One of the reasons I decided to write about my work in progress in this way was to affirm (and remind myself of) the fact that the reality of the creative process is rarely of a brilliant artist working singlemindedly towards the production of a widely-acclaimed masterpiece, but rather a quite normal person, who cares about something, battling various practical and financial obstacles in order to bring into being a piece of work that, in the majority of cases, nobody else cares about at all, with the progress towards this objective being anything other than a straight line. 

Thinking about this brings to mind the wise words of Wendy McMurdo, an actually brilliant artist, who I was fortunate to be tutored by in the final phase of my MA. During one of my many existential crises she calmly informed me that the numerous issues and problems preventing me from making work that I was describing to her were in fact simply part and parcel of being an artist, and that the associated self-doubt and uncertainty were all part of the creative process. Her advice being that I should basically suck it up and make work anyway because that was the only way anything ever got done, the only way any progress was ever made. Coming from her, these words meant a great deal and have stuck with me ever since. 

So, I write to remind myself of this and also to keep myself accountable and it is in this spirit that I make this latest entry in the WIP log. The last few months have of course being challenging for everyone, what with the rona, and life as we knew it seems to be gone for good. I’ve been overwhelmed with work stuff and also had to survive my own bout of the virus, so it’s been a challenging time for sure. Amongst all this though, I’ve tried to stay committed to the idea of continuing on regardless, as best as I could under the circumstances. One of the lessons I think, is that instead of being hard on yourself for not being as productive or creative as maybe you’d hoped to be in certain circumstances, it’s preferable to stick to your guns and just do what you can. Every little helps and with each small step you’re that bit little closer to the end goal. It’s important for me to remember that there never is a ‘perfect’ time to make work, with absolutely no obstacles or distractions to contend with, there’s always just now.

As I’ve continued planning and researching for a project focusing on mental health, there’s been an inexorable convergence with the themes of Reaching Out. 

Loneliness and solitude certainly offer psychological challenges, but it’s been really interesting that I’ve found myself circling back round and being forced to consider loneliness from new angles. Another lesson perhaps, that research is never wasted even if it seems to be not directly related to the topic at hand at first, and a reminder that my MA work lives on, and remains unfinished business. 

I’ve been reading A Biography of Loneliness by Fay Bound Alberti. Looking at how loneliness has been conceptualised, written about and experienced through history, it’s an ambitious work indeed. Interestingly, Alberti starts from the position that loneliness is not intrinsically bad, and that there are positives to be gained from experiencing this state. Describing loneliness as a ‘cluster of emotions’ rather than a single feeling, the author argues that it hits differently at different life stages such as divorce or old age. Alberti also argues that loneliness is not an inevitable or universal aspect of the human experience, and when encountered can also confer benefits such as increased self-knowledge or creativity. 

It’s fascinating to consider that loneliness has not always been with us, simply because the vocabulary associated with this experience did not exist before about 200 years ago. Prior to that, being alone was not at all bound up with typically negative ideas of loneliness that we take for granted today, but rather considered a much more neutral state of being. This idea is really interesting to me, that how we describe or think about things, materially affects the way we experience them and it’s an interesting idea to explore visually in the future.

Another book I’ve covered recently is Advice for Strays by Justine Kilkerr. This is an interesting story, about a woman going through a difficult time who’s revisited by an imaginary friend from her childhood, returned to accompany her through her troubles. This friend, a lion named Jericho, appears when things seem to be slowly falling apart in her life, and while their relationship is never fully explained, there quickly develops a seemingly mutually beneficial co-dependence. The key theme that resonated with me here was the idea of perception, of being able to ascertain what is real and what is not, and whether sometimes it’s actually easier, even safer, to surrender to the constructions of our minds rather than address difficult things in the ‘real’ world. The idea of spending so long immersed in your own perceptions that you struggle to differentiate between what’s real and what’s imagined is also interesting. How does one categorise experiences that can seem very real to us, and from which we may derive some positives, if they are not perceptible to others…are they any less valuable, less real? This boundary between our tangible material world, and that of our very personal, internal world is a fascinating place to explore.