I don’t mean to sound dramatic, but my practice is dying.
Despite its relatively healthy exterior it's something I've suspected for a while and have begun applying various holistic approaches to soothe and calm it — the odd hard-fought personal project here and there, writing personal development funding bids in my head in a dream-like state, staying up all night drawing for ink-fucking-tober. In the last few years I've swung everywhere between thinking I NEED TO QUIT MY JOB IMMEDIATELY AND JOIN THE ROYAL DRAWING SCHOOL and Oh well, it's actually fine, I can draw when I'm old! I'll enjoy that...
Like, I think I most recently started to make peace with the fact it was dying — sad and confused, sure — but accepting, like the final scene of Lord of the Rings as the lads wave Frodo off on his little boat.
Over the last few weeks the urgency of my personal work as part of the #ArtistsMeanBusiness residency I've set up at Impact Hub Birmingham this month has become clear. This is going to take more than a nice bath and some ointment, it's going to require some fundamental diagnosis and probably a bit of surgery. I've been writing trying to make sense of all of this like a person possessed this week so far. Using an exercise from d-school, I am now in the process of assessing the condition of my practice, and what I can do to treat it before it’s too late.
