Concentration, Experimentation and Play

My current project notebooks - one is for making notes about the books I'm reading (the one pictures is one of them and it's an interesting and difficult read) and one is for to do lists, planning and thinking things out and the most recent knitted creature I've made - knitting is one of the things that I do that helps me dampen down the feelings/symptoms of anxiety that I experience every day. 

Practice lumen prints using acetate negatives and 4 different kinds of paper (see image below) in the back window - I took advantage of the recent very hot sunshine to do some experimentation and I'm pleased with the results and got some usuable prints as well as ideas for how to make them better next time I make some. Mapp (who can be seen in shadow towards the top of the image in shadow) very kindly let me have her one of her beds for a bit as the direct sun was too fierce even for her and she retreated behind the curtain with just a bit of a back leg catching some rays. 

4 different kinds of paper I'm currently using  - some very old indeed, the AGFA Brovira in the orange packet is well over 40 years old and was a gift from a friend when sorting out the contents of what had been her fathers darkroom - I am very honoured and privileged to have been given such precious material and I use it sparingly as it is so finite and irreplaceable. I'm not sure how old the Kentmere paper is but it's old though Kentmere Paper is still available and still in production. As are the Ilford papers - the big box of Ilford is probably around 20 years old, the smaller pack of Ilford is only(!) 8 years old as I got it when I did a Photography evening class back at was then called Leeds College of Art in 2014. Sadly the same place is now called Leeds Arts Uni but it doesn't offer evening classes anymore which I think is a great shame. I think evening classes are a great way to  make higher educational establishments seem a bit less intimidating and as a prospective student they're also a good opportunity to experience an institution as it actually operates on a day to day basis and not an open day best behaviour say anything to get your cash basis.

Some of the knitted things I've been working on over the past few weeks - as you can probably tell I am fond of variegated wool that makes its own kind of stripes and patterns and the little plain green and black striped creature in the middle at the back went to a new home earlier this week.
I'll keep and use the dishcloth myself (it has an outline of a skull and crossbones on it) and the other creatures and the booties will be going to chums/family members as presents. 

Concentration, Experimentation and Play might sound like they could be Emerson Lake and Palmer's troubled grandchildren but they are in fact the things I've been focusing on and at times struggling with the past few weeks. The extreme heat of the last week put a massive dent in my productivity as despite my best efforts to not be affected by it made me feel quite sick and also really sluggish which in turn is not helped by not being able to sleep very well when it's that hot. So I am very grateful the extreme heat has passed for the time being and I hope it doesn't return but I fear it will and I also fear instead of being unusual it's going to become the norm. 

I found the heat as disorientating and anxiety provoking as the first lockdown in some ways - at least then I could leave the house for some exercise each day at whatever time I fancied but the heat meant that I either didn't leave the house or went for a walk really early in the morning before it got so fiercely hot that I felt like I was breathing soup. YUCK.

I did some reading but I found it very difficult to concentrate properly once it got past 11am and then all I could manage was flopping on the sofa sipping cold water and feeling hemmed in by heat, closed curtains and the fear that climate chaos is here and as an an individual there is relatively little you can do to combat it - it needs concerted government action and cooperation between governments but sadly given the dickwads that are in charge in this country at the moment that seems pie in the sky thinking. But onto cheerier things... 

It's about six weeks since I last wrote and 'blog post' has been on my to do list for a at least 3 of those weeks and this morning while ideas and to do lists and project aims and deadlines were swirling round my head I made 'blog post' top of my to do list as it helps me formulate my thoughts and get a much better idea of what I want and need to do next. 

Top of the to do list is 'finish writing artist statement and bio' closely followed by check on state of work at St George's Field - I find writing statements and bios really difficult. I've tried to work out why I find it so hard and I think it's a mix of factors:

One factor being that it is hard - especially when trying to break down processes that to me feel more intuitive than theory and process driven even when theory and process are a big part of them. Another factor is that I think language can be a really big barrier to participation so getting the language right to describe things is hard and it also has to be audience specific and I also don't want to come across as either stupid or pretentious. Negative experiences in connection with things I've written in the past don't help either and I have to take concerted action sometimes not to let those specific incidences inhibit me.

In addition to those factors it's also been my experience that women are socialised not to draw attention to themselves in intellectual ways and I got teased at school for doing so. Plus my strict roman catholic upbringing taught me that talking positively about yourself is akin to pride and so a sin. To be fair though - a roman catholic upbringing teaches you that almost anything and everything is a sin in some way.

Another thing that I think is a factor is that I come from a working class background that had comparatively little in the way of cultural capital, I never set foot inside an art gallery or a theatre (other than for a couple of trips to pantomines at xmas) until I was in my late teens and despite the evidence of having a Masters in Creative Practice and being a practising photographic artist and researcher in some way and showing work for almost twenty years now I still suffer from imposter syndrome in part because I was not brought up to feel creative and higher education spaces were spaces I could easily go into or be in and feel at home in.

Imposter syndrome is an absolute arse as is anxiety as is the class system in this country but being able to recognise them for what they are and so be able to try and do something about them is a kind of forewarned and so forearmed defence against them and education is a way of combating it even though it also in some ways helps enable it - as there will always be something I don't know or understand but then that is the joy of learning. 

So one of the ways I'm trying to find it easier to write is to think of it as actively rebelling against my upbringing. Recognising why I find it difficult makes it a little easier to tackle though at times it still feels like the equivalent of pulling teeth but I've always been attracted to rebellion so thinking of it in those terms makes it just that little bit easier...

It's been 7 weeks since I left work (4 matte medium image transfers - two on fabric and two on canvas)  there and my aim is to recover those pieces next week so  they will have been there 8 weeks. I 've done it with the aim of collaborating somehow with the space which the artist Stephen Gill so beautifully describes as the hope that 'maybe the spirit of the place can also make its mark'.  

I hope the environment has made an impression on the matte medium image transfers I left there and I also hope that they have not been carried off by anyone or anything, but that would also be interesting - as long as they've not just been thrown in a bin as that would make me sad but that's the gamble you take when leaving work somewhere for any length of time. 

In terms of play - I've been playing with inverting colours on images using GIMP photo manipulation software. It's free and open source unlike Photoshop which I am lucky to also have but which I find almost impossible to use. I find Photoshop really unuser friendly and not intuitive at all. But the photosoftware I use most of all is that which comes with the Microsoft Windows operating system as I find that so simple to use and it does the things I want. 

I've found this blog post really difficult to write but it has helped me organise my thoughts and find a way through to attack my to do list with renewed energy and vigour. The deadline for getting work ready for the exhibition at Leeds Art Uni is getting closer each day and though I have done a lot I still have lots to do.

So please wish me luck in sustaining that effort and thank you for reading.