What's Honest And True

my private view

one

Summer is usually my most prolific art-making season yet I didn’t make any art last summer, nor this summer thus far. True, I had a good excuse last year—I moved house—but this year?

Yes, there are still boxes to unpack in the studio. Yes, I have a storeroom full of unsold art that nags me when I open the door and takes up space in my creative brain. But is there something else I’m struggling to articulate?

I’m trying not to let my lack of artmaking raise the anxiety flag. I’ve been here before and I’ve always eventually found my way back to art but this time, right at the edge of my brain, there’s an acceptance that if I never walked back into the studio, that would be okay—I’d be alright.


two

Activities that have been giving me the same feelings as art:

• wondering whether now is the right time to mow my fading wildflower meadow

• bottling my homemade kombucha with plums and lavender from the garden

• digging up onions, drying them in the sunshine and figuring out how to braid them

• wearing an embroidered vintage blouse that only cost me $6 from my local church thrift store and rocking a double embroidered ‘fit

• researching all the names on my local election ballot form to figure out who to vote for

Life IS art.

three

There’s an alter-ego waiting in the wings and she’s jumping up and down in frustration because I’m hogging the stage and refuse to walk off.


four

It was recently pointed out to me that I display ADHD behaviours, as do my daughter and son—as did my mum when she was alive. We’ve been having many family conversations around this and I’m viewing my whole life through a different lens. No wonder I can never finish a project.

five

I have fallen out of love with the industrial art complex. In truth, it was an infatuation and I’m over it now. Gallery Open Calls, Instagram, Artist Statements, Art Fairs, Selection Panels, Gatekeeping, White Cubes—all the seduction techniques of the patriarchal, capitalist art complex no longer work on me, I’m done.

I don’t know what this means for my art. I just know I don’t want to be part of THAT system. Watch this space, as they say.

What’s honest and true for you?

Until next time.

JC