In March last year (2023) I finished my MA in Arts & Ecology at Dartington Arts School. It was an amazing experience. We delved into the role of the arts, and the artist, in the current environmental crises we face in the world. I made work about approaches to managing coastal erosion; nature/culture dualism, capitalism and value hierarchies; and interspecies collaboration. I thought a lot about interconnection, polarisation, and complexity. Big, juicy topics.
Since finishing the MA, I’ve been trying to ‘make it’ as a freelance artist. To run thoughtful, meaningful courses and workshops, and make thoughtful, meaningful work, about thought-provoking, meaningful topics. And somewhere along the way, I’ve lost it. My creative mojo. My joy in making. Because it all feels so serious now. If my art’s not going to change the world (and in the process, make me a living), what’s the point?
The point is - everything. I am an artist. I can’t not make art. I also can’t make art if the stakes are constantly this high - I freeze, like the proverbial deer in the headlights - unable to move, unable to start anything, seemingly unable to have a single creative thought.
So what’s the answer?
Play.
I know this, deep down, but I so often lose it, this precious thread that connects me back to my creativity, and, so importantly, my joy in creativity. It can’t be forced. If I tell myself ‘I’m having a play day today’, inevitably it doesn’t happen, it feels like another thing on the to-do list (‘do accounts, send invoices, play…’) It comes about best in a stealth-like manner, when I least expect it. A chance encounter with a photographer’s website, an investigation of a new app, an ‘I’ll just try it out quickly’, a swift play with another app… and before I know it, I’m playing, and creating, and the creations are often rather lovely, but - and here’s the thing - they don’t mean anything.
At least, not right now. In weeks, or months’ time, when I’ve carried on down this rabbit hole of curiosity a bit further, and intrigue has led to research, has led to more making, has led to multiple more threads of intrigue and so on and so on, it might start to make sense. But in order for this to happen it has to be given space, to be understood as nothing but a curious non-sensical wonder for a while. And maybe it will always be. And maybe that’s ok, because it will inevitably lead to something else and something else and so on and so on. But if I try and make it make sense to start with, I’ll smother it, and the little spark of whatever-it-might-become will be extinguished.
So, that’s why I’ve re-started this blog. To give me motivation to keep making and sharing my play as well as my work, the stuff that I just make out of curiosity and for joy, the stuff that doesn’t make it to my portfolio, or maybe even to Instagram. The stuff that has no particular purpose or agenda.
No particular purpose or agenda - other than without it, I am lost.
