Art is created one step at a time (😂😂😂) & the path is seldom linear, from my experience. Still, with all the unexpected side-stepping I do, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Interest, meaning, connection, pain, chaos & all that juicy stuff is stumbled upon in this way.
Creative work cannot always be rushed. Sometimes it is important to take some time, sit back, even put your feet up on your desk. But in all seriousness, in our image-driven-social-media-capitalist world there is immense pressure to have consistent ‘content output’, to be productive & commodify our work lest it be deemed of no value. I feel that all the time. At the same time, as someone with mental illness (and as a human being, really) being in constant ‘production factory mode’ is simply not a possibility. I think to make things requires making space first, whether situationally or emotionally. And while that space is being created, things are incubating, developing covertly. Life experience is being added to the mix. And exploring those stories and life-experience things is what compels me to create anyway. Slowing down, for me, becomes a necessary and radical act.
finished.
From a piece created in association with singer-songwriter Connie Kaldor with text from her song “Come All You Women”. This work was purchased by the Grey Nuns community hospital as part of their Psychiatry Department Art Project, and I am so moved for it to have a home there.
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