Angst

I couldn’t get to sleep last night, I was mentally kicking myself for my poor performance at yesterday’s review.
After seeing all the video pieces I was aware that time was limited for seeing the rest of the work, so I was mindful of the need to hurry my presentation.
This resulted in me resorting to a panic tactic of rushing through my work and being dismissive and offhand about it. I fell into the trap of trivializing my work and I am cross at myself because I have worked hard and I feel that I have undermined myself. I feel stupid.
I don’t doubt that my work has depth, but sometimes I don’t always see it until later.
I do find it hard to articulate and own publicly because I don’t want to sound pretentious or self important so it is easier to gloss over the surface.
I kick myself over this and look to the examples of Mireille with her strength, intelligence and humility and to people like Robbie Rowlands with his quiet dignified confidence, and agonize about why it is that I am so unable at the final point to be supportive of my own output.
I realize that this is a long standing problem for me and is a defence mechanism against not being accepted. After all it is easier to cope with possible rejection if you pretend that you don’t care. Another part of me says for goodness sake JUST GROW UP!!!
This was an exhausting and powerful day for me.
David’s comments about the “breakthrough” in my work (The Street) have got me seriously considering where I am at artistically. I found the experience of doing the street piece actually less enjoyable (meaning that it was harder work) than all the experimentation I got involved with on the Nostalgia pieces.
I relate strongly with the theme of nostalgia and if I have any direction in my work at all I would have to say over all that that was it. But I am embarrassed about these now.
In the light of the weightier philosophical concerns being expressed by everyone else they seem pretty but vapid. They characterize a whole approach which is to do with creating a pleasing surface without any real engagement behind it. While this is valid for some circumstances ( I am thinking of a certain successful artist whose work I saw recently) and may even appeal to a mass market sensibility it is not where I want to place myself.
The Street and the Conversation pieces do have philosophical depths, so I know I am capable of this level of achievement even if I am not adept at expressing it yet.
Play and enjoyment are vital parts of the creative process and it’s easy for me to get comfortably stuck there. The challenge for me now is to actively invite some seriousness into my studio to balance my work which will allow me to feel that I have the right to consider it to be important.
This should then flow on to my being able to discuss my work without feeling pretentious or a fake
Thank you to everyone for mirroring myself back to me.