I made this image in the end for Games For Artists And Non Artists.
I tried a lot of things out and came back to this image as it felt the most authentic to how I’m feeling now.
The image works for me on a sculptural level and could symbolise how I am navigating these times we are in. This kind of shows my performative side and as I am not a very chilled out person the clenched fist is appropriate. It was important that the work be direct and uncompromising. It got posted and that seems to be it. I thought it interesting But didn’t do anything about it) that there was no mention of payment. It was a polite email asking me to be involved, I suppose in the assumption that I’d welcome the chance to collaborate. I did welcome it and was glad to be asked but isn’t it interesting that the assumption is there that the artist will give their time for free?
I do everything in the hope that it will yield results in the future, like a personal self-invested pay it forward scheme. I make work, carry out ideas, hoping that they will serve as a catalogue of work and also, of course, because I feel compelled to make the work and as it acts as a cathartic outlet and is enormously satisfying and self defining.
Which brings me to an idea I’ve had for a while which is something I’m thinking about a lot and really want to do. Because its just a body. Because it’s me, at 45, now. Because I want to see what people will draw/scrawl/mark on it. I already wrote about this idea, and have now decided I have to do it. In some form. I talked to my husband about it and as I anticipated he was understandably I suppose, a bit uncomfortable about it. But it needed to be mentioned so as he has an awareness that this could be in the arsenal of future events. In some. To finish, I find it so interesting that a photo has such different connotations to a painting. A photo of a naked woman has such COMPLETELY fucking different connotations to a painting of a naked woman.
