Last week, the day after my son flew back to London, I walked into the bathroom, saw the unique way he’d bundled up his bath towels and hung them up on the wall hooks, and felt a sharp pang of sadness at his absence. New Year feels similar: a stinging realization that the previous year is over, a reminder of diary pages crumpled up and thrown into waste bins. I’ve never been one to rejoice in the tearing off of December’s page from the calendar and seeing a blank January waiting to be filled. I don’t feel excitement or anticipation at what the next 365 days might bring and I’m resolutely sticking to making no New Year’s resolutions and burying my head beneath the duvet until at least March. It’s not that I’m a pessimistic person – I’m actually quite a positive character – it’s just that in this Northern Hemisphere where I find myself, New Year comes at the wrong time. I mean, when the house is groaning from post-Christmas jumble-sale vibes, the garage is full of packaging and rotting food because the snow prevented the garbage collectors getting to the house last week, everyone’s feeling the tail-end of covid/flu/RSV, AND it’s pouring with rain outside (as it so often is in Seattle), who can muster up the energy to even stay awake long enough to see in the first day of 2023, let alone plan for the months ahead?
My ancient Briton, pagan ancestors would have celebrated a New Year that began November 1st, the first day of winter, at a festival some called Samhain. But although I consider myself to be pagan above any other spiritual belief system, I’m not sure November 1 is a good time for a New Year either, at least not if you’re this far north of the equator. I need warmth and light to stoke my fires of optimism and both of those are in short supply up here in the Pacific Northwest. The best I can manage right now is to keep shuffling stuff around my studio pretending I’m tidying up. Shuffling can take me all day with the right Spotify playlist, and with the abundant supply of Amazon delivery boxes I’ve collected I’ve been sorting and stacking artworks into reformed Bezos boxes, marking the front with “Self-Portraits 2022” and feeling very proud of myself. The problem is, as anyone who’s old enough to remember sorting physical photographs knows, that sorting becomes reminiscing, which becomes procrastinating. So, I currently have “self-portraits I want to think about a bit more” sitting in a pile alongside boxes of neatly filed art works. And then of course, there’s the issue of my overthinking and the accompanying slide of my hand to retrieve one work, then another, then another, from the catalogued box and guiltily balancing them on the “think about a bit more” stack.
The best way I can describe my art practice right now is I want to think about it a bit more. It’s going nowhere. It’s piles of art that are leaning up against walls, lie on top of every studio surface, sit in Amazon boxes pretending to be catalogued. It’s as messy and haphazard as my fridge after all the Christmas festivities: obscure food that we’d never eat at any other time of year (pheasant anyone?) sits next to half-drunk bottles of gifted wine, a bowl of cranberry sauce and the stuffing I cooked then forgot to serve with Christmas dinner. Yeah, fridge and studio are seasonally challenged.
Experience tells me that this isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last, that I’ve felt stuck, overwhelmed, unsure. Art making isn’t clean and decisive, it’s dirty, confusing, will leave you feeling like that crumpled up piece of wrapping paper hidden behind the Christmas tree. Nobody makes great art without giving away a slice of their soul and a bucket full of their energy. This sitting in the work and trying to make sense of it is part of the artistic process, it’s just the other end of staring at a blank canvas not knowing how to start.
For all of us, not just artists, there are times when we have to stand in the mess and trust that we’ll wade through it as best we can and come out the other side feeling, if not energized, then at least less weighed down by the heaviness of all the sticky crap we just had our feet in. As I leaf through all my self-portraits sitting in boxes, in the same way I used to flip through vinyl records as a teenager, I’m wondering why I started this project and whether I learned anything about me at all. What was I searching for? Did I find it? Who is this woman, sometimes grimacing, sometimes angry? What is she trying to say? Why does she look so miserable most of the time?
I don’t know.
“I want to think about it a bit more.”
To all of you sitting in a sticky mess, feeling the bitter nostalgia of a new year, unsure of first steps into 2023, I’m with you and we don’t need to move an inch.
Until next time,
JC
My Anti-Resolution Resolution List
Delete all emails that start with “How to crush 2023…”
Block all accounts that are looking for 20 people in my area to get them fit in 30 days
Set an alarm to remember to turn on the electric blanket at 8pm. Cosy bed = happy body
Silence phone between 8pm and 10am to give extra quiet hours
Incorporate a thinking practice into daily activities: shower & think, walk & think, sit by the fire & think. Thinking is self-care and I need a lot of it
Am still processing the self portraits I did. It may take all of 2023. Lol