Making space

Life drawing - 30-second pose | 1990s

Over the past few months, I've been sifting the contents of my house, regularly traipsing to the recycling centre with bin bags full of old artworks, advertising work and shredded papers. I am hoping to make some space for a small home studio by the end of the year. 

Looking back at old art is one of the hardest, saddest things. I've drawn and painted and made stuff since I was a child, believing that being good at something was all that mattered. When I realised people like me did not get to have careers in the arts, I found a 'proper' job in advertising instead. But I kept on with the sketchbooks and evening classes and summer schools.  

I promised myself I would return to art but, in the meantime I tried to build my skills. I learnt the basics of painting, printing, photography, casting, sculpting, design. Amidst all the sketchbooks and photos and experiments, I have unearthed stacks of old life drawings. I attended classes regularly, often after long days in the office, believing it to be an essential part of the artist's routine. But I also loved the intensity of the life room: the drawings you could only make in that moment with that person in front of you.

So what a shock when I finally made it to art school as a mature student to find the life room dismissed as a 'comfort zone' and the workshops and studio spaces being actively run down. Instead I was taught ideas and theories. After a bit, I adapted happily enough to a more conceptually oriented way of working, with much of the making outsourced. It's what I still, broadly speaking, do today. It suits my studio-less state. 

It's sad to think of all the long hours and labour I devoted to a dream that never quite materialised, but I don't see the time as wasted. In the moment it had meaning and I still use much of the knowledge I acquired - from plasterwork to print pre-production, sewing to screenprinting - even if it's only to commission makers who are more practised in their craft than me.

I do make, of course: I perform live actions, I arrange things in spaces, I bring people together for events, I create photos and moving image footage, I design publications and edit films. And, when I have bigger ideas I want to execute, I work things out through models and prototypes. But I do miss the process of thinking through making with my hands. It's a long time since I made physical marks and formed physical shapes simply to see what they show me. Or indeed since I went to life class. Just thinking about splooshing paint or ink or plaster around again makes me homesick with longing.  It's time to make some space for making.