Hold the Space, Brown Street Projects, installation view, Spirit of a Muse series
The first two days of June, in the studio, I was making my new drawings against the clock. Hilariously, I even duplicated an image without realising it so I had to make another image just when I thought I was all done. Still, it was a very pleasurable push and a couple of days in flow state. Next, I took all of my works down from my studio wall and installed them in the show. I asked the artist, Sean Williams, to help me with the install, because I know from other shows, installs, and conversations that Sean takes seriously things like spacing and rhythm in hanging. And he always works out the simplest practical solutions.
Once the artwork was up, I did a certain amount of telling people about the show, meeting people there, and invigilating.
The times when I was in my studio, I began an altogether new series. Momentously, this series is based on photographs I have taken of other performers onstage, which is a departure. I’ve selected the images and printed them out. I’ve covered them in graphite on the back and begun to trace them. But what this new series will look like is not yet formed on paper or in my mind’s eye. I had aimed to work out how this series would look by the end of June. But it’s still forming. I have a new selection of paints, new gold pens. I’m borrowing a Klimt monograph which is on my studio desk. My studio walls, however, are empty. No new pieces up yet. Nor are my tests and experiments.
This month, beyond the studio, life has been happening. I’ve met new people, I have had hard conversations, there was a family bereavement, family reconciliations. And so, in truth, the not-knowingness of my practice, the open-ended, I-don’t-know, it-could-go-anywhere feeling has been important. I’m gathering myself. In life, and my studio desk. I’m trialling, experimenting, and growing. I’m finding out. I’m showing up. I’m not shying away.
The important counterpoint to all this is that I’ve been increasing the amount I walk, for mind and physical fitness. My fashion trainers didn’t seem up to the task of supporting this footstep increase, so I researched and bought some walking trainers. I must admit, they are a bit incongruous with the dresses I wear daily. But that’s OK. They are a practical solution to a practical problem with aesthetic implications and I know that there’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Sometimes life and the studio bleed out into each other in unexpected ways.
Studio Stories, June 2024