The Mirror
INTERIOR
Living temporarily without my own space meant using someone else’s mirror. In previous years I had only looked at myself in my ‘home’ mirror. I knew the reflection intimately. I still saw the many flaws but I was more accepting and somewhat comforted by its familiarity. I still saw the self doubt and uncertainty of being a human female artist and the distinctive signs of a well-lived face and body. Now there are heavier, thicker disturbances and I experience the ”swipe left, swipe right social marketing pretending to be professional curatorial practice”, view of the art world. I am now a brand; a commodity while in the past the focus was more on the artwork as the “business”; artists could stay a little out of the picture frame. Branding, being a brand, being a commodity is what artists’ bodies and work have jointly become (and possibly this was always true). I AM BRANDED. My only brand is marked on my body in drawn charcoal on flesh, thus metaphorically burnt into my flesh- HUMAN and ARTIST and in mirror reflections. Today when I look into my brand new, state of the art, ‘look at me’ look at me’ home mirror I currently see a foreign body, a less familiar face. Yes I look like my mother and sisters but the face staring out at me asks me again and again. Why? Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you living this life? Why is this the art life you are accepting for yourself? Remnants of me remain although a new film, one of weariness, exhaustion and hostility float by. Yes I am still angry a lot these days but I think I will be angry until I stop being angry. Anger can fuel more relevant and potent work I am finding. New work still in progress with a lot of things to consider and I get sidetracked then return to these works.
THE MIRROR
THE MIRROR CONTINUES
Between the idea and the reality
Between the motion and the act
Falls the shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom – Not my Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long – Life is very very short
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom – Not my Kingdom
TS Eliot - The Hollow Men with some apologies from me
The Mirror continues kind of sort of but think I might just pack up for New Zealand for a short while as soon as I can and just ignore everything else and/or look to Scotland again for something! Alternatively just leaving social "often not social" media and the online world for a while.
EXTERIOR
During that time of living inside and outside someone else’s home the afternoon sun setting each day reminded me of that power outside of myself, that power in the universe, that light, that space outside of me that is incomprehensible to my brain; that kept me sane and connected to the external world; a sign that I existed somewhere in the universe, while I looked into someone else’s mirror inside.
