My friend, fellow artist and a-n blogger Emily Speed, sent me this link over the weekend – some words by Agnes Martin on disappointment & the process of working as an artist. Martin has long been one of my favourite artists; I remember seeing her piece Morning at Tate Liverpool’s 20th century retrospective – almost three years ago now, on an early date with S., my boyfriend. I stood -silent, transfixed, and quite anti-social – for what felt like an eternity; experiencing her work physically was one of those art/life experiences; the rare ones, the transcendent ones. I came home and wrote reams of scribbled and excited notes in my notebook (which led me to the succinct conclusion: “Re-read Plato.” — his Theory of Forms, in relation to art, is something in which I’m desperately interested.). To me, Martin is one of the most truthful artists of the last century – if not ever. There’s a purity, a subtlety and a quiet directness to her work that is both breathtakingly beautiful and incredibly honest. As the artist herself said, talking about Morning, “It is about how we feel.”
Martin has also said this (which is quoted on the blog to which I’ve linked above):
“A sense of disappointment and defeat is the essential state of mind for creative work
“That is why art work is so very hard. It is a working through disappointments to greater disappointment and a growing recognition of failure to the point of defeat.
“‘Defeated’ is the position from which to have something to say, to rise up.“
This last line; yes, and yes, and yes. It was precisely the affirmation I needed this morning – barely half-past seven, with the sun not long risen & the wind racing through the trees & against the buildings. After several very dreadful, very, unspeakably dark days, I woke and I rose with a renewed sense of purpose and faith in what I wish to do – my usual sense of September re-awakening, but intensified and brought to a point. And then to read these words! It is true: I have felt defeated; but I shall rise up; in a quiet way I shall speak, I shall work. Because I have to. Because I want to. Because I must.
… Oh, the way that these things find us when we need them. Serendipity. Truly, I don’t know where I would be without it.
