Art is not therapy¹
It is more animal than that²
During a rubbish week of illness, death and injustice, I get myself, finally, to the studio.
This is not escape
This is not soothing
This is not relaxation
This is animal activity – this belongs to the fight/flight/fuck variety of responses
So don’t be fooled by the apparent slow and measured activity.
I am angry and sad.
This is the way I respond to the world.
I’m writing and drawing…scratching ink furiously into paper.
Jabbing my poisonous needle into the fabric…pursed lips…hunched shoulders.
I am powerless to prevent the inevitable. So I try to insert it into my work. I attempt to assimilate it, to make some sort of sense. I am not assigning it to the gods.
The activity I undertake is not distraction. It does not serve the purpose of diverting my attention.
This art is focussed, frustrated fury.
It works through; it acts out; it filters,sorts and files; it absorbs the facts and spits them back out.
No.
This isn’t a gentle thing
This isn’t ladylike and modest.
It is hard work.
Exhausting.
But the world has to be dealt with, and this is the way I do it.
¹But it might be Therapy
²Dan Whitehouse told me. He is a wise man
