Interesting chat with Laurie and Rachel about what they’re working on. It is exciting to be on the course with so many interesting people doing very different things and listening to their approaches and ideas. It is also good to have. chance to talk about our frustrations and have someone on your side who sympathises and listens with kindness and without judgement.
That said we also had a brief chance to pick one of four workshops on the one day we will ba doing a full day workshop.
I believe I am speaking for myself and a few other people becoming increasingly frustrated with the lack of access to workshops, throughout the year, for people based in London but also the limited workshops, without having a say in the choice except for one day, what workshops would be of interest. I wonder if the people who are coming here from far away would prefer spending their days going to galleries and attending workshops they night not be interested in? I do understand other people are busy with jobs and other responsibilities but there are some of us still would like to have access to technicians so we could ask questions. Especially during low residency, while being fully aware that our class is rarely in the same place at the same time we would still like to have more priority access to workshops available at CSM and subjects and i.e. having more than one day of workshops. Just asking some questions I would like to ask: would it be possible to have one more day of workshops towards the end? What if, after ending on the 19th, we had one more day of workshops: painting(in general), pottery, performance, textiles, 3d make? If we only have 2 years to “become artists” I feel we need a bit more in terms of technical oportunities.
Daniella told me not to write this but I will write it here as I need to get it out: it is starting to feel a bit like our course is an afterthought…
Anyway, here goes my images of pieces, which I have managed to discuss with Laurie and Rachel, it was nice to hear their feedback to the words idea and the stained glass outliner use idea. I have worked on the piece today and it was truly frustrating to find a good angle, very difficult to not smear the oil paint figures which are still drying and to not forget about not touching of the half dried words I already wrote while creating new ones. I ended up smearing some of them and had to fix those and eventually keeping my left hand behind my back during the writing process. I aslso covered the figures with thin tracing paper because I had to rest my hand om them to do some of the writing.
The process felt also quite painful mentally, as , while writing the words very carefully and slowly I kept revisiting that time when I was thinking those thoughts and that time was not an easy time for me. I worry that writing these words might have an opposite effect to what I want: rather thank showing teenage girls who might be having these thoughts that they’re not alone, it might plant the idea in their heads that they should be thinking this way. Rachel and Laurie thought otherwise but I am still not sure…I worry about my daughter seeing these words. SImilarly, when she read “How can you feel lonely when you have your kids with you all the time?!?” and she totally agreed with the statement. And what am I supposed to say to her? She is 8 years old.
Some great feedback from Laurie on the middle piece in the triptich, representing the mother, being pulled in every direction and criticised for pretty much everything that has to do with raising her children, living in constant guilt and doubt and feeling judged, abandoned and lonely in the process. Lauries mention of recent discoveries about matrescence has pushed me to do some additional research of the meaning of this word and it’s invisibility on the dictionaries as well as discovering it’s funder, anthropologist Dana Raphael. Upon discovering I have decided this will definitely end up being the title of the below piece, the middle of the triptich. I will name it “Matrescence”
MATRESCENCE IN PROGRESS:
