This is part of an ongoing series of posts in which I examine my experience of being funded by an Arts Council England Developing Your Creative Process Grant. You may find this index of all the posts in this series with a description of their main content useful.
Every new project requires a new notebook of size and design perfectly matched to the feel of the project. Three months into being funded by the DYCP grant I turn to the front page of the nicely hefty sage green A4 Leuchturm Master Classic I dedicated to the year of being grant-funded. There I find an entirely unfocused and over optimistic list of intentions.
At the time I was driven by the push-pull emotions of feeling stuck and feeling I had been validated and given a way out. I had been a writer and artist for a long time but was floundering to pull the two together and to move into a new phase of creative practice now I had freedom to work full time. In fact I felt I was going backwards. Being chosen for a Grant which was seen as competitive helped me to hold onto a sense of hope and self-worth and created a burst of energy. The result I see now was a list of no less than eighteen intentions!
Given that the overall purpose of the grant was to help me slow down, focus, and go deeper into a more specialist way of practicing, I can only say now that the list of was a good statement of where I was starting from rather than a useful way to ground my year’s practice. Looking at it now however, with all the conversations and journalling that has passed since that time, I can distill it more usefully into three categories.
My intentions
- INTERNAL CHANGE – I intended to find a new way of living creatively that felt connected, gave me renewed confidence and a sense of belonging with a clear sense of creative identity.
- PROCESS CHANGE – I wanted to explore new techniques and media but also to draw my existing practice of writing/textiles/painting closer together in some undefined way. It all felt like an undefined jumble, I intended to create a practice that was more defined and specialised, more routine.
- EXTERNAL CHANGE – I indeed to explore new and expanded places to show my work and to ensure and help others.
The driving forces
Reading my journals with hindsight, I can see that I was pining for a new way of life but expressing my hopes for it in a way that deeply resembled my my old life. I had left a career that required me to work at speed, with scarce resources, in a conflictual environment, and always in the public eye. I was happy to rid myself of that experience. However, that job also offered me the status and recognition of ‘expert’ and placed me in a close-knit group which society would see as maybe ‘elite’ or ‘ highly successful’. Chosen, certainly. In my journal, I was expressing a desire for the opposite of the process of my old job whilst assuming that to be as happy as I had once been in that career I needed to recreate the same rewards.
For example in my newly cleaned studio, all ready for my new adventures, I had saved a magazine which contained two pictures of artists who each have a solo practice, at work. One sat with paper by a shoreline. The other worked in an empty shed carving a boat. Both spoke to me because of the solitude and serenity, the opportunity for thoughts and contemplation, the slow hand-made way of working. Yet many of the artists I was looking at as examples of what I might achieve had teams of studio assistants, worked into the small hours at the expense of their families or were attached to institutions that placed demands on their time.
Much as I can now recognize this, dealing with this (perceived) dichotomy between satisfaction with the private and the allure of the public space is an ongoing part of this year’s explorations. keeping a journal – a structured public distillation of the messier private life is one way to work with that issue.
What is art for?
In these early days I came across a quote from the editor of Art Forum, Tina RIvers Ryan. in the Summer 2004 edition she wrote abut the role of artist in the specific Post October 7th events, which have rocked both my own community and those across the world who care for human rights. She states:
…artists frame our vision, establishing a perspective that situates us in relation to the world. they thereby articulate a horizon that is not literal; and metaphorical. they push against the limits of what is achievable or imaginable, across space and over time in the present and into the future…
These words seemed both to grant a gravitas to creative practice which equaled my earlier. job and to impose and an impossible burden to do the idea justice. I write a little more about this on my Substack here.
Artists I was looking at in this period:
Questions I was asking:
What am I ‘allowed’ to make art about? where is the line between the stories that belong to others and the role of the artist in shifting people’s perspectives so that they can see/hear that story as told by those who own it?
Progress I was making
When I received the grant I was away in a former Cow Byre in Patterdale in the Lake District. I was a time for contemplation and drinks overlooking Lake Ullswater. the actual grant year , as chosen in my applications started on 9th July. This preparatory period became about defining intentions. there was also a lot of ‘gathering in’ – the contacting of new mentors, the buying of notebooks and supplies, and discovering new artists to look at. Simultaneously there was an element of ‘closing down and tidying up necessary to make room for this new year. I left some membership groups whose material I would have no time for and let go of old projects that would not now get completed. It was a time of great fresh energy but no real sense of clear direction. I could only wonder: would I be able to make the most of this opportunity?