I have been procrastinating a bit from getting busy in the studio again after my first solo exhibition. I have been working on some new work, which includes some very nice commissions, but I feel like I'm in a slight lull of creating - not in a phase where I can create a 'masterpiece'. So now it feels like I'm about to burst out of the lull again, but first want to grab this opportunity to reflect or report on everything that I've been feeling and thinking the past few weeks. The time following the opening of my exhibition turned out to be a time for introspection and planning 'what comes next'.
Interestingly, although everything went really well and I am proud of what I achieved with the exhibition, I also feel a bit let down by myself. Knowing that I could have done so much more and so much better. This is not an overly active inner critic, don't worry, but rather a need or ambition to something that really has value to people. I have no doubt that my artworks, the writing in my catalogue, or my performance piece had an impact on each person who experienced it. Even if it is just an infinitely small impression that I have managed to make in how they think and feel about nature and 'wildness'.
Rather, I'm wondering what type of project or body of work I should create next, and how to make it more valuable to people - whether a specific community or any individual who interacts with the art. I have considered, and decided against, putting the work into a human-based creation such as a Green Artist Collective again, like the GYA initiative that I attempted to grow, and the short-lived Scapes Project. But the organizing tasks and mobilising efforts involved with such an endeavour is not for the faint-hearted, the very arty-and-disorganized or the overly-introspective (periodically asking myself why I am doing everything I'm doing, and expecting answers not excuses). I have also noticed that I'm not great with delegating tasks, nor am I good at leading, satisfying or managing an intern.
Which leads me to be quite content with putting energy into the monthly Land Art gatherings we're running in the Western Cape (facebook.com/capelandart or subsribe to bit.ly/capelandart to receive updates about the dates and venues), associated with
Site_Specific, in which we're creating a platform for artists to create in the landscape as part of a small but supportive art community, from which bigger projects can grow organically or spontaneously.
Leaving me enough time to create... some more video art, mixed media artworks, functional art, Nuances-works, experimental work, sculptural work (something I'm being pulled into by some inexplicable force or interest) and more performance-based work or installations. I'm very interested in the link between how we see and treat ourselves and the women of our society, and how we treat the natural ecosystems that nurture and sustain us. Ecofeminism is being recognized as a movement or discourse within our dialogues about people & nature, and I think art is a powerful way to continue or contribute to the conversation.
As part of my work in this line of thinking, I'm tempted to go on a tangent, run into the mountain and go totally self-indulgent and self-nurturing, focusing on my own healing (we all need healing, the planet's distress is mimicking the illness within our own bodies and minds, or the disconnection that we seem to manifest for ourselves between our mind, body and spirit/soul) and just finding a space to BE - without needing to express anything creatively or verbally or in text. But then I wouldn't be true to me. Or my purpose. Which, after doing an exercise in an
article by Astrid Baumgardner, reads something like this:
My purpose is to use my ow exploration of nature, and focused creative expression of my findings, in a way that makes people see the beauty in everything around them and also within themselves, so we can together create a world of people who are content, happy, balanced and compassionate, because I do not believe and cannot accept that we are meant to be unhappy, abusive, abused, cruel or destructive to ourselves, others or our planet.
So, in a nutshell, my best way of being is to focus on my artmaking - in whatever form it takes - and create with the intention of focusing people's attention to the beauty and wonder that's around them and within their own minds and hearts.
