My brilliant (other) career

What the world becomes | 2006 | Live action and mixed media installation over 13 windows

I sometimes wonder what kind of artist I'd be today if I'd had access to the dedicated studio space I promised myself - and indeed strove to create back in the 2000s.

It's a common mantra among artists that it's best to work with what's close to hand: that limited resources of time, money, materials, space or even physical capability need not hold back the truly creative individual.

And indeed, having little or no studio space has become normal for me, from the meagre 2-3 metres of wall space I was allocated at college until the present time. These days I work on location, on my computer and on my kitchen table. 

I did try to make a difference. In the late 2000s, seeing the very limited options for affordable studio space in my city, I spent two years working really hard with other artists on setting up a shared studio building in the city centre and a Community Interest Company to run it. I had a whole 150 square feet to myself for just £79 pcm, all inclusive. But it was short-lived. After a strong start, the project quickly foundered and I didn't have the energy to begin again.

I have, at various points, explored other options, but they have usually been wildly impractical or wildly expensive. Now I'm finally accepting it's too late to change things and making a concerted effort to create a dedicated - if tiny - home studio. It's meant putting most of my practice on hold for around six months and having a massive clear out. It's also meant finally letting go of the kind of artist I thought I'd be.

I always longed to make large, bold, gallery work from messy, experimental processes - big canvases, extensive drawings, sprawling sculptures. But circumstances have forced me to use what's to hand: my own body and its gestures, lightweight materials such paper and card, and small objects borrowed from the land and thrift stores. Ultimately it's meant a retreat to digital - the kind of work that can be shaped on a computer in an office setting. 

As an artist, I've often felt I should be uncompromising and purposefully driving my career. But I never forget that there's another meaning of 'career': a verb describing an out-of-control movement that will usually leave you where you least expected to be.