My current textile work began as an experiment in ….
I am trying to write my artist’s statement and I’m not doing very well. I tried to ask my friends for words to describe my work, in fact I DID ask my friends for words to describe my work, I went beyond trying, there was definite asking and all of them said that I was clearly able to express myself because they’d all read my blog and thought I should just write my artist statement exactly like that.
But I don’t plan my blog posts ! They just sort of fall out of my head on to the page! My blog posts were a progression from my journals and lists. They just happen when I have something to say, it’s a whole other thing when I actually need to make a point and make it clearly and succinctly so that someone else will read it and choose to give me the thing I’m applying for.
None of my friends gave me words! I need words! They told me to use my own words but my words are rambling and stroppy! I’m trying to present myself as a capable, articulate artist with a clear idea of who she is and why her work is relevant, nay essential to her very existence, deserving of funding and support to help it develop to it’s fullest creative and entrepreneurial potential, and I am all of those things and my work is all of those things but I just can’t find the words to convince someone else that I am and it is.
Like I said, I’m not doing very well. It’s ironic that I’m avoiding writing by writing. I don’t see this as writing though. I see this as using words to get stuff out of my head. Writing an artist’s statement is about using words to help someone to appreciate what I do and help me do it some more. It’s not though is it. It shouldn’t be.
For one crazy moment I thought that maybe I could just copy and paste this and use it and that maybe the person I’m sending it to, the person with the purse strings and the amazing facilities would maybe see me as I really am and give me what I’m applying for just because I’m so refreshingly honest. I so wish I was that sort of person. I wouldn’t even need to copy and paste it because what you’re reading now really did start off as an attempt to write the real artist’s statement. That title and that first abandoned sentence aren’t just there for comedic purposes. This was supposed to be the real thing!
I remember once reading somewhere that someone at American Apparel had applied for their job by printing out their CV on a t-shirt and submitting that instead of a nicely printed traditional one. I’ve never been that person. I’d really like to be but I’m not. I wish I could embroider my statement on the wing of a silk raven and send it to them but I just don’t have the time.
I should just tell them what I do and why I do it shouldn’t I, but, you know, without the foul language and stroppiness.
It’s easier talking to you though.
My current work was initially and experiment in ( GETTING SHIT OUT OF MY HEAD) working purely with my creative instincts, allowing the creatures and characters from my dreams, childhood memories and imagination to exist in the outside world. I make figures and anthropomorphic creatures from antique textiles and threads, dyed with plants foraged on my forest walks ( the stuff I’ve hoarded over the years and the stuff I find in my pockets three weeks after I put it there).
Each figure or creature is an intuitive creative response to dreams, memories, fairy tales, and my childhood. Conceptually, I am interested (read, FIXATED AND OBSESSED) in the precious and the abandoned, in the natural tides of the forest and the seasons, and in the language of the subconscious. My process explores the dynamic between textile creation and deconstruction using hand drawn and embroidered detailing and unpredictable dye, heat and distressing techniques, (read, when things go wrong I tend to go with it and make it decorative). Every aspect (element?) of my work is created by hand. (Write something here about the importance of the craft process here).
That’s actually the best I’ve managed to come up with so far. I might actually go with “fixated” rather than “interested” because it’s closer to the truth.
My whole creative life seems to be about treading a fine line between authentic expression and not freaking people out too much.
Thanks for listening.
That last paragraph is pretty much what you’re looking for, surely?!
Yep, a lot of it ended up in the final statement 🙂
Girl you don’t need help with this artist statement. If I could write like you I’d be writing books. You go girl!
Wish I were holding the purse strings! You have in fact put it down on paper and it sounds good to me. In fact your work speaks for itself, seems a pity that you now have to spend time on words instead of doing what you do best. All the best
I share your pain. There is little more artificial to me than the preparation of an artist’s statement. You’ve done a lovely job (yes, fixated is a good choice, I think). What always strikes me about artists’ statements is how many of us are inspired by (or fixated on) the same things but still find such diverse means of expression. Thank you for sharing yours.
You’re welcome, I notice that a lot of my students work on the same themes too, but express them in completely different ways.
The last bit, beginning with “my current work” surely is exactly what someone should hear about you.
Yep, that’s pretty much what I used, without the orange bits 😉
A friend of mine wrote a 3 page artist statement, very cerebral and intelligent. The best I could come up with was “I just want to have fun making stuff”. I feel your pain!
Yep, that would have been my first choice too! 😀
Perfect…..including the Orange bits (they show the true you!)
Thanks 🙂
Expecting a tactile artist to condense all that her work encompasses into a paragraph is absurd. That said, you did it quite well, I thought.
LOL 😀
I’ve always thought that required Artist Statements were a conspiracy to fit otherwise unique and un-classifiable creators into very small, square-sided boxes for other people’s comfort. Especially when I watched my step-son come out of Art School, wafting words like “cohesive,” “my Influences” and “informs my aesthetic.” Please…put me out of my misery! Matthew Woods, author of The Seven Herbs, talks about the seven gateways in life, and one of the ones that I most relate to is his description of the seventh gate, when a creative, imaginative, inspired person “comes up against the wall of money.” Yep, that’s what it feels like. The world is strange indeed, but you have done a good job bridging your creativity over to it in hopes that someone will be able to read between the lines and see your brilliance. Good luck!
Thank you Susan, that’s really reassuring. I’m going to go look up The Seven Herbs x
PS I’ve just bought a copy of The Seven Herbs 😉 x
My copy is completely pencil-noted and underlined with thoughts, dreams, similar source materials and parallels in my own life!
You got it, girl! Feel comforted that so many of us feel exactly the same way about how, when, why, et al, it (our creative force and work) all just happens. It just IS. My blog is off the top of my head too; and I tend to wait too long between entries so that I sound like a run-away train and overwhelm anyone who reads it. Discipline isn’t my strong suit but working on my blogging in a more efficient way is a goal, even if it matters to no one but me. And that’s the way I approach my art: it has to speak from me, just like it was my artist’s statement. And you did that!
Leave everything in the statement! Even the asides! Love it.
Anni
Shouldn’t the second to last line be: “…about threading a fine line between…”?
I definitely meant treading, but maybe I should have said threading 😉
Enjoyed parts one and two. And I hate boiling down my life to the bouillon cube of an artist’s statement! If we were meant to live so, life would last five minutes. Mine would probably have something about the joy of making and the need for playfulness…
Yes to the above, except, I grant you the ability to create like no one is judging, to make pieces that resonate in your heart, and to delete the part about what anyone else might think. That part, the fear of not being accepted, robs our uniqueness and stifles our creativity. Like the genie said in Disney’s Aladdin: “Beeeee yourself!”
I found everything you said fascinating – I have a short attention span and little tolerance for artspeak. If I had the purse strings – you would definately have the cash or whatever it is you wanted, based on what I have seen of your exquisite work and the words you write. What more can I say.
Thanks Hazel! I can’t stand artspeak either. 🙂
I’m writing a proposal , artspeak bla bla bla. it gets better/