After an exquisite dinner in good company and laughter, I am here considering this day but I am reminded constantly that this experience is about to end. I am happy to go back home: I miss my cats Virginia and James; I miss my friends and my colleagues at university but having said that I will miss this space, this house, this view, and this silence.
I will always cherish my transformation and how I have learned to approach my practice and Scarlett this evening told me: of course, you are an artist, listen to the way you speak about your practice! and that warmed my heart and soul.
I kept on reading Tim Ingold's book I referred to in my previous post and I found his words even more enlightening. So much so, I sent him an email. I have been questioning and pondering if we could add a 5th A to his algorithm: Aethereal. The spiritual, the sublime. Because this aspect is what I am searching for in my art-making, this is what I experience and I think this is what really transforms me from within. I have been noticing how today my picking up, wondering, considering, weighing up every single piece of cardboard changed since Tim Ingold's words made sense to me and helped me clarify. There has been an extra layer of awareness in my allowing not just the placing of the pieces, but the cutting of the pieces themselves, in a constant tactile experience. Don't get me wrong, I am pleased with the final product, but my perspective changed and got some extra depth. I was blown away when he mentioned the difference between hylomorphism and morphogenesis and I am wondering if the act itself of planning, thinking, designing, sorting, describing, sketching something that will turn out to be my final piece at the Summer Show at university is holomorphic in its own terms which is the complete opposite of my approach to art, which instead is definitely morphogenetic. For the ones I might have already lost: hylomorphism is the practice stemming from "material culture": you think, plan, sketch, make; where the practitioner set their own thought on matter. On the other spectrum, morphogenesis stems from growth, from working with, from "joining forces" with the material, without impositions.
All this to say, there is a stronger and more defined grounding within me, and a validation of my thinking and processing because of what I read. Part of me is tired of being described as unique when that term is used with the intention to mock, deride, criticise and belittle. Now I can grow in confidence because I know that out there there is someone who has opened a path for me where I recognise myself.
I have also noticed how today I have introduced a pencil and an eraser in my practice; and how my tri-dimensionality is getting more and more interesting! This has been another good day! So, I will leave you with my...
piece of paper evening #11
onwards+upwards,
mx