so this is the first week i actually feel i am not constantly attached to Moses, Delia or the washing..and that i can begin to contemplate re-occupying other parts of my identity..the artist for example. helen sent me an email reminding me that the Louise Bourgeois is closing next week, that its really tempting to stay in the comfortable womb of lewes but i will love it if i come up..and that triggered something, woke me up....then Janis from goldsmths asked me when i wanted to start the project and i realised that i actually have made a commitment this year to move my work forward-paid! - and its real, it has to happen. Thank god for the arts council money as without that it may have been easy to slip into semi-domesticated haze and feel rather lost and questioning. I can still be lost and questioning but with a purpose now!
There have been two post-natal events to date re my two projects- the Loom textile show and symposium at Goldsmiths which has helped create a team to work with and a start to the profile of the project and on monday the Mother to Mother feature finally went out on womans hour, over a year after it was made! a nice piece though rather without context- it wasnt made at all clear that the online piece is open to audience participation so i rather lost out on an opportunity there. But taking the attitude that everything happens as it should, there is still plenty of space for future growth...
I have no idea how these two projects will develop as I have never done this before- ie, continued to work with a project in order to expand it and create a touring model, but at least i am clear on the kind of people i want o engage with. also, it struck me yesterday that , contrary to the last three years where i have drawn directly on my life experiences to inform the central questions in the work with the audience and ask them to respond to those questions themselves, now my life is pretty calm and un-extraordinary from a presonal point of view-ie free of drama- that this time i should look beyond the inner circle to drawing on experiences and questions that are a step away from me, so that i am forced to move out of my comfort zone to understand how people who are in /have been in extraordinary states , such as in refuge/asylum or post natally depressed process and overcome or can be promoted to overcome through the work itself. Maybe if i didnt have the background of an artist i might have become a therapist or something but i realise my work has a healing purpose but needs to remain as art, to take people by surprise and also to give me and them the satisfaction of a persistent artefact tha can be shared with others long after the communal expereince of interaction with an audience has faded.
I think another thing i need to do is to learn a new skill, this maybe performance, weavng or something totally different, and also to use this year to set up my practice for the next five, in terms of approach to audience, contacts, representation , profile and real and beautiful 'things' that can circulate in a market or museum/gallery circuit.
thankyou universe for this great opportunity which i know given the present climate is a unique one-to be funded for a year to reasearch and develop work as an individual , is certainly a gift, and will require both focus and surrender to new , unexplored territories. And the courage to leave the comfortable womb of lewes more often than i might feel like..!having two children has changed everything and i must acknowledge that I am pushing boundaries and creating a very contemporary way of dealing with the working/living balance..i am blessed