For a couple of weeks, I have had the thought that I need to post something here. And then I would check in on myself and realize that I have nothing to say. It is not that nothing is happening in my life - I feel quite stretched to the maxium actually - but really, what is there to say about that?
Although I applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship (hey - you gotta be in it to win it!) to expand on my To Stand in the Centre project, I am still feeling my way with this new energy around artmaking. Where, oh where did my aggressive, competitive attitude about making art go? I don't know but it is gone, sister. Like, big time. What's left? This is the question that I am working with. I glance through various art journals and websites and it is all really boring to me. I just don't care about the questions most artists are taking up. The questions that get me charged up are related to how we make our way in this crazy, messed up world. Art holds some answers to these particular questions but, for the moment, it is not really how I want to work with them.
Maintaining the sense that I need to keep some kind of professional momentum going with my art career takes a lot of energy. There is the doing of art business stuff - applying for things, keeping up networks/contacts, doing paperwork. There is the guilt about not doing that stuff. There is going to galleries and other shows to stay on top of what is what in the art world today. There is other stuff too and it all takes time and energy. And I am just so not interested in it. When I can release a little of that feeling like I need to keep all those balls in the air, it is such a huge relief. I feel both energized and profoundly tired.
Making things with my hands is what I do - this is not in question. But somewhere in between the deadlines and hustling and the self-promotion, I lost the connection, or some connection of some kind to what made the whole thing make sense. For now, I am giving myself permission to not make anything unless I really feel the need. It feels a little like waking up from a deep sleep - where am I?
At the end of November, Lucy and I will visit Finnian in Rome. It was in Rome, in 1985, that I had a profound experience of coming into my own with colour and painting and really feeling like the work I was making was truly my own. Perhaps beautiful Roma will work its magic again, 30 years later!
2 comments:
I completely understand what you are saying here. I want to fold my existential angst into my creations - like I fold egg whites into my cake batter - carefully allowing it to leaven the heaviness of what I'm attempting. But my existential angst won't fold. It will only remain stubbornly on the couch - like a very annoyed fourteen year old. I do not want to play - it tells me. It is a dumb game and I am so over it.
I think Rome could tempt her off the couch and into the studio but I am not sure.
Loving you! Hope your stubborn fourteen year old loosens her grip soon.
Thanks Jan! Yeah, just trying to let things be and attempt to "fix" anything. Something tells me that whatever comes out of this strange period will result in something that is stronger and more personal. Meanwhile, I am knitting a sweater, which is pretty darn fun at that! : ) XOXOX
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