#29
On hatred and the artist's hand
O lover, I return in haste – sweat beads streaming above mine brow. The sun hangs heavy overhead and, hands marred by hard work, I seek escape in the ocean-blue. I feel fatigued once again, only this time with much more urgency. With time spent toiling away in the day at work, and evenings occupied by the studio, the gallery and other matters, I have found myself – for the first time ever, angel – beginning to hate all that is art.
Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket (1964) dir. William Castle.
Hate, a strong word I know, which I never thought I’d be inclined to voice aloud. What I find grating, babe, is more so the minutiae that inevitably comes along with it. Phone calls, FaceTimes, texts, briefings and meetings, emails I write late into the nite, an endless to-do list that I cannot seem to cease. I realise now, with confidence, that I am in fact over-worked. A choice of mine own making, a fear, of sorts, of saying ‘no’. I love the work I do, endlessly, but as of late I find myself having very little time to do much of anything else.
I feel, reader, desperate for reprieve. A warm sea, sand betwixt mine palms, a salted breeze to inhale with stillness. The root cause of this rumination, I find, is not allowing myself to rest. I never thought I’d be in this position – wishing with earnest to sever the cord – and I fear this feeling should grow further, if I don’t while away a day, a week, a month beneath the Summer sun. Art is and has been for as long as I can recall, central to mine life, a niggling itch I cannot calm, a dream which keeps me awake, something, anything, to satisfy that sadness.
The effort I’ve been working towards, reader, is namely a group exhibition soon-to-open at The New Art Gallery Walsall on 8th August. Communion: a name which came organically upon reflecting on faith in all its fallacies. Prose which you well know, reader, on finding meaning in the ether, on seeking reason in God. Works of stone, words lended from Offering, a vinyl bumper sticker in Fuschia Blackletter, like I told you so. A painting yet to see the light of day which speaks of cruelty within a stranger.
Marilyn Monroe in Bus Stop (1956) dir. Joshua Logan.
I feel guilt regarding stone. What once represented a monument to my Father, an atonement for the headstone that he would never receive, feels almost like a cheat. I wish deeply, baby-angel, to master a craft in its totality. To dedicate a thousand hours to hand-carving marble stone, glossed and glittering. Stone, in recent months, is all I’ve seemed to think about: the next work, the next cryptic inscription, the next shrine to a life that I’ll never forget.
I feel a cheat, reader, for while I’ve conceived the concept - visually birthed that work into the world - and spent late nights perfecting type, I, myself have not put hand to that stone, but rather have invested in the expertise of a loving craftsman. This relationship has been built tenatively, delicately, so much so that this hidden figure has begun to conceive of work before me. We speak of craft, of family histories, of dedicating your life to a dying art, of wishing to be a Jack-of-all-trades.
Salvaging quarry stone, he hands it to me with glee.
Within a recent critique, hauled up in the studio on a hot Summer’s afternoon, Cathy Wade spoke careful words which have since stayed with me. “Art is a collaboration,” she says, which begins from first conception. Every element of any work - the cotton-duck canvas from the clothes market, the oil paint from the art shop - each have the touch of another at some stage. What I began to slowly deduce, reader, amidst The Field and other kin, is that this work is the beginning of something much greater.
Until August.
X