Over the summer, my studio time has included doing studio things outside the studio. For example, I’ve photographed Mood Lounge strip club in Doncaster and visited a museum archive.
I also went on the week-long MMM Summer School (which I wrote about in an earlier post). This is the slow-burn research of putting poses in my body that I’ve seen in photographs. This process of embodiment I unconsciously do with every project I work on. At some point, I put my body into the image (into the spotlight?) to develop insight that informs what I make. I need to understand images through embodying, that’s what I do.
At the MMM Summer School I also began to learn a new movement vocabulary and that depth of physical experience sets the stage for me to think through new work. I have in mind one video I’d like to make–but that’s on the other side of completing my current ongoing video project about the Tiller Girls.
Back in the studio, I’ve been attending an intensive Business Skills for Creatives course online. In short bursts, I caught moments to work on some new drawings that I’m slowly finding my way with, understanding a bit more. No matter how briefly I spend on these, adding to them means I return to making. It’s in these moments I recommit to my practice intentions and shuck off whatever exterior messages aren’t for me I may have picked up along the way.
These drawings are based on photographs taken at Sexplict PDSM in May. A pop-up strip club event in which an inclusive lineup of performers are paid fairly. The PDSM events are Gemma Rose’s activism in action. I wanted to depict contemporary strip performers in a context in which they were respected and can shine on their own terms. I’m going to make a number of drawings for each performer, maybe two or three, and one will be on black paper. I’m still thinking this work through, I need to sit with the work, respond to it, and see what it is. Time is a key tool in my practice, sitting with the work enables me to clarify my intentions and make more incisive material choices. They are now on my studio wall, the next evolutionary step along my production pipeline.
When I start a new body of work, I always feel uncertain and vulnerable. I feel as though maybe I should at some point abandon the work and I fear it’s a bit embarrassing. But sitting with the work, and seeing it on my studio wall builds my resolve and confidence.
And so it goes. Some work is seeding, some is flowering and others are sprouting. Each work has it’s on arc, it’s own time frame. And I tend to each with care and attention.
July & August Studio Stories