months!
The concrete things are a presentation to the artists at wip:sthlm (next Friday evening) and an Open Studio event towards the end of the residency (which is actually mid October). Alex is also going to let wip:sthlm’s mailing list know that their residency scheme is up and running and that I’m here!
We talked about making contact with local art schools. I’d like that and would be very happy to meet with their students. We also discussed studio visits for curators.
I get a very good feeling from Alex, she is really committed and enthusiastic.
A quick post – I’m heading off to the studio before a weekend in the archipelago …
Had a brief and very exciting chat with Alex the director of wip:sthlm last night. We’re meeting properly next week to discuss how to make the residency successful for everyone. She’s just taken over and is really keen to establish the residency as a core aspect of wip’s activities and identity. Previously the residency studio was run by IASPIS now wip:sthlm are running it themselves. And I’m the first visiting artist.
It suddenly seems a lot more significant. I’m delighted that Alex is so supportive and passionate. I’m really pleased that I have something to offer them too – not least through this blog and therefore my connection to a-n and other artists and artists’ networks.
Thankfully the work is going well too!
Thank you for your comments on my recent post – they are very much appreciated.
Sarah Rowles’ choice of Emily Speed’s and Jennifer Brooks’ blog got me thinking …
For the last few months I’ve been trying to allow my practice to find me.
It’s been a rewarding if somewhat frightening time.
I know that I can think too much, that I can spend time and energy trying to second guess what other people want from me (in both professional and personal relationships).
Perhaps it is because of the intensity of the period when I was caring for John, and because of its very real threat to my practice, that now I’m the other side of it I have been better to myself. What do I mean by ‘better’? And what has this got to do with the question of whether I have ‘found my practice’?
Thinking back over the last few years (and even further back) I realise how frustrated and angry I used to get about many aspects of the art world. I was unhappy about my position in it. I was unhappy about other people’s positions in it. I was desperate to find and identify my practice by other people’s criteria. I tried to twist myself into the kind of artist that I thought would get grants, exhibitions and funding – I was unsuccessful. Not only was I unsuccessful at getting those external validations, I was unsuccessful at achieving any internal (personal) validation. My practice was completely out of balance and satisfying no one.
Now I do my best to satisfy myself (primarily). I allow my practice to be what it needs to be. The more allow myself just to ‘make’ the more I enjoy it, and the happier I am with what my practice is becoming. When people ask me what I’m doing and how things are going I find myself talking with excitement and passion.
It could just be that I’ve reached the age (41) when many of the external pressures to define oneself fall away. I know I’ll never be the ‘hot young thing’ now and I’m okay with that. The ‘lack of time to find oneself’ is the lack of time we give ourselves. There is a sense of panic that we (artists) absorb from the frenetic pace of the market. I often recall something a young German art historian said “… no artist makes serious work before they are 40.” Perhaps it is a little blunt but it’s pertinent. How many artists leave art school each year and expect immediate success? How many expect to find their practice by the ages of 22? How many are able to sustain their practice to the age of 30 let alone 40?
‘True practice’ comes from knowing oneself and that takes time, and time is the one commodity cities like London rob you of …
Recently I’ve begun to consider the attractions of by-passing those restrictive criteria of funding applications and instead spending time finding one or two people who simply like me and what I do …
